Until 1916, all executions in Switzerland took place using a knife made of a specially-hardened (and very sharp) cheese known as Sbrinz. The cheese knife was abandoned when one broke during the killing thrust. Other cheese-based methods of killing were explored, but the only one that was considered feasible (crushing the criminal under a one-ton block of Pecorino cheese) was rejected on two grounds, 1) it was more expensive, and 2) it was foreign cheese.