Welcome to my buyers guide to wooden cutting boards and butcher blocks. This guide reflects my many years of experience designing and making furniture and kitchen items in my woodworking shop, as well as my experience buying and selling fine antiques, including vintage butcher blocks and other food-related pieces.

My thoughts on cutting boards and butcher blocks assume that you want to purchase a product that meets three criteria: It has great eye appeal; It is very durable: And it is totally functional.

To get a cutting board that meets all three of these requirements implies that you as a consumer are willing to pay a premium over the general line of mass-produced products found in kitchen stores and on the internet. You are probably a very serious cook, and your kitchen is a great environment for the gourmet.

You'd be amazed at what goes into producing a cutting board or butcher block. First let's consider the design of cutting boards.

Cutting boards should be long enough and wide enough to handle the foods you will prepare on them, but not so large that they crowd your counter top or island. In general, cutting boards other than small cheese boards should have a groove that runs at least partially around their edges to catch food particles and drippings. This groove or channel should be at least three-quarters of an inch wide and three-eighths inch deep, but preferably a bit wider and deeper, such as one inch wide by a half-inch deep. Of course there are some applications, mainly for very large boards and serving pieces, where no groove is desired.

A cutting board should be supported by legs of about a half-inch to an inch high. Rectangular cutting boards should have four wooden legs and round cutting boards should have six legs. These legs should have felt or plastic caps on their ends to prevent scratching. Legs are important for stability when using a cutting board, because they compensate for slight deviations from flatness found in some counter tops. Legs also prevent a cutting board from collecting moisture between it and the counter top. What's more, legs prevent the cutting board from grinding food particles into the counter top. Finally, cutting boards for general use should be at least one and three-quarters of an inch thick. Cheese boards can be a little thinner, say one and one-half inches thick.

What about materials and construction? Cutting boards should not be made of one slab of wood or two or three slabs joined edge-wise. Slabs tend to warp and spilt. Admittedly, a single slab of figuered or birdseye maple makes a gorgeous display, but over time and use some slabs becomes vulnerable to checking and splits. A durable and functional cutting board should be made of many individual pieces glued together and arranged so that the flat grain of the woods forms the cutting surface. Each piece of wood should be from three-quarters to one and one-quarter inch wide and as thick as the thickness of the cutting board. Also, each piece should be the full length of the cutting board. These dimensional relationships are key to achieving maximum glue adhesion, excellent weight and durability over many years. Keep in mind that all cutting boards will eventually show wear from use. With a thick cutting board you can easily sand off 10 years of knife scratches in five minutes with a palm sander (about one-thirtysecond of an inch), and still have plenty of wood thickness left to serve its purpose for many decades. Many people, however, like the abstract patterns of use over the years, and prefer to leave the knife marks as they are. These marks serve as a kind of visual record of gourmet life!

Now about the kinds of woods for cutting boards. First of all it's important that cutting boards are made from kiln-dried wood, as this will be more resistent to warpage, checking and splitting. Never combine air-dried and kiln dried woods. My experience has led me to use combinations of two species of hardwoods. I prefer alternating pieces of maple and jatoba (a Brazilian cherry) to form my cutting boards. I also use alternating pieces maple and teak. Maple and walnut is also an excellent combination, which I use in many designs. Other excellent but more exotic combinations are of maple with applewood, olivewood, cocabola (a Central American rosewood), wenge or bubinga (African hardwoods). I don't combine maple with American cherry because cherry in a flat grain configuration is too soft, but this combination is acceptable if not as durable as the others I have mentioned.

One important thing to keep in mind here is that limiting the cutting board to two species of woods glued as described, results in a cutting surface that is a simple two-color pattern of alternating stripes. This makes it very easy to see what you are doing. Many so-called designer or artisan cutting boards have complex designs that produce very busy cutting surfaces. These patterns can interfere with good, precise vision when cutting and chopping, and this can cause accidents.

Many buyers may also want to know about cleaning and care of wooden cutting boards. A well-made cutting board has a food-safe finish. Over time, though, this surface finish will wear off, but the cutting board will benefit from the natural juices, fats and oils that come from foods. However, the cutting surface can be wiped lightly with mineral oil or tung oil to help condition it. Clean a cutting board immediately after each use by wiping the surface with a small sponge-scrubber, dishwashing soap and warm water. Use a paper towell to dry and then allow to air dry. Don't immerse an entire cutting board in water for more than a minute or two, if this is even necessary, and NEVER clean it in a dishwasher. Dishwashers with their extremely hot water and steam can cause damage to even the best glue joints and can cause wood to warp or split.

Now let's consider butcher blocks. As with cutting boards, eye appeal, durability and functionality are key in selecting a butcher block.

First of all, there is some confusion among buyers about what is a butcher block. They will see so-called "butcher blocks" made in the classic checkerboard pattern of many pieces of wood about one inch to three inches thick, with most products between one and two inches thick. These really should not be considered butcher blocks. They are actually a butcher block style of cutting board, and are made of many pieces of end-grain wood to mimic butcher blocks. This construction has some serious drawbacks. The main problem is that gluing together many small and relatively thin pieces of end-grain wood does not result in a surface that will withstand the cutting and chopping pressures, and lateral flexing of years of use. The result is that the glue joints break down, moisture penetrates the joints and cracks and splits develop. Also, all the small pieces glued together form very busy patterns, These patterns can be visually distracting when using the piece. Most of these "butcher blocks" style cutting boards don't have legs so they collect moisture under them and grind food particles against counter tops.

Real butcher blocks for use on counter tops are made of end-grain pieces at least four inches long and two and one-half inches square. Some butcher blocks are made of end-grain pieces a foot or more long and about three inches square. These are often used as independent prep tables in kitchens. It may not be obvious, but it takes a great amount of wood to make a butcher block.

Butcher blocks are usually made of one or two species of hardwood. For this purpose, a durable butcher block can be made of only maple pieces, or of alternating pieces of maple and American cherry. American cherry can also be combined with white ash or quartersawn white oak. The important thing here is that the end-grain pieces are glued so that the grain of each runs roughly perpendicular to that of the adjoining pieces. This requires careful selection and placement of all the pieces making up the block. It should go without saying that all woods used in these composite butcher blocks should be kiln dried.

Another important feature of butcher blocks used on a counter top is that they should rest on five round feet! The fifth foot should be in the center. This arrangement provides a really solid, stable feel when using on a counter top or table. Of course, very large butcher blocks, for example pieces two feet square or two feet in diameter and a foot thick, will function as a free-standing prep table with legs that bring the chopping surface to about three feet high, and even higher for very tall chefs.

A word about butcher blocks with decorations. Although expensive, these can be wonderful in adding color and interest. It's important that the chopping surface remains free of decorative inlays and complex patterns. But the sides of butcher blocks offer plenty of area to add designs of exotic colored woods. These designs are sure to fire a creative spark of energy in the kitchen!

I hope this information will help buyers as they consider the many cutting boards and butcher blocks in today's market.