8" x 3"
Steel & Oak
THE NETHERLANDS

Grate all the hard cheese you can get your hands on. Dutch cheeses are well known, and three kinds of cheese slicers provide for them all. One for young cheese, one for slightly aged cheese and this model, for hard, old cheese you want to grate. Years ago, when I was living in Brussels, I really fell for a hard cheese called Mimolette, better known in Flemish circles as Commissiekaas, although it is a French creation. In true non-competitive spirit, at a time when imports were not allowed, Louis XIV requested a French substitute to the Dutch cheese Edam, and to give it some French panache, Mimolette was colored orange, as it is today. That monarch had his hands on everything delicious and decadent - you can trust that the cheese is a good one. As Mimolette is always aged for some length of time, it does not resemble Edam to me (think Babybel). However, who am I to know? I am only a simple-minded merchant who grates Mimolette over my pasta or salad in times of decadence. And how very decadent it is to have this little hand-held device in my kitchen arsenal - practically bourgeois. Practical too, in a bourgeoisie way. Think of all the large graters you have washed after grating but a bit of Parmesan.