What is it
This 9-inch-long implement, with a ridged handle fashioned from deer horn and a curved head made of silver, is a Stilton scoop. Diners in 18th-century England employed the utensil to excavate individual portions from a full wheel of the country’s famous creamy, crumbly Stilton blue cheese. The custom of scooping the cheese was captured in this old saying: “Drink a pot of ale, eat a scoop of Stilton, every day, you will make ‘old bones.’” Today scooping from a wheel is considered wasteful, and the cheese is usually sliced. That said, when I dug the scoop into a tall round of Stilton, it worked very nicely to carve out a spoon-size portion of the cheese, and its curved sides kept the crumbs intact. –S.D.
The Best Brine for Salmon
In applications such as our Double-Glazed Salmon (page 9),
