Soapstone cutting board?

[WadeF]

Alright, this seems like a no brainer to me... Using kitchen knives to cut food directly on a soapstone counter top sounds like a good way to ruin your knives and scratch up the counter top.

However, my in-laws got soapstone counter tops and the people they bought them from told them they could cut direclty on them! Now, I figure the soapstone is softer than granite and other materials, but it also has veins of quartz looking stuff running through it.

1. My in laws like the scratch marks the knives leave as they feel it adds character to the counter tops. They have a lot of antique furniture and like things that show signs of use.

2. Their knives aren't very sharp to begin with and probably aren't getting that badly damaged from using them on the soap stone, but I would think a sharp knife would quickly dull, chip, roll the edge, etc. if it was used this way.

What do you guys think?

 

[Steven Roos]

Just hope they never get nice knives. That is a sure way to screw them up.

 

[Nick Hyle]

Having carved soapstone with a number of pocketknives, etc, I don't think a soapstone cutting surface will significantly degrade your kitchen knives. I'd have other concerns, like after getting crisscross cuts it's going to start flaking into your food, which isn't poisonous or anything, but gritty, I'd think. It's not as soft as a wooden board, but it's actually pretty close. Nothing like a glass or granite/marble board, or even Corian.

 

[yoda4561]

I think a wooden or poly cutting board would be a better idea than cutting straight on the soapstone, but really I'd be more worried about using a serrated knife on the counter and having it gouge the surface.

 

[Blades_Two]

Soapstone makes a terrible countertop material, I think, but a worse cutting board. I've had people try to sell me corian and glass cutting boards so some people have no clue about the good and bad of cutting boards.

 

[GarageBoy]

soapstone will soak up weird crap and flake apart

 

[yuzuha]

Soapstone is just natural talc and can be scratched with a fingernail so it probably won't damage knives, but who wants baby powder in their food?
http://www.kemi.se/kemamne_Eng/talk_eng.htm

 

[TorzJohnson]

I wouldn't do it. Just because you can cut your food on the counter doesn't mean you necessarily should. Why not take the food out to the garage and just cut it up on the hood of the Ferrari? Now that would look cool.

 

[WadeF]

Some info about soapstone counters:

http://soapstonecounters.com/about.htm

 

[Gollnick]

From the site Mr. WadeF pointed out, "You wouldn't chop vegetables on the hood of your car and that goes for a soapstone counter as well. As a matter of fact you'll mark any counter, so use a cutting board."


Also from that site, the recommended maintenance procedure is to wipe the counter with mineral oil. The site goes on to note, "Mineral oil is perfectly safe - its actually used as a laxative." So, if your friends start having -- how shall we say this? -- 'excess regularity," they might want to stop chopping on the countertops.