Cutting Board

Cutting boards haven't always been the highly polished and beautiful kitchen adornments that they are today.

The early cave man used any piece of wood he could find that he didn't need to burn. Large tree limbs that blew down, drift wood, stumps, anything.

His cutting tools, while sharp, were brittle and often cut deeply into the wood. This meant that the cave man got a lot of extra fiber in his meal just from the splinters. Since they didn't know any better, some died from using the limbs from trees that were poison to human life.

As civilization progressed and man moved out of the caves and into structures it became difficult to drag a big old limb into the cooking area. Since saws weren't invented yet, they would split a hunk of wood, trim it up to keep it from rocking on the table and now they had a "Cutting Board."

When the board got too dirty to use, which wasn't often by their hygienic standards, it just got tossed into the fire pit and burned up as fuel.

As technology advanced and saws became common the housewife would ask her husband to slice a chunk off of a stump. This gave the cook a flatter piece that was then able to pull double duty.

They still had the problem of coming up with a wood that wouldn't impart a pitchy flavor. Soft woods were the most common trees available and, as yet, not much was done with hard woods.

The next logical step in the Cutting Board evolution was to have many smaller cutting boards which could, and did, double as dishes. These were called a trencher.

Every country developed their own kind and style of cutting board. From the thick Bamboo chopping blocks of the far east to the sturdy Maple butcher blocks of Europe. The nomadic tribes in and around Persia used small flat pieces of highly polished wood. These were easy to carry and were often decorated with tribal or band designs.

As knowledge progressed, the simple cutting board began to take on many different forms and functions. Ranging from the butchering block of the farmer down to the tapered paddle used by the baker. As well as the progress in types and style there was an awakening as to the type of wood that should be used for each application.

Large open grained wood such as Oak gave way to tighter grained and less porous woods such as Maple, Cherry, and Walnut. Bamboo remained a staple product and other exotic woods joined in just because of being a local product.

The Cutting Board has evolved tremendously, and as you can see in this lens, has gone forward from something that is just practical to something that is both practical and beautiful.

Source; http://www.squidoo.com/butcherblock