A forge in cheese country

Drive north out of Gouda toward the Old Rhine and the land goes flat and green and wet, cut into long strips of pasture by ditches full of sky. Black and white cows stand in the fields. Farmhouses keep a cool room at the back where wheels of cheese sit turning slowly on wooden shelves.

In 1896 a blacksmith named Willem Bos took over the forge in Bodegraven, right in the middle of all this. He shod horses and mended tools for the farms around him. The farms made cheese, and over the generations the family turned to the tools for it. Four generations on, the Bos family is still in Bodegraven, still thinking about cheese.

A tool for every cheese

A wheel of aged Gouda and a ripe Brie want completely different things from a knife. The hard cheese needs a blade with some heft and a point to break into it. The soft one needs almost nothing to hold onto, so it lets go of the blade instead of smearing across it. That is the whole idea behind Boska: not one cheese knife, but the right one.

So the soft cheese knives have holes cut through the blade, leaving less steel for the cheese to cling to. The Comté knife has a handle at each end, so you press down with both hands and rock it through a dense Alpine wedge under full control. The wire slicer slips through fresh goat cheese and mozzarella, where a blade would drag and tear. And the curler turns a whole Tête de Moine into frilled rosettes, a few turns of the handle at a time.

Put a board of these on the table and people know which one to pick up.

Oak and steel

The Oslo+ range pairs stainless blades with handles of European oak, warm in the hand and handsome enough to leave out on the board between courses. Monaco+ is all stainless steel, sleek and seamless, and the knives go straight into the dishwasher at the end of the night. Across both, a waffle or diamond pattern pressed into the blade keeps cheese from sticking.

What we carry

Oslo+ is the one to give. The 3 and 5 piece sets cover a whole cheese board, from a ripe Brie to a crumbly Manchego, and arrive in a gift box. The long rocking Pizza and Cheese Knife comes down through a hot pizza in one clean stroke, the Pizza Wheel runs straight without wobbling, and the oak-handled slicer takes thin even slices off a block of aged cheese.

Monaco+ is the everyday workhorse: semi-soft and Comté knives, a full knife set, a mini soft cheese knife and slicer for small boards, a full-size slicer, and the wire slicer for fresh cheese.

The Friends cheese curler makes a small event of the cheese course. Set the wheel on the pins, turn the oak handle, and pass the rosettes around. It works on chocolate discs too.

The Candle Light Fondue Twinkle set keeps a cheese fondue for six gently melted over tealights, on a base of oak and glass, with four forks ready to go. Melt the cheese on the stove, set the pot on the base and light the candles. No burner fuel, no fuss, just a pot of cheese and a table of people.