A Girolle is a special tool to help you turn your Tête de Moine cheese shavings into roses.
The base is made of ash (you can also get synthetic marble 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.
You can also buy separately ceramic bells to cover the whole works, so that you can store the cheese right on the tool.
A Girolle is very expensive; in 2004, the cost was about 40 pounds sterling / $73 US.
History Notes
Girolles were invented in 1982 by Nicolas Crevoisier in Switzerland; they are made by the Métafil-laGirolle company.