Cutting the type of cheese you use a slicer on, with a knife, compresses the cheese more. Young cheese is solid, but too fatty and soft to really easily slice through. You can ofcourse, but the quality of your slice will not be similar to the easily and reproducible quality you get with a slicer. Especially if you need many slices.
“Instead of getting the tool designed specifically for the thing, just get a different tool that isn’t designed for the thing, and then learn to make really precise difficult cuts!”
I come from a big cheese area, and genuinely, no. A sharper knife isn’t the problem, the surface area of the blade is the problem. Even an oiled ceramic knife doesn’t cut cleanly through many cheeses (ceramic is extremely sharp, oiling is to attempt to prevent buckling and breaking because the cheese sticks to the blade). A wire cheese slicer is consistent, and safe and easy enough for a child to use (I know because that was my first experience with one, around 5-6).
No. There’s different types of tools for different types of cheese. Don’t get one if you only need it once. But a good slicer is as cheap as a decent short kitchen knife (€10).
Whilst my knife is unlikely to be sharp enough, I don’t have the hand skills to shave a 0.6mm wafer of cheddar off a block even with the best knife. My fine motor skills are excellent and I’m a professional miniature sculptor and have particular preferences on which specific scalpel blades I like to work with! My point being that I have significantly above average skills and that’s not sufficient.
If you happen to have the tools and skill to shave cheese that way, fantastic, well done you, but that’s an extremely uncommon set of circumstances. As you say, most people’s knives aren’t up to the task. Meanwhile even a child can use a cheese slicer to get a decent slice off a block.
Whilst that’s perfectly sensible, our household has at least two cheese slicers in case one is in the dishwasher. They’re very common in Swedish households!
Cutting the type of cheese you use a slicer on, with a knife, compresses the cheese more. Young cheese is solid, but too fatty and soft to really easily slice through. You can ofcourse, but the quality of your slice will not be similar to the easily and reproducible quality you get with a slicer. Especially if you need many slices.
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“Instead of getting the tool designed specifically for the thing, just get a different tool that isn’t designed for the thing, and then learn to make really precise difficult cuts!”
I come from a big cheese area, and genuinely, no. A sharper knife isn’t the problem, the surface area of the blade is the problem. Even an oiled ceramic knife doesn’t cut cleanly through many cheeses (ceramic is extremely sharp, oiling is to attempt to prevent buckling and breaking because the cheese sticks to the blade). A wire cheese slicer is consistent, and safe and easy enough for a child to use (I know because that was my first experience with one, around 5-6).
No. There’s different types of tools for different types of cheese. Don’t get one if you only need it once. But a good slicer is as cheap as a decent short kitchen knife (€10).
Nope. The tools work very differently. It’s essentially a woodplane for cheese.
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Whilst my knife is unlikely to be sharp enough, I don’t have the hand skills to shave a 0.6mm wafer of cheddar off a block even with the best knife. My fine motor skills are excellent and I’m a professional miniature sculptor and have particular preferences on which specific scalpel blades I like to work with! My point being that I have significantly above average skills and that’s not sufficient.
If you happen to have the tools and skill to shave cheese that way, fantastic, well done you, but that’s an extremely uncommon set of circumstances. As you say, most people’s knives aren’t up to the task. Meanwhile even a child can use a cheese slicer to get a decent slice off a block.
…and yes, I did go and grab some calipers to check because I’m tired of this insane discussion. If you feel they’re a useless kitchen gizmo, cool, but lots of us love our cheese slicers because they’re tremendously useful and accessible.
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Whilst that’s perfectly sensible, our household has at least two cheese slicers in case one is in the dishwasher. They’re very common in Swedish households!