I am starting to get more interested in cheese, and think it may be nice to have a separate cutting board for cheese.
While there are many wood based cheese boards, I have also noticed many stone (like marble, granite…) cheese cutting boards.
I am quiet certain that stone cutting boards are damaging to a knife’s edge. So I assume the selection for stone cheese boards are either (1) for the cheese or (2) for the cutting board.
Is this to protect the cheese from wood based cutting boards which can harbor residual scent or is this to prevent the cheese boards from absorbing too much flavor from the cheese? What do you think?
Here are a couple of guesses: (1) Maybe the stone helps keep the cheese at a cooler temperature? (2) Maybe the stone isn’t intended to be a chopping/slicing surface, as a wooden block is with veggies, meats, etc. so it won’t have a damaging effect on the knives?
I would think a stone board and a wood board are at the same temperature when they are both in the same room.
The stone board feels cooler than a wood board (when we count it), but that is only because our body is warm, and the stone is better at sucking the heat out of our body.
Still some of my fondest memories were eating ritz crackers and “Easy Cheese” with my grandpa. Not saying it was a delicacy, but 5 y/o me sure loved it!
Whereas my 2 and 4 y.o. granddaughters are really into Cambozola and Delice de Bourgogne I had some REALLY expensive runny, stinky cheese in the fridge that I DIDN’T serve when they visited a while back
As you’re in the Seattle area, where do you normally buy your cheese from? I’ve seen QFC/Safeway even rotating or trialing some european butters, but cheese seems to be a more difficult sell for the standard grocery stores.
Quite true. Stone is a much better conductor of heat than wood and will help bring your cheese to room temperature faster no matter what that room temperature is. This is why I prefer wood boards for pastry rather than using my granite countertops - the wood has a less drastic effect on the temperature of the dough than my counters do.
it’s a cheese board.
check out the edge on a cheese knife.
nadda’ problem.
however, anyone who starts cutting on the granite island top with one of my good knives may not survive the episode in a well fed fashion.
there is absolutely no such thing as a no damage/big deal light touch on stone with a decent knife.
butter knife on stone? that’s okay.
same for cheese knife.
Good point, except I am not experienced in this area. Can I really cut cheese with a smooth rounded edge (dull) knife? Soft cheese maybe, but what about hard cheese? Can it be done effectively?
Let’s assume it can be done with ease. Is there an advantage to use “a smooth edge knife to cut cheese on a stone cutting board” over “a sharp edge knife to cut cheese on a wood cutting board”? There must be something to it? Otherwise, why should I spend extra money to get special cheese knives and a marble cutting board.
So far I am leaning toward just getting a small wood cutting board, but let me know if you think there are distinctive advantages of getting a stone cutting board. Do we worry that the wood may harbor residues and change the taste of cheese?
I don’t do much of anything outdoors in the heat!
