It can be a state to state or county to county. It can also be a difference of using wood for cooked meat vs using wood for raw meat…etc.
What I do know is that I haveseen wood butcher blocks for Chinese/Cantonese BBQ places.
New York Chinatown Wah Fung
Philadelphia Chinatown Ting Wong
San Francisco Chinatown Hing Ling
San Francisco Cheung Hing
On the other hand, I certainly have seen many more plastic cutting boards
It makes sense to allow maple. I am wary of other woods except walnut or cherry because I would have to research hardness and whether the wood was food safe (some are not). Softer woods like pine seem as if they would quickly get chewed up. Harder woods like teak would be hard on blades. I would love a big butcher block board, but for a very long time I have used side by side maple and been very happy with it, happy enough to get a smaller third one recently.
I agree with you.
My source is the California Health and Safety code and the Minnesota statute is nearly identical. Of course what businesses do is a different story.
Indeed, even here, there is at least one alien.
Hi naf,
There is clearly a strong tendency both in Europe and Japan to get away from wood in professional setting–but not necessarily plastic. The professional solution is often rubber:
For home use, Japanese often recommend a wood Hinoki cutting board–partly for it’s fragrance. I just was given one as a birthday present by my Japanese collaborator.
An interesting take 6:50 minutes into the video from the current owner of Tsukiji (or should it be Toyosu now) Masamoto - Misao Hirano.
He addresses a solution to minimize chipping on hard steel deba edges when chopping hard fish bones. Blunt about 2" of the heel. Interesting, might try that for my deba next time it’s due for the stones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igCuq84moi8
And 8:06 minutes in he recommends a gyutou as an all rounder knife, however he does not think it will be sufficient for Japanese washoku prep.
Hi Sgee,
My “have it all” solution for my deba has been to go dual core to get the Rockwell down. My 180 mm Xinzuo 110 layer gyuto Deba is pure speculation.
I like Masamoto’s solution of blunting the heel. A have your cake and eat it too solution for using a hard steel in varied cutting situations. No need to swap between soft and hard steel knives.
Hi Sgee,
Unfortunately, there is no free lunch. There will always be times when a softer steel knife makes more sense–for lots of reasons.
Hah! Not this time. I’d been busy and blissfully unaware. I was making this gratin recipe (NYT Cooking Cheesy Hasselback Potato Gratin (that was apparently adapted from one of Kenji’s recipes)) and it was kicking my butt. That’s a lot of slices to coat, arranged and stack. Luckily a daughter helped out, too.
It turned out really nice - dreamy creamy from bottom until the crispy bits at the top. But it did not look as nice as the photo accompanying the NYT’s recipe:
Fantastic, CCE,
Not at all like my grandma used to bake. Haven’t had anything like it for a long time.
Next time, see if NYT will send you a food stylist… 
Actually, many people have been doing this unintentional or intentional. Intentionally - some people sharpening the knives at different angles along the knife profile.
Unintentionally – some people only use the heel end to cut hard items. This is a natural tendency as we are able to apply more power closer to the knife heel than the knife tip, so we inevitably dull that part faster.
Now, the problem with this approach is that it will dull the heel part more, keeping only the front part of the knife sharp. I think this tactic works better for a Chinese style knife as it has a very straight knife profile.
For a typical western chef’s knife, the back part (heel) is the straight edge part. For any people who likes push cutting, losing out of the straight edge part (heel) is a shame.
I don’t want Vaseline and shoe polish on my roasted turkey 
This can be a solution in search of a problem, too. A good Euro chef of sufficient length will be thicker at the heel anyway, and won’t need blunting there. And still be thin enough at the tip to do whatever’s needed.
It’s only when the heel is too thin, the steel too hard, and the primary bevels set too accute that resort to blunting should even be considered, IMO. Unfortunately, the J-knife fetishes all contribute to creating a problem where none existed before.
A better “solution” would be to convex the primary bevels near the heel. This is a good idea for most general purpose knives, but who knows how to roll an edge bevel?
I agree. I think it has less to with the hard steel, and more to do with the thin blade. There is only so much one can do to put a wider angle or blunt the knife. If the overall blade is thin, then it simply cannot handle a tough impact.
I think a thick blade Japanese knife simply need to have a thick blade knife like a cleaver a home.
Let me rephrase a bit. For a typical Henckels or Wusthof chef’s knives, I do not think one need to intentionally dull the heel. For a very thin blade knife (often known as a laser knife) like Konosuke gyutos, the intentional blunting won’t help because the blade is too thin. It is only those in between, this may help a bit.
The Chinese place we ate often. The best photo I could find on the cutting board. I believe it’s a custom made board, but in plastic.
I just read the real text of the hygiene for the professional, they highly recommended the use of plastic, didn’t mention wood, but I saw on some professional online stores, they mentioned very hard wood is allowed.
Don’t get me wrong. I have seen those round plastic chopping blocks all the time too.
