Oh-oh! Look out! Bing maybe catching up to google.

Some time you should do a google search for "best cheese knife", "cheese cutting", or "best cheese cutter". I began a very frustrating search several weeks ago for such an item, using Google as my primary search tool. This is totally normal for me. I do this each time I need to make a pricey decision.

Mac-N-Cheese has become a little bit of an obsession with me lately, and I can tell you many things about the subject. I can tell you that there are two basic renditions: (1) A soul food version which uses a cold sauce and relies entirely on baking for results, (2) a French Mournay sauce approach. I can also tell you that grating cheese is a serious pain, and wasteful, even with a KitchenAid. I can tell you that cutting cheese with Ceramic Kyoceras is a serious pain. Kuro, my Wusthof Santoku, does it better, but it is far from perfect.

So I went looking for special blades that will do the job of breaking up chunks of very hard, medium and soft cheese. Google frustrated me. I found endless joke lists about "cutting the cheese". I found lots of lists of knives including every knife under the sun. [Won't just about any pieces of steel cut cheese?] I found a few specific references to products on amazon.com.

What I wanted was a round-up review. I wanted somebody to conduct a test and show me test results.

Amazon was much more helpful than Google. They were willing to show me lists of anything tagged with cheese. They would sort the products by price, by user reviews, etc. I was able to determine that there was a little plastic-synthetic blade called "The Cheese Knife" that created a lot of excitement among amazon buyers.

Well, to make a long story short, I bought my solutions this afternoon, but that is a subject for another post. Whilst reflecting on the difficulty I had encountered in finding my solution, I spied a commercial for Bing! the world's first decision engine. I scoffed. I wondered how Bing might have helped me make a simple decision, like "which cheese knife?"

Without further ado I went to the computer, surfed to Bing.com, and typed in "Best Cheese Knife". The website for "The Cheese Knife" was first in line. This is the favorite of Amazon buyers. Bing knew that. I was shocked to find some serious forum threads with posts written by professional cooks. They gave a large assortment of options, and they didn't fight each other religiously over the suggestions.

Clearly, the Cheese Knife, the Wusthof set, and a little knife by Cutco got a lot of respect. Of course, everybody uses the Microplane grater to grate cheese. There is nothing better. Bing didn't exactly give me a pro-round up, but this was the closest thing to it I have seen. Bing would have helped to make my decision faster.

Titanium Cutlery...?

So, after he delivered the magnum opus on the Cowboy Ribeye steak, I got interesting discovering just what cutlery Tyler Florence was using in his kitchen. Interestingly enough, the answer is: His own brand of Titanium blades... sort of.

Understand, he just introduced these items at the end of 2009. The overwhelming majority of his TV shows were recorded prior to this point. Ergo, you will see him cutting with a German Chef's knife almost all the time. Looks like a ducedly fine blade also.

Second, these blades aren't exactly titanium. They are titanium clad high-carbon steel. Most of the sharpness freaks believe high-carbon steel destroys everything in terms of sharpness. Well... I've got news for you. You need to have a look at Cubic Zirconia. Ceramic is a lot sharper than high carbon.

Evidently, the big problem with high-carbon is that it rusts, stains, reacts with food, leaves a little of itself in your food, etc. Evidently, cutlery theorists believe they can contain reactivity, staining, rusting, etc. by simply encasing or cladding, a cast high-carbon steel blade in Titanium. Titanium is not as impervious to the elements as Cubic Zirconia, but it is dramatically better than any other metal known to mankind.

I thought I saw Tyler wielding a ceramic black blade like mine recently, but such was not the case. It was one of his own Titanium blades.

In any case, he got me to buy in. I've been looking around for a high-carbon blade with Kullens on it to do some cheese & panchetta chopping. He's got it, and more. Further, the price is cheap. It's basically $40 per blade. At that price, I can't afford not to try it. Who knows, maybe they are fantastic.

Doesn't sound cheap to you? It is, trust me on this one. Ronco and Ginsu won't get it done... for long. I had those Ronco knives. I cut myself many times because it took a lot of thrashing force to get it done. All it takes is one slippery thrash and you are bleeding.

This is why I like Kyocera. Everything cuts immediately. Very little effort is required. Using good blades, your more like surgeon with a scalpel than a butcher with a cleaver. Shun has given me some good results. It will be interesting to pit Tyler's Titanium v. Alton's Shun.

Are you ready for a throw down?

I already know that these metal blades can't compare (in terms of sharpness) with Cubic Zironia. You need to conduct a serious study of edge width before commenting on this subject. Edge science is pretty straightforward. Edge width defines sharpness. A steep angle (15 or 16 degrees) helps, but it is the thinness at the razor's edge that defines how sharp it is. It is pretty easy to measure this exactly these day. You just point a circular red laser straight at the edge, and the width of the split at first refraction is your edge width.

Laser refraction measurements scientifically end the question of who is sharpest, but not who is best. You can still argue you want stainless steel for this reason, or Damascus for that, or high carbon steel for the next reason.

In any case, Tyler has convinced me to give his knives a shot at the title. Hopefully I will love them. I don't plan to open any tomato cans with them, as Bobby Flay does with his Shuns.