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Comment by sliken | Hacker News Reader

I've noticed grated or powered cheese tasting less and less like cheese, presumably because of cellulose, anticaking, and anything else that they put in that costs less than cheese.

I've switched to grating cheese myself, even for a single person meal, doesn't take long and tastes SO much better.

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The best cheese grater for 'e is the MouliGrater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouli_grater . Especially the old ones as new ones have a tendency to be flimsy.

It's great for three reasons:

1 - it's the easiest and fastest grating device for cheese 2 - it's safe. Microplanes are great but it often happened that my cheese got a little bit of finger with it 3 - the texture and taste of the cheese is amazing. I can't explain it but it seems that the strands of cheese are thinner and longer . Whether it's on Parmigiano Reggiano or on old Comté it's just beautiful.

More on topic : never buy pre grated cheese. Or any thing pre-something.

I swear by pre-ground wheat. Cannot afford the time or counter space for a stone mill.

Same here. But to be fair, I did have some bread made from freshly ground (and freshly dried) wheat once, and it was amazing.

I'm forced to infer the US(?) Makes much greater use of pregrated cheese compared to Europe.

Grating cheese isn't exactly an onerous task, and the result tastes better, and a grater isn't expensive, so...

My biggest issue is cleaning the grater - for a single meal, it's nice to just be able to pour a bit from a bag and be done. If I use a grater, I have to get the cheese out, grate it, and clean the grater.

That said, I do prefer the result of the grated cheese.

I made a joke about not milling my own flour (after which I did some research and found that some very reasonable-sized mills can be had for an exhorbitant fee). I actually grate my own cheese.

But! Do you make dishes with over a pound of cheese in them?

Ohhhh, we used to have one of these when I was a kid. So great - much better than anything I have in my kitchen now.

(It made up for walking to school 5 miles, uphill in both directions, in the snow ;) )

IKEA sells a container set with grater lids and then a sealing lid. We get our kids to grate the cheese (and they fight over the opportunity) and excess cheese is stored in the fridge for the next meal. Or as you probably do, just grate straight onto the food.

https://www.ikea.com/au/en/p/uppfylld-grater-with-container-...

You can also get mason jar grater lids, which work with mason jars and lids you may already have in your kitchen. Bonus, they are made in the USA. https://www.microplane.com/mason-jar-lid-grater

Microplanes are a goddamned revelation.

Such an improvement over the dull graters I grew up with.

Apparently their patent on the chemically etched blade process expired so there should be more direct competition, but I haven’t explored alternatives.

Microplanes = very small holes, right? My experience was that cheese shredded that small dissolved/melted and lost it's flavor too fast when mixed with other foods and it was a lot of effort to grate any decent amount.

Yeah they're only good for very hard cheeses like parmesan and friends. Useful for a lot of other non-cheese things too, good tool. Just not a replacement for a cheese grater really.

You clearly haven't tried the ones with big teeth; grating soft cheeses like mozzarella is a dream.

You grate mozzarella?

Just tear it, or slice it.

No, they have a wide variety of hole sizes in their lineup. They're just very sharp graters, far easier to use than most other sorts.

Instead of holes one kind they make has little blades like a wood plane does, works great for parm and grating zest

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