A pizza cutter (also known as a roller blade) is a handheld

kitchen utensil A kitchen utensil is a small hand-held tool used for food preparation. Common kitchen tasks include cutting food items to size, heating food on an open fire or on a stove, baking, grinding, mixing, blending, and measuring; different utensils ar ...

that is used to cut various items into sections or slices. Due to its prevalence in the making of

pizza Pizza is an Italian cuisine, Italian, specifically Neapolitan cuisine, Neapolitan, dish typically consisting of a flat base of Leavening agent, leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, baked at a high t ...

, it has earned the name "pizza cutter". The typical pizza cutter has a wheel-shaped blade that is attached to a handle. The original design has been modified over the years to include different sizes, blades, handles, and uses. The typical pizza cutter is not limited to cutting pizza but also for a variety of other tasks such as cutting dough or chopping herbs.

History

The Italian Silvio Pacitti invented the ''mezzaluna'' (Italian for "half moon") shaped blade in 1708. This utensil was a rounded blade that impacted its target and finished with a rolling motion across the object to create a clean cut (as opposed to dragging across the target, as with standard knives). It was intended to assist in cutting herbs and vegetables and could be found in either a single or double blade.

Varieties

There are two main types of pizza cutters. * The most common uses a wheel that rotates in a circle while a person moves the cutter in a direction that they would like to cut the pizza. People can also use the wheel pizza cutter for things such as

craft A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...

work.

* The other type is a large curved knife called a

mezzaluna A mezzaluna (, ) is a knife consisting of one or more curved blades with a handle on each end, which is rocked back and forth chopping the ingredients below with each movement. They most commonly have a single blade, but are sometimes seen wit ...

, which is rocked back and forth to cut the pizza. Some types of mezzalunas (particularly the double-bladed type) are often used to mince herbs or chop vegetables. These two types of pizza cutters come in many different sizes.

References

External links

* Kitchen knives Pizza 19th-century inventions {{Kitchenware-stub sv:Kökskniv#Pizzaskärare

History

Varieties

See also

References

External links