| A kitchen utensil that is designed and shaped to allow for ease of cutting and serving a variety cheese textures. A cheese slicer may refer to either a knife with a metal blade or a thin stainless wire, each designed to cut easily through soft to semi-firm cheese textures. If a harder textured cheese is being served, the wire version may not be the best utensil for cutting, thus the need to use a cheese knife containing a blade.
Bladed cheese knives are typically manufactured with narrow-blades or short wide blades. Quite often, the narrow-bladed version will have a v-shaped forked tip that is used as a lifter for pieces of cheese as they are cut in order to place the cut slice onto a plate or tray. This knife may also be referred to as a forked-tip utility knife, which is used as a bar knife for cutting through citrus fruits or spearing garnishes for drinks as may be required for pickles, onions or maraschino cherries. Wider or heavier bladed knives are generally produced to accompany a cheese plate containing uncut cheese. Since cheese begins to harden as it is exposed to air, cheese is often kept whole when placed on plates or trays requiring the cheese to be cut as it is served. Shorter knives work well for this purpose, enabling the person cutting to slice through soft to firm textured cheeses.
Other types of Cheese Knives that do not use metal as the cutting blade are being manufactured with composite materials such as plastic resins, zirconium oxide (ceramic zirconia) that can be made into exceptionally hard and very sharp cutting surfaces. Often referred to The materials used for these blades are often referred to as industrial ceramic and can be harder than steel. However, they are ground into a very thin surface in order to effectively cut thin slices of cheese, so if dropped, due to the thin surface they can break if dropped onto a hard surface.
A blade that is harder than steel such as the industrial ceramic, enable the cutting surfact to maintain an exceptionally sharp edge for longer periods of time before sharpening. To produce the industrial ceramic, the base materials are heated to exceptionally high temperatures, so the ceramic substance burns out the inpurities, thus making the material very pure and hard but also brittle.
Ceramic knives are excellent for slicing through a variety of foods, making thin slices an easy task. However, use on harder materials, such as bones and hard textured foods may result in chipped or broken blades, due to the hard and rigid blade |
