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A cheese knife is a type of kitchen knife specialized for the cutting of cheese. Different cheeses require different knives, according primarily to hardness. There are also a number of other kitchen tools designed for cutting or slicing cheese, especially the harder types. These include the cheese cutter, cheese slicer, cheese plane, cheese scoop for soft cheese and others, collectively known as cheese servers.
The blades of cheese knives are usually made of a material such as stainless steel, which is resistant to the stickiness of cheese. Another design feature often found is the presence of holes in the blade to help to prevent the cheese from sticking to it. Some soft cheese knives also include a ridge, which runs vertically near the top of the blade. This helps separate the cheese as it is being sliced. Some cheese knives have a forked end, used for serving slices of cheese.
Most ordinary knives have a blade that is wide at the base and tapers to the tip. A cheese knife, on the other hand, may look similar to a cleaver in that it starts out thinner at the handle and then gets wider away from the base. Some cheese knives have angled handles to make an easier cut.
The non-sticky characteristics of a cheese knife also make them useful for cutting other sticky foods, such as cakes, eggs, and pies; compare also egg slicer.
Another popular design is that of a large off-set straight blade with handles on both ends - either parallel in line, but raised above, or at 90 degrees - so that a great amount of pressure may be applied.
Ostehøvel, a modern cheese slicer or cheese plane, was invented by Thor Bjørklund in 1925 in Norway. Mass production of the ostehøvel started during 1927 in Lillehammer, Norway. He also tried to make a butter slicer (smørehøvel) built on the same general design, this idea was however scrapped after first prototype. The design was based on the carpenter's plane. This style of slicer is very common in the Nordic countries, and in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Brazil.
The original Prodyne Gourmet Cheese Slicer had a wooden board with a slot cut into it and a hole through which one end of a U-shaped steel cutting arm was inserted. In the patented design, a stainless steel wire extends between the two ends of the cutting arm fit into the slot, and cuts the cheese. The wire has loops at each end; one loop is around the steel cutting arm in the slot, while the other passes around a metal pin through a plastic handle on the other end of the cutting arm. The plastic handle rotates upward to tighten the wire, and is secured to the cutting arm with a screw.
The board-style cheese slicer has been expanded to include marble, stainless steel, and plastic cutting boards. Several other designs of handles and wire holders have also been invented to hold the cutting wires of cheese slicing boards. Many of these wires have loops on the ends like the Prodyne models; others have small rings or knots that fit into a slot on the handle and cutting arm.
Particularly, it is used in a manner similar to both a spade for digging into the heavily veined central section of a medium-hard, but crumbly Stilton cheese cheese truckle or cheesemaking and then as a spoon for scooping the crumbled pieces - traditionally puddled with a splash or two of port wine, or a similar sweet fortified wine.
At a push, it can also be used to scoop out Gouda cheese or Edam cheese from their wax covers. The old version may have a built-in scraper, to push the cheese off the scoop, similar to the one in an ice cream scoop.
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