Patent Application
20080271320
The present device relates to strawberry hullers. Particularly, the present device relates to a handheld strawberry huller for quickly and easily hulling such fruit without removing an excess of edible fruit flesh.
There are an almost uncountable number of desserts and dishes which call for the use of fresh fruit, such as strawberries. Typically, strawberries are bought fresh from the market, cleaned and then individually sliced for use. Strawberries are somewhat unique as a fruit, because unlike fruit such as apples and pears, strawberries do not have a seedy core to remove. And, unlike fruit such as oranges, kiwi and bananas, strawberries do not have a skin or peel to remove. Unfortunately, much like grapes and cherries, fresh strawberries do have a stem that requires removal before eating.
Strawberry stems can be removed from the strawberry in a variety of ways, including the use of fingers, or by using either a strawberry corer or a strawberry huller. The use of ones' fingers can be messy, slow and unsanitary. A paring knife may also be employed to remove the stem and core from a strawberry. This is also time consuming and can waste strawberry flesh.
A strawberry corer, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,459 to Noble, U.S. Pat. No. 5,092,043 to Shirkey, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,344 to Poulos et al., unnecessarily remove the entire core of the strawberry. The known hullers (also known in the art as a stem plucker) are tiny tong-like devices which, when squeezed by the user, are used to grab the strawberry stem securely and then pull it off. Similar to a pairing knife, the known hullers can be slow and may remove too much of the desired strawberry flesh.
There is disclosed herein an improved strawberry huller which avoids the disadvantages of prior devices while affording additional structural and operating advantages.
A hulling device having an ergonomic handle and a tubular cutting member is set forth herein. The cutting member is comprised of a cutting end and is attached to the handle. The tubular cutting member has a length which is less than the length of the handle.
It is an aspect of the huller to provide a shoulder at the connection between the cutting end and handle, wherein the shoulder stops penetration of the food at the length of the cutting member.
It is an aspect of the present huller wherein the length of the tubular cutting member prevents the cutting member from cutting substantially through the strawberry. Preferably, the tubular cutting member is less than one and one-half inches (1½ inches) in length. Most preferably, the tubular cutting member is less than one inch in length.
It is another aspect of the present huller to provide an handle which sits comfortably in the user's hand. Preferably, the ergonomic handle is covered at least in part by a thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) material, such as SANTOPRENE.
These and other aspects of the invention may be understood more readily from the following description and the appended drawings.
For the purpose of facilitating an understanding of the subject matter sought to be protected, there are illustrated in the accompanying drawings embodiments thereof, from an inspection of which, when considered in connection with the following description, the subject matter sought to be protected, its construction and operation, and many of its advantages should be readily understood and appreciated.
While this invention is susceptible of embodiments in many different forms, there is shown in the drawings and will herein be described in detail a preferred embodiment of the invention with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the principles of the invention and is not intended to limit the broad aspect of the invention to embodiments illustrated.
Referring to
Accordingly, as shown in
As shown in
Alternatively, the shoulder 17 can be made of the same materials as the body 14 of handle 12, including resilient material, if desired.
With reference to
In final construction, the huller is comprised of materials which are readily washable, and preferably dishwasher safe. The connections between the handle 12, cap 18 and cutting member 20 should be sufficiently sealed to prevent germ and water penetration.
In use, as illustrated in
The shoulder 17 and the shortness of the cutting member 20 cooperate to prevent complete penetration of the fruit by huller 10. These features avoid a complete coring of the fruit, a process which unnecessarily removes edible flesh.
The matter set forth in the foregoing description and accompanying drawings is offered by way of illustration only and not as a limitation. While particular embodiments have been shown and described, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made without departing from the broader aspects of applicants' contribution. The actual scope of the protection sought is intended to be defined in the following claims when viewed in their proper perspective based on the prior art.
