Very OT/ FOAK: Chopping Board recommendation?

That's because a proper butcher uses a proper butcher's block. Big
solid wooden structure a couple of feet or bigger on a side, standing
on legs to about waist height. The cutting area which forms the top
surface is inch square blocks on end, presenting end grain to the
blade. They use end grain because although it is more difficult to
clean and wears more quickly, it is kind to the edge of the blade.
They want to cut big chunks of meat quickly and all the way through,
without wasting time sharpening blades all day - just a strop before
use, that'll do 'em.

Of course, they clean the block. at the end of every day, the most
junior member of staff sloshes hot water onto it and then scrubs it
with a particularly spiky scrubbing brush which removes the top surface
layer and all the blood and debris attached to it. A final wash over
with more hot clean water and it's good for the next day. This has
been proved in use for centuries and is still quite acceptable today.

Of course, they only use the block for cutting raw meat which, except
in the case of semi-vampire carnivores like Packer, will be cooked
before consumption, which will kill any surface bacterial
contamination. As it is only used for raw meat there is no chance of
cross-contamination, which is the real bugbear with boards.

Of course, the thing wears, and wears unevenly. There is still a
thriving business in resurfacing butcher's blocks, which entails
skimming the top surface off until it is level. That's why the
endgrain blocks are made over a foot long in the first place, to allow
for several resurfacing procedures in the lifetime of the block.

 

Relative hardness is no guarantee against insect attack. One of my
wood stores became infected with the bloody worm and they perforated a
couple of lovely bits of chestnut, all the eucalyptus and oak, but left
the spalted beech and pine alone. Harder woods must taste better.

Oak is phenomenally abrasive. Turning wood is a particularly good way
to demonstrate this, as the turner presses a common steel chisel
against the rotating wood it replicates many hours of normal chiselling
in a few seconds. It will take the fine edge off a chisel in one pass,
and blunt it in three. Compare that to beech or chestnut where a
chisel is good for many passes and there has to be something different.
Even the exotics which are as dense as or denser than oak don't turn an
edge like oak does.

Chisel sharpness is vital when turning, which is why I have a dedicated
bench grinder mounted on the end of the lathe bench and when turning
oak the grinder is running all the time so I can put a fresh edge on
the tool every thirty seconds or so - spending as much time sharpening
as turning.

The foreign hardwoods are more than just mildly poisonous, too. I
can't see any problem with allowing food to come into contact with
them, however - but you don't want to breathe in the dust created when
sanding them, because that would be a Bad Thing. Most professional
woodworkers use air-fed helmets these days, similar to the items used
by paint sprayers, in order to avoid long-term respiratory problems.
I've had wheezes and sore eyes through filter masks and goggles, caused
by mahogany-alikes before, even with only short-term exposure.

 

Genuine LOLlery there. Good work.

 

ginge wrote:

[Ikea]

Yers. Dis pair never matches dat pair, so you have to go all the way
round again to get another lot.

 

Oh, it's catching up with exchanges like this that make catching up
with a week's worth of posts worthwhile. I'm so pleased I didn't let
Mark read this lot for me.

Nice. Snappy.

 

I bought a shedload of Lakeland Plastics "flexible chopping boards"
some time ago. In all the approved colours, the coding worked well -
but the best thing was their flexibility: chop a bunch of veg on one,
roll up the 'board' and shoot all of the choppage straight into the
pot. None of this scraping in and watching bits roll astray and bounce
onto the floor. So thin and flexible as to be shortlived, but so cheap
as to be treated as disposable. Great stuff.

 

Wood is fine. I wouldn't go for end grain boards unless you're
prepared to clean them thoroughly, but straight grain is knife-friendly
enough for a domestic kitchen IME. Just don't go for the silicone
"self-healing" type of board. They take a slice from a knife or
cleaver, the blade pushes debris into the cut and the lips of the cut
close up when the blade is withdrawn. You can hardly see the cut, let
alone clean it and so the debris remains there until the next time you
cut into it, and transfer that old debris into your fresh material that
you're cutting.

Waste of time and money going for the "Microban" type of "bacteriacidal
material" boards too.

I use cheap and cheerful white nylon boards and scrub 'em clean. Two
boards, one for meat, the other for veg, and when they gat solied I
stick 'em in the sink and let 'em steep in bleach solution for a couple
of hours. When they get beyond scrubbing, I chuck 'em away (or
relegate 'em to the shed for cutting purposes out there) and get new
ones. Cheap enough and they only need replacing once a year or so.

Cool. I like their thinking. Best of all worlds, it seems.

 

I don't mind IKEA at all, but I only go when there's something specific
that we need. We've had quite a lot of gear in the past decade from
there and it has all stood up to the rigours well. Once one is
familiar with the layout of a given store, there's all sorts of short
cuts available so following the slow herd isn't compulsory and the
almost-static pushchair caravans can be cut off at the pass.

I dunno what we'd do without all the IKEA-sourced CD/DVD storage, for a
start - although I'm just about to make a new storage unit, on the
basis that the wood has cost 40 quid and I'll take a couple of days to
turn out a 1.2m wide x 2m high unit that should see us catered for as
far as DVDs go for another year or so - and the IKEA equivalent(s)
would have run to 150 or so.

Having said that, it will be designed and constructed in the style of
IKEA living room furniture, as I like it - solid, substantial and
shamelessly functional.

 

I wonder what people will do when technology progresses past the point
where we have to build shrines for physical media?

 

Heh. It was more difficult a couple of years ago, when we had a
regular poster by the name of Mark Read, to get away with that.

 

Have a fucking great bonfire.

I like my physical media, anyway. I'll be molishing a shelf for vinyl
soon, then a plinth for the record player.

 

No, we didn't.

 

Some futurologist you'd make.

All my CDs are in boxes in the garage. No idea why I bother keeping the
hard media at all really - it's all ripped to hard disk and backed up
periodically to another drive.

 

****, no, it was Reid, wasn't it. Oops.

 

A plinth would be the right place for a museum piece.

 

You'll be calling him Chris Troll next.

 

I know well the name of my idol.

 

Exactly. I'm thinking mahogany and marble. What do you think?

 

The sign of a true sheddie, that - never throw nowt away.

 

And I'm more idle than idol anyway.