Mystery of the Cheese Weaponry

Did you give a cheese knife set as a gift for the holidays (guilty!)? Did you get one? Ever wonder why each set is different and what all the different tools are actually for? Yeah, me too. Now, normally I wouldn’t spend too much time waxing poetic about cheese knives, but since I had a lot of time over the holidays, I started taking cheese knives really seriously. Why the heck was there such a variety? Marketing or purpose?

So I started my Internet dig and below are the most common cheese weapons (maybe it’s because I’m reading The Girl Who Played with Fire right now, but cheese accoutrements are quite sinister) and what I could deduce regarding their specific purpose. There are also slicers and wire cutters (see what I mean about the violent names?) but I left those out for this exercise. Various sources like this great overview were helpful as well as clues from individual product descriptions. Mystery solved! Or so I think… leave a comment if you think otherwise for any of them!

There are too many knives for me to list out (lazy!), but they come from favorite stores and manufacturers like classic Laguiole, Sur La Table, CB2, Williams-Sonoma, Two’s Company and J.A. Henckels. If you want a link to a specific one, just leave a comment.