Picking the Right Cheese Knife - Tip of the Day

by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Sep 25th 2009 @ 9:00AM

Ever wonder why there's a whole slew of different cheese knives in those fancy sets?

Cheese knives and board. Photo: Williams-Sonoma.

Of course, it's perfectly fine to use regular knives when serving up a cheese plate. But for those who want to become fromage-philes, a little fanciness is in order.

Serving Fork: The perfect accessory to keep grimy hands off the whole wedge.

The Bell-Shaped/Campana Knife: While it looks a bit like a flattened spatula, this wide end is made for cutting into blues, semi-soft and firm cheeses.

The Super-Narrow Blade: Long, thin and sleek, the narrow blade works best on semi-soft cheeses. These knives are sometimes forked at the tip, for picking up cut slices of cheese, and occasionally have holes to prevent the cheese from sticking to the blade.

The Spreader: Much like a butter knife, the spreader is, obviously, for spreading soft cheeses that cannot be cut into neat slices.

The Curved & Pointed Knife: Ideal for hard cheese, the tip allows the knife to dig into crumblers such as Parmesan and force a chunk off.

Filed Under: Tip of the Day, Ingredients
Tags: cheese, cheese knives, cheese sets, CheeseKnives, CheeseSets, knives