Girolle. Mike Lehmann / wikimedia / 2006 / CC BY-SA 3.0
A girolle is a special tool to help you turn your Tête de Moine cheese shavings into roses.
The base is made of wood, typically ash or beech (you can also get marble or plastic now.) There’s a post that you impale the cheese on, then a blade at the top that you rotate around on the top of the cheese to produce the shavings. The blade is just long enough to do all the cheese except for the rind, so that you don’t need to remove the rind first.
Some come with glass domes to cover the whole works so that you can store the cheese right on the tool (you can also buy the domes separately.)
One well-known producer is the Métafil-laGirolle company.
History Notes
Girolles were invented in 1982 by Nicolas Crevoisier in Switzerland.
Girolle. Édouard Hue / wikimedia / 2013 / CC BY-SA 3.0