the.com/cheese slicer
A wire that decides how thin your willpower really is.
means A kitchen tool, typically a wire stretched on a frame or a flat blade with a slotted edge, used to cut even, thin slices from a block of cheese.
from A plain compound of "cheese" and "slicer," but the device itself has a clear birthplace: the wire-and-roller style is widely credited to Norway, where a carpenter named Thor Bjørklund patented the "ostehøvel" — literally "cheese plane" — in the 1920s, inspired, the story goes, by his carpenter's plane. "Cheese," for the record, traces back through Old English "cīese" to Latin "caseus," the same root behind Spanish "queso" and German "Käse."
- invented by
- Norwegian Thor Bjorklund, 1925, inspired by a wood plane
- wire trick
- thin wire cuts soft cheese cleaner than any blade
- national pride
- Norway treats it as a beloved everyday icon
- physics
- less surface area means less drag, fewer crumbs
ostereier egg slicer — german kitchen tool from 1884 that became iconic for slicing boiled eggs with wire blades
mandoline slicer — french professional tool used in kitchens since the 1700s, can slice cheese paper-thin with adjustable blades