What is this interesting-looking wooden instrument?

It's obviously a "footsie roller." I'm not kidding. In the 1970's, they were sold as gift items at craft fairs, gift shops, book stores, & health food stores so people could set them down on the floor to massage the bottoms of their feet by rolling one foot at a time over one.

Probably the true purpose was for some hippies to have a way to make a living & for others to be able to find gifts for those people who already have everything. I bought a couple of them for gifts, one for a co-worker & one for my mother. After a year or so, they were probably bought out & made in a third world country. By then, there were no doubt several companies making them in all sorts of attractive woods. I'm pretty sure, though, that the original name was "footsie roller." Hopefully, they had a patent on the design. They could have been imported as something traditionally used in another country, such as India. Now there's a thought. That was probably the case.

Nope. I did a search on them. Forget the hippies & the importers. I found a link to them in Columbus, Ohio. Doesn't say if they were ever hippies or where they got the idea.

http://www.momentum98.com/footsie.html

It was not used for rolling pasta. It was used in the past as a crusher or grinder for oats, seeds, nuts, bread crumbs, grains. To grind any food that needed to be made smaller.

for making the skin. I think. I've seen something similar.

Happy New Year Y!A!

~~Winter Apocalypse ❄❄❄

I don't think it has anything to do with food at all. I think its for massage.