About Cheese Spreaders

All About Cheese Spreaders

The term "cheese spreaders" as used by Americans describes short-bladed, short-handled knives (usually less than six inches in length) with rounded blades, used primarily for spreading soft cheeses on crackers or bread. They are also sometimes called "butter spreaders" or sometimes for fancy brands, "pâté knives."

The handles of spreaders can be made of many different kinds of materials (including metals, woods, ceramics, plastics, and other materials such as real geode rocks and bamboo).

But, actual materials aside, there are three main types of handles on cheese spreaders:

Functional/Decorative Handles: Traditionally the handles of cheese spreaders were made of metal (including ornate gold and silver designs), followed by ceramic handles, and later on, plastics. The handles are chiefly functional and often decorative as well, either through the beauty of their materials, or through the patterns inscribed or molded into their handles.

Spreaders with functional/decorative handles.
Not unattractive, but mostly functional.

Pictorial Handles: These are largely flat handles on which a design or picture is painted. They can be made of molded resin, the more traditional porcelain, or other materials. There are also spreaders with only words painted on them (usually clever sayings of some sort). The key is that these are largely two-dimensional depictions on the handles.

These have a slightly raised design
painted on them, showing pictures of
landscape scenes.

Figural Handles: The spreaders that I collect, and which are the main subject of this blog, have handles that are molded into three-dimensional objects and painted to look like recognizable things, such as people, animals, foods, etc. These are mostly made of molded resin (although I do also have a few with molded metal or ceramic handles). Most resin handles are hand painted.

Much more interesting and fun, right?

A History of Spreader Knives

Sharp knives are one of the earliest tools invented by humans, and by at least the medieval period they were carried in sheathes by people for eating at table (as well as for numerous other purposes). According to Wikipedia, sharp pointed knives were banned at the table by French King Louis XIV in 1669, to prevent deadly violence after too many cups of wine at dinner. Whether due to this edict or not, special dinner knives with dulled blades began to be used in combination with forks and spoons during the 1700s.

The invention of Sheffield Plate (a thin layer of silver sandwiching a middle layer of less-expensive copper) in England in 1743 allowed the growing middle classes of 19th century England, Europe and America to purchase silverware for daily use. The invention of stainless steel in 1913 made flatware even more affordable, and it is still the standard material used for cutlery and flatware today.

Silverware for specialized uses, such as fish knives and cocktail forks, were developed and refined during the 19th century, and butter knives, shorter versions of the usual dulled dinner knives, came into use during this time. There were two kinds of butter knives: First, the master butter knife (used for cutting slices of butter out of the communal butter dish, which it accompanied) has a point used for spearing the pat of butter, and often a notch at the top to differentiate the cutting edge of the blade from the non-cutting edge. The second kind of butter knife, individual butter knives or butter spreaders, were set at each individual place setting and were used by each person to spread butter on their own food.

The top two are master butter knives, while the
bottom two are individual butter knives or butter
spreaders, with their shorter, rounded blades.
(Wikipedia)

This silver-plate butter knife from New York silver manufacturer John Polhamus was made around 1855, according to a listing on Ebay. It's a bit longer than modern spreaders at 7&1/2 inches in total length, but the blade of the knife is fairly short with a rounded (and slightly flared) end. The handle is a standard decorative silverware handle pattern and shape, with space with an engraved monogram.

Skipping ahead a century, these "Dinkee" knives are only 4&1/2 inches long,
with stainless steel blades and decorative handles made of Bakelite
(the first synthetic plastic, which had to be extruded and carved, not molded
in molds like later plastics and resins). They were made by a Canadian
company, likely in the early 1950s (Bakelite was rarely used after the 1950s).

These Serv-Rite snack spreaders from the 1960s had decorative handles made of molded plastic, with stainless steel blades, which had become standard for all knife blades. They are about six inches in length, and were made by the Royal-Pacific Company in Los Angeles.

Japanese Figural Spreaders

By the 1980s, Japanese manufacturers had begun to make the first spreader knives with figural porcelain handles and stainless steel blades. To my knowledge, the Japanese originated the idea of figural spreader handles, ones that depicted various objects.

This is not entirely surprising, as the postwar Japanese ceramic industry turned out hundreds of thousands of glazed figurines and tableware such as salt & pepper sets for export (now referred to as Occupied Japan collectibles). Plus, the Japanese have seemed to have a fascination with cuteness or kawaii in Japanese, personified by Hello Kitty and those lucky cat figurines with one paw raised for good luck. It's not a big leap from those figurines to cute little knives with miniature ceramic fruits for handles.

These spreaders were made in Japan, probably in the 1980s, with stainless steel blades and figural ceramic handles that depict six kinds of fruits. They were made for Kmart (although I have seen these online sold under other different brands).

These spreaders in my collection are made with stainless steel blades and ceramic handles, and are only 4&1/2 inches in length. The handles are figural, the tops made to resemble fire department axes, and the middle section perhaps representing the old-fashioned "break glass to sound fire alarm" device. They are glazed in colors appropriate to fire departments, including the letters "FD". These were made in Japan for the Five and Dime stores of West New York, NJ, likely in the 1980s.

Resin Figural Handle Spreaders:

Most spreaders with figural handles are now made of polyresin, which can be cast in much more finely detailed shapes (it's what military models are made of), and can also be painted with far more detail than ceramic glazes.

Spreaders are nearly all made in factories located in China (most blades are inscribed with some version of "Stainless China"). In fact, the rise in the popularity of figural resin-handled cheese spreaders coincides with the rise of Chinese manufacturing following China's economic reforms begun in 1979. By 1990, China's manufacturing sector had grown to encompass the bulk of such labor-intensive manufacturing for resin figurines and other items -- like polyresin spreader handles.

Polyresin manufacturing is indeed labor-intensive, with the following steps (and click here for an article with pictures of the process at a Chinese factory: https://www.theodmgroup.com/manufacturing-polyresin-figurines/):

First, the handles are designed, often by graphic designers in the US companies for whom the products are manufactured.
The designs are sent to the factory, where factory managers figure out the specifications for manufacturing them.
Originals are made by hand and approved, and two-sided molds are cast by hand from clay or rubber using those originals.
The molds are used to manufacture as many handles as are needed, by hand-pouring liquid resin and a curing agent into the molds and heating them, causing the cast shapes to harden.
The handle shapes are removed by hand from the molds and sanded to remove seam marks made where the two halves of the mold met.
Handles are then painstakingly hand painted in batches by workers using tiny brushes and acrylic or enamel paint.
The stainless steel knife blades are inserted into the handles and the spreaders are inspected, before being packaged by hand (often putting four different designs of handles per set in each case), in custom clear-lid cardboard cases printed with company information and marketing images for resale.
The packed cases are boxed up and the boxes are stacked on pallets and sent by truck to a Chinese shipping port, where they are packed into a shipping container and loaded onto cargo ships. They are unloaded at the port of entry where customs duties are paid and then shipped overland to the company that ordered them, which then distributes them for retail sale.

All of this involves a great deal of hand labor, with very little factory automation -- which is why cheese spreaders often don't look exactly identical, especially the paint.

Here's a short video showing the manufacturing process for polyresin figurines, which is very similar to that for spreader handles (except on a slightly larger scale per cast unit):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLA_WEOt13Y

So keep in mind just how much labor has gone into these little items, the next time you hold a set of cheese spreaders in your hands!

But who, you might wonder, engages and pays for the Chinese factories to make all these cheese spreader sets in the first place?

Boston Warehouse

I believe that polyresin figural spreader handles were probably first widely manufactured for Boston Warehouse, a company established in 1974 by British ex-pat Peter Jenkins. His company started out importing European kitchen and housewares items; the company's most popular items in the 1980s were a ceramic garlic keeper and a ceramic garlic baking container.

It was probably to accompany the garlic baker that Boston Warehouse came out with this set of spreaders in the early 1990s, perhaps to spread the soft roasted garlic paste on bread:

These Boston Warehouse spreaders have a copyright date
of 1993 on the back of the case -- although these may not have
been the first issue of them -- and they may have been
the first widely sold figural resin spreaders. The blades are
stamped Boston Warehouse, Stainless Taiwan, so BW had
not yet moved the manufacture of these to mainland China.

At least three other spreader sets were issued by Boston Warehouse in 1993: a set of vegetables, fruits and Christmas nutcrackers. By this time, Boston Warehouse had switched from importing most of its items from Europe to having them made in Taiwan (the 1993 spreaders have Stainless Taiwan stamped on the blades). But perhaps within a year, it moved to manufacturing in mainland China, like many import companies were doing at that time (spreaders with 1994 copyright dates are stamped Stainless China).

By the mid-1990s, resin-handled spreaders were the hot new thing, and Boston Warehouse was making numerous new designs each year. In 1999 alone they came out with at least 60 new sets of four, and the company began to partner with a series of mostly American artists to design new sets, including Debbie Mumm, Susan Winget, Warren Kimble, Jilly Walsh, Anna Maria Horner, Dan Morris and Guy Buffett.

Boston Warehouse couldn't keep this trend to themselves, and other companies caught on during the '90s and early 2000s, including:

Cardinal Spreadables
Centrum
Ambiance Collections
Out of the Woods of Oregon
Supreme Housewares
Mr. Spreader
Retailers such as Target, TJ Maxx and Kohl's often had sets made for their stores
Companies such as Christmas ornament-maker Christopher Radko and gift basket company Harry & David had their own small lines of spreaders
There were a few spreaders made for licensed products such as Disney characters, McDonalds, Pillsbury Foods, Grey Poupon, Heinz, etc.

Figural spreaders depict numerous different subjects: people, animals, foods; and objects or designs relating to holidays (there are more Christmas spreaders than any other subject), sports and other topics.

Dip Bowl and Spreader Sets: Some spreaders are sold as part of a set of bowl & matching spreader. To me, these are less interesting because they usually only have one spreader but take up a lot more room to store (leaving less room for spreaders themselves).

Matching serving dish and spreader.

Themed Spreader House and Spreaders Sets: There are also "spreader house" sets: a base "house" in which to store and display accompanying spreaders. (It's referred to as a "spreader house" even if the display base does not actually depict a house -- a picnic table holding picnic food spreaders, or a large spherical orange holding orange slice spreaders are both referred to as "houses" in which to house the accompanying spreaders:

This barn makes a nice spreader house
for the farm animal spreader set.

Boston Warehouse made at least two dozen spreader houses; Cardinal, Centrum and Ambiance Collections were also primary manufacturers of these. I have to admit a certain fondness for spreader house sets, despite the extra storage room they take -- they are designed around the spreaders, and the relation between the house and the spreaders is sometimes quite clever and endearing.

The End of an Era

The "golden age" of figural spreaders lasted from the mid-1990s until around 2010. Resin-handled cheese spreaders have been declining in popularity among the general public since about 2005, and by 2010, the trend was largely over, with far fewer new designs offered each year.

Boston Warehouse rarely makes any new designs these days, and only a few companies still sell new ones online now. Most spreaders sold today are more ornamental in design, or only loosely figural, either ceramic ones with modern designs, or fancy silver or gold-tone handles.

The new spreaders are often beautiful objects in their own right, but they lack the attention to tiny details and the droll cleverness -- and often sheer ludicrousness -- of the best of the resin-handled spreader sets.

A Future Reappraisal?

But spreaders from the "golden age" are still available online at Ebay, Etsy, Poshmark and Mercari, and the variety and number (and cleverness!) of them can be astounding.

Here's a sampling, showing just why I think these are worth collecting:

Look at the attention to detail in these holiday cats spreaders issued by Boston Warehouse in 2002: all of the cats have their eyes closed, except the one on the far left (for some reason?). Another has a golden bow on its head and a kabuki mouth, yet another has that red & white striped hat with a long tail like a dreadlock -- with sparkles! And the cat on the far right is the best of all, wearing antlers on the back of its head like a Norse winter god. Some graphic designer really earned their keep with these.

And look at the attention to detail found in the clothing worn by this set of sea captains, and the individual expressions on their faces. (I found this photo online, and I'm afraid it's not too good.) I'd love to own this set, but I don't see it for sale at present -- I'll have to keep my eyes out for it!

Someone really had fun with these.... Look at those '90s outfits and hairstyles on this Boston Warehouse set from 1998 (called "Pool Folk").

And these, a recent purchase, were made by Cardinal, Inc. for their Spreadables line. Their title is "Asian Instruments," and the handles depict string instruments used in the traditional Peking Opera of China (the famous Erhu is at far right, although I wasn't able to identify the second instrument from the left -- perhaps it's from a different Asian region). Since all of these resin-handled spreaders were made in Chinese factories, perhaps Cardinal simply asked their manufacturers to design and make some authentically Chinese objects -- which these assuredly are. But again, the attention to (authentic) detail and the choice of such an esoteric subject are rather breathtaking.

I think the above four examples illustrate why spreaders can be so interesting, and why I believe they have the potential to eventually be appreciated again. Many of them are certainly works of superior design, and perhaps even could be considered miniature works of art -- mass-produced art at any rate.

And furthermore, they say something about American culture at the turn of the 21st century, about the kinds of things -- and people -- that we found interesting or amusing, and the clothing styles and foods we liked.

Spreaders were certainly considered to be trivial and amusing when they were made, and they are indeed currently out of fashion. Nevertheless, we can take them seriously as collectors' items -- and everyone knows that the best time to collect something is while it's out of style.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the best of these spreaders might have some greater future appreciation -- not just monetarily, but in terms of artistic appreciation. Now might be the time to take a closer look at them.