Seasoning a wooden chopping board for the first time

A couple of months ago, moving into my first place that isn't some kind of house share, I bought a pretty nice wooden chopping board. Some months earlier I'd bought a nice carbon-steel knife and together they make cooking quite a bit more enjoyable.

Now I knew, when buying it, that it would require regular maintenance. I already owned some wood oil for maintaining my french-style tapered rolling pin and on occasion I'd oiled that. But I sort of assumed that the board would only require oiling as frequently as the knife needs sharpening. Not so it seems, for the board has developed a rather unfortunate crack.

It is the type of board that in constructed from cubes of wood -- a few inches by a few inches -- all glued together. I hindsight, I can see why this is a poor construction; it leaves significant weak points that as the wood expands and contracts with changes in moisture and temperature it will inevitably lead to cracking. I've even seen this happen with the board that parents make no effort to maintain.

Moreover, I made the mistake, after only having it for a few weeks, of place my scorching hot cast iron pan on it, leaving a large black mark. My pan, in that moment, was a branding iron and my board, a poor tortured soul. I'd hoped it was only surface-level and that a little sanding would fix it up.

So today I did just that. I sanded both sides of the board with a decreasing grit and then oiled it up. It's just standing to dry now. It feels new; there's no longer a roughness from the cutting work that has been done upon it. And the mark has faded somewhat, though I think it has become a permanent fixture. Though, most unfortunate of all, I don't think there's anything to be done for the crack besides oiling more often to prevent the moisture levels in the wood from fluctuating too greatly. I shall care for it as best I can, but I think it wont last as long as my other tools that I've mentioned here -- the ones I tend to last me a lifetime -- and when the time comes I will be sure to buy one made from a single piece of wood this time.

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Last Updated: 2022-01-15

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