“If it was ok to placed on the hull of a ship, it was ok to place a steak on it,” mentioned Richard Cohen, Dansk’s former head of gross sales, in reference to the 1000’s of teakwood carving boards he offered all through the 1970’s. “In case you used it—and didn’t abuse it—it lasts eternally.” The 5, 50-year-old, Jens Quistgaard-designed carving boards Richard nonetheless continuously makes use of are, seemingly, on monitor for eternally.
So are most of the different authentic Dansk teak merchandise. On eBay, the search question “Dansk teak” yields greater than 3,500 outcomes, together with ice buckets, serving trays, salad bowls, and the extremely collectible peppermills. Regardless of lots of this stuff exceeding a half-century in age, it’s widespread, if not anticipated, for these listings (very like Richard’s carving boards) to indicate that its teak stays in “glorious situation”—a declare every itemizing’s accompanying images practically all the time help.
Photograph by Mark Weinberg
This sturdiness isn’t some completely happy accident. As Richard talked about, teak—because of its tight grain and excessive oil content material—is of course water repellant, lengthy making it a shipbuilder’s most well-liked wooden. Whereas salad bowls received’t endure the aquatic pounding of excessive seas journey, kitchens are moist. Sinks exist. That means, for Dansk, the extra a picket kitchen merchandise might stand up to moisture, the higher. “We approached teak as a purposeful product,” Richard mentioned.
“And it had character and it will age properly,” added Barry Ginsburg, the previous President of Dansk. The character—a deep, omnipresent grain coursing by each inch of its easy and impossibly sturdy floor—is unrelenting. Getting old properly, nonetheless, requires some, albeit comparatively minimal, effort. “Teak must be oiled periodically,” Barry mentioned. “You may’t put it out in zero diploma humidity within the desert and anticipate that it’s not going to dry up.”
For Richard, whose teak assortment features a small and huge ice bucket, eight serving trays, 4 peppermills, and the aforementioned 5 carving boards, upkeep is bifurcated. “I oil my teak with mineral oil at the very least twice a 12 months,” Richard advised me. “For items that we use continuously, I would oil them six instances a 12 months—however that’s my very own fetish.”
Though teak requires some upkeep, per Richard, Dansk’s preliminary success with the wooden got here in response to their prospects’ waning curiosity in a fussier materials. “Within the seventies, the folks I knew getting married and beginning to generate income wished to maneuver away from sterling silver plates and equipment—so all of them purchased Dansk.”
Fifty years later, teak kitchenware—due partially to a resurgent curiosity in mid-century design—is, once more, in vogue. Marrying sturdiness with magnificence, shoppers, like peppermill collectors Alex Severin and Maren Lankford (and Christopher Walken’s character in Severance), entrust these highly-functioning items of kitchen gear to double as inside design items. “They’re little picket sculptures,” Maren mentioned throughout our current interview.
Photograph by Armando Rafael
Customers new to teak will discover that the wooden Dansk used all through the 60’s and 70’s is totally different from what’s obtainable as we speak. For a lot of the twentieth century, the world’s teak predominantly got here from 4 international locations—Burma, Laos, Thailand, and India. Nevertheless, as a consequence of rampant deforestation and severe human rights considerations, old-growth teak (which has the tightest grain and darkest colour) harvested from these nations has successfully vanished from the market. In flip, as we speak’s teak, which generally comes from plantations unfold all through the globe, is commonly harvested youthful, due to this fact sporting a lighter colour and extra dispersed grain.
Whereas, for good purpose, its colour has shifted, teak’s sturdiness persists. The wooden stays waterproof, shapeable, and—to the contact—undeniably robust. Or, simply as Richard described Dansk’s teak from fifty years in the past, “It’s purposeful and it really works.”
