Consider: The Boos Block
Can you believe there was a time before cutting boards?
Even though life currently feels stuck in place, friends are still moving through life’s milestones. As I was contemplating a housewarming gift for a friend, I was reminded about a note from Considered reader David about the LL Bean Boat and Tote:
When I graduated from high school in 1987 a family friend (Mrs. Randall, who was also a kindergarten teacher and a genius of standardized gift giving that somehow always seemed perfect - cf. the collection of kindergartners favorite cookie recipes she gave all newly engaged couples, which I still bake out of 25 years later, but I digress...)
For high school graduates headed to college she gave llbean totes - along with a box of Tide and a roll of quarters. I still have that bag today, fully stained and frayed and in near daily use. We have continued the tradition, although without the quarters, in this day and age of smart-card fed institutional washers and dryers.
Gift giving (and its motivations) are a personal thing. For me, it is a chance to show a friend that I know them and value them. Regardless, I can not think of a situation where a new home would not benefit from a maple Boos Block. No one ever thinks about cutting boards... until you use a Boos. Like, I get it, you think you want some pottery from our mutual friend, or a bottle of spirits you might not splurge on. Really though, you want a finished and oiled/waxed slab of maple that will make every kitchen task that much more pleasant. You might not know it, but I know it. Even a “charcoochie board” or salami river taste better eaten off one.
There are a SURPRISING number of websites dedicated to butcher blocks. But one consistent thing is they all love telling the story of Boos. Like Lodge cast iron pans, this is a product that has been made in the same town, to the same standards, for over a 100 years (1887 in Boos’ case).
Design
How far back do we go with the history of cutting boards? People have been using stumps as work tables since there were people and stumps.
Things got interesting, and a little more refined, in the 1800s. Before there were standing desks, there were wooden blacksmith blocks. The repetitive hammering on a metal anvil would cause injury and strain to blacksmiths, limiting their productivity. Some enterprising blacksmiths would cut down a sycamore tree and use a section of its trunk as a table, basically an artisanal stump. The invention and adoption of the circular saw (called a buzz saw because saw go buzz) made these stumps more refined but you were still stuck with a work surface limited to the diameter of the tree. These stumps had a problem too; they were too soft and got warped easily.
Conrad Boos was asked by a local blacksmith to make him an impact absorbent table that would be longer lasting, which Conrad crafted out of local Sycamore. His real innovation was that he used end grain vs edge grain and put legs on it to raise the block off the floor. In end grain, the edges of the wood fibres are exposed. This prevents warping, becusae of shorter fibres and creates a surface more resistant to repeated pressure and sharp blades. With edge grain, the fibres run along the surface. You can see the difference in THE FIRST EVER CONSIDERED EXPLAINER DIAGRAM:
Others in repetitive banging industries (pretty much just butchering and blacksmithing) took note of this end grain innovation and the Boos family began producing butcher blocks from local wood for local businesses.
Modern butcher blocks are assembled with glue to hold the pieces together, however original butcher blocks were a result of next-level advanced craftsmanship. As antiquebutcherblocks.com explains:
“Consider their construction; they are all made of long pieces of end grain hard maple, and the tolerances in assembly are exacting. The joinery has to be perfect. Some are even put together with tongue and groove joinery, some with a double dovetail (yes those dovetails go all the way thru the block). Then they were then bored on the sides (all the way through the block) and threaded rods (behind wood plugs or metal escutcheons) hold the block together. It’s pretty amazing to consider the design and execution of this working piece of furniture.“
Innovation
There is no greater innovation than taking something people have used for 1000’s of years and figuring out it works better if you just rotate it 90 degrees and put it on 3 legs. Boos should qualify for a James Beard award (the cooking Nobel prize) based on that development alone.
The old butcher blocks were thick and heavy. A single butcher could use one for his entire career. Boos was able to grow nicely just continuing to own more of the butcher and commercial markets. They remain a family business (Ted Gravenhorst Jr, VP of Sales and Marketing at Boos is descended from Adelbert Gravenhorst (people comment that Kevin and I both have two first names. This guy has two last names), one of the original investors who helped the Boos family scale).
A meeting with Chuck Williams, the founder of Williams Sonoma would inform the creation of the consumer side of the business. Williams ran a cooking store in Sonoma California. It must have been great to name your company in an age before you needed to buy a domain name. My name is Williams, I live in Sonoma. Williams Sonoma. Print the letterhead.
Residential kitchens (or even any non-butcher applications) don’t require the same thickness as butcher blocks because they are more often used for slicing vs chopping and with softer foods than animal bones. Boos began to offer inch and inch and a half thickness boards, which they got into the kitchens of Alton Brown, Bobby Flay, Tyler Florence, Emeril Lagasse and everyone who has gotten one from me as a housewarming gift.
Prosumer (commercial grade products available to regular consumers) are a favourite category of Considered. (Mortadella is commercial grade deliciousness available to the mass. A prosumer sandwich meat). One of the interesting brand/marketing choices Boos has made is to only be available at specialty retail vs mass retailers like Costco and others.
Sustainability
Despite all the pictures of clear cut forests you might see, wood can be a very sustainable material. Wood frame building construction, as an example, is much more sustainable than concrete and steel. US hardwood growth is 2x consumption. For every tree cut down, two more are grown. For the application of cutting boards, cold weather trees have harder wood and more consistent colour because of less sap flow.
Like butchering a cow, you can use the whole log when making cutting boards. Smaller pieces, or off cuts, become end cuts for end grain boards, and left over scraps turn into saw dust that is burnt to produce heat and steam for the Boos wood kilns, where the wood is cured for use.
Value
I once had the pleasure of making my own Walnut edge-grain cutting board at The Shop. It was surprisingly more difficult than just sanding a slab of wood. I called the local nice wood supplier, Century Wood Lumber (vs a regular lumber mill) and got quotes of $6.05 per board foot for hard maple and $11.50 for walnut. This means that a one inch thick, six inch wide and twelve inch long piece of hard maple would cost $6.05. A six inch wide cutting board is pretty useless so to get enough wood to make the basic 24 x 18 cutting board, you are in for at least 6 board feet ($36). Also you have to pay for the whole tree length vs only what you need. Not including the time to glue it all together, sand, polish and treat with beeswax and food grade oils the material costs were probably closer to $90.
An edge grain maple Boos Board generally starts around $100. It goes up from there depending on size, materials and thickness. End grain starts at $200. These things last a lifetime and will help your knives hold an edge longer because they are much more forgiving and put less strain on the edge to bend out of shape and get dull. Do not forget to budget for some block oil or cream (basically just mineral oil, carnauba wax or beeswax) to make sure the wood does not warp or crack over time.
PS
No discussion of food preparation can be complete without BORK BORK BORK mention of the greatest to ever play the game: The Swedish Chef. Wikipedia says he is best known for “his dubious cooking methods.” While he does not use a cutting board in his famous doughnut recipe, it’s worth a mention:
Take a muffin
Use a musket to shoot a hole in it
"See de moofin? Und here de boom-a-shootin"
Many objects have been converted into culinary delights on his board. Here he is preparing the oft overlooked summer delight, the banana split: