chopping board "ting beng"

This is the most famous chopping board on TV. Jamie Oliver's 45 cm in diameter and 9 cm thick maple chopping board! That's a treasure indeed for anyone who loves a piece of good wood.





This is a reversible Australian beech chopping board.



this is what most Chinese cooks and housewives would settle for - a good, round wooden chopping board.




This recent photo taken in a relative's home shows a great chopping board made by her husband who worked in a timber camp. He had fashioned a few chopping boards out of a short tree stump thrown away by loggers. The wood is selangan batu.

The chopping board or "Ting Beng" is the most treasured item in a Foochow woman's kitchen. It has to be able to stand the test of time, remain flat and must not be easily worn out. A good round, Foochow chopping board can be obtained from the local wet market and if lucky, the housewife can buy one off an Iban man for about RM20.00. The chopping board will protect cabinet tops from being damaged by knives. Secondly it enables the housewife to enjoy long hours of chopping,cutting and food preparation. Thirdly,it is to stop food from becoming contaminated by any germs that maybe on the surface of the work top.

Any kind of chopping board would do, be it marble, plastic, glass or any other materials. But I personally believe that what our ancestors have been using is the the best - a wooden chopping board. Furthermore it really looks good in the kitchen.

A wooden chopping board can be very heavy and so the larger your board, the more likely you are to want to leave it in one place. And you don’t need a large board for chopping garlic or slicing a lemon! You can have a choice of round, square or rectangular. And any thickness will do actually, unless you are putting a whole suckling pig on your board every day!!

"Jamie Oliver" uses the Round Endgrain Maple Board on his TV shoes. This is a good, sturdy no-nonsense chopping board made of maple. Extremely hard wearing and so will last for ages.

My mother's wooden chopping board, a round one, lasted more than 30 years. She is still using it. Ask any Foochow housewife, and she will tell you the same thing. I have been using a small one but have been coveteous of Jamie Oliver's ever since I set eyes on it.

It is easy to keep the chopping board in good condition. Have it washed after using and then scrubbed a little and finally dry it in the sun.

Here is an extra article for your reading:

Chopping blocks go green
By Kate Shatzkin | Sun reporter
June 4, 2008

These days we want to eat green, cook green and save green. So we went looking for cutting boards made of recyclable, renewable or sustainable materials that would stand up to many summers of vegetable chopping without breaking the bank.

We found three candidates to test for under $35 each. Two featured endorsements from celebrity chefs. Ming Tsai has lent his name to TruBamboo, a line of affordable boards made from bamboo, which is considered "renewable" because it replaces itself so rapidly. The Bobby Flay Acacia Cutting Board features acacia hardwood, described on the label as "durable" and "sustainable." We also tried a board made of recycled plastic from Recycline's Preserve Kitchen line.

We chopped cilantro, garlic, onions and tomatoes on each board with a chef's knife to see how comfortable it was for cutting and whether knife marks showed afterward. We also looked at how easy the boards were to clean.

We liked all the boards, but the looks and functionality of the TruBamboo board impressed us the most for the money.