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What is this tool? What is it called and what is it for?

Mysterious artifact (description below)

It's like a steel angled spatula with a cutting end and holes on the tip. It's not big (see the finger for reference), little more than a centimeter wide in the tip. The cord in the photo is just something in the floor.

I've tried to find this in Google Images several ways to no success.

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    Kudos for making a searchable title for a picture identification question and helping the next person who's puzzled about the same thing!
    – jscs
    Commented May 3, 2017 at 23:18

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It's a zester, for getting zest off of citrus fruit.

The photo from that Wikipedia article shows it in use:

zesting an orange

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  • Would it also work for spreading butter easier and shredding block cheese?
    – Chloe
    Commented May 4, 2017 at 17:26
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    you probably could shred cheese, but "mangle" would be a more accurate definition of what happens, I'm guessing.
    – Wayne Werner
    Commented May 4, 2017 at 18:25
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    @Chloe You might be able to get strands of very cold butter with it, but if it's at all soft it'd probably just gum it up and not be any better than scraping with a knife. Similarly, maybe you could manage something for semi-firm to firm cheese, but too soft and it'd be a mess, and too firm and you'd want an actual grater.
    – Cascabel ♦
    Commented May 4, 2017 at 22:00
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    Chocolate curls, though... that'd totally work. s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/e1/32/7c/…
    – Catija
    Commented May 4, 2017 at 22:00

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