Why every cheese on the charcuterie board needs its own knife - Entertaining + Style

Apr 11, 2024

Your cheese deserves better!

You know that when the cheese and charcuterie board comes out at a party that your night is about to go from good, to great. A trio of hard, soft, and blue cheeses, some crackers, baguette, the quince! Let’s not forget a smattering of fresh and dried fruit and paper-thin whispers of prosciutto, draped luxuriously betwixt the cheddar and the Roquefort. The cheese board really is a thing of beauty.

So why do we keep ruining it by presenting the board with just one knife?

Greedy logistics aside – we don’t want to wait when there’s cheese to be eaten – it’s a disaster of cross-contamination. A clash of flavours, and not in the good way.

Imagine you’ve swiped a subtle creamy d’Affinois onto your cracker only to find your companion (who had the knife before you) has gone straight for the crumbly, powerful stilton. Your unctuous, gooey treat has been completely overpowered by the pungency of the blue and there’s no coming back from that.

Even if there are multiple knives on the board, there’s a good chance some joker will grab whichever is closest and start cutting cheese willy-nilly. Before long, there’s no telling one cheese from the other and your work of art is less of a Mona Lisa and more of a Jackson Pollock. Cheese experts and delicious. contributors The Studd Siblings agree. “One knife, one cheese,” they tell delicious.

The solution, outside of getting new friends, is clear delineation between the cheese and its appropriate, individual, knife. For soft cheeses like camembert, use a dull-edged knife with a large surface area which makes spreading the cheese easy. “For soft cheese, there is also a fancy knife called a ‘skelton knife’ that has holes in middle of it which reduces the surface area,” the Studd Siblings recommend. The holes keep the soft cheese from getting stuck on the blade as it is sliced.

For something semi-hard, opt for a sharp, curved knife with a point on the end. This point can be used to pick up your cheese slice as you pop it onto your cracker. Finally, for hard cheeses like parmesan or cheddar, go for a sturdy sharp knife, akin to an oyster knife. It can be used to stab the cheese and nugget pieces off while allowing the original cheese to remain untouched.