Green Tool Herb Knife is for quickly chopping a pile of herbs, nuts, vegetables, spices or dried fruit.

Known as a ‘Mezzaluna’, it originated in 18th century Italy, but because of the 21st century Western trend to chopped salads and a more plant-based diet, it’s now relevant all over again. For much more than cutting pizza or Turkish bread.

Ironically, it’s frequently less bother to use this than a modern food processor, because a Herb Knife offers more control of texture than a processor, and the processor has more bits that need washing up afterwards.

The knife works by placing a hand at either end and chopping with a see-saw rocking motion. With little effort it chops up vegetables when doing a sofritto base for a soup. It’s also totally breezy for a mountain of parsley and mint for tabouleh; or parsley and garlic for the famed Italian gremolata herb sauce…or basil, parsley and pine nuts for pesto.

Green Tool kitchen tools are produced by Denmark’s ‘Eva Solo’ company – long one of the world’s great design companies. They’ve always been at the forefront of sustainable production by avoiding disposable products.

The Green Tool range commits to green materials by replacing half of any possible plastic with a composite wheat fibre material.

A further social benefit of the Green Tool Herb Knife is its suitability for anyone with grip problems.

It’s also a wonderful way to introduce children to the kitchen – they can safely do the herb chopping because fingers are safely away from the cutting edge. Oh, and it’s fun !

• Dishwasher safe

Specifications : length = 30cm ; depth = 4cm ; width = 8cm. Blade length = 18cm (vanadium molybdenum)