Julia Child said a home cook could get along nicely with two knives: an 8- or 10-inch chef’s knife and a good paring knife. All right. But the chef’s knife is too big and the paring knife is too small for many cutting tasks. Other knives surely include a boning knife, a long slicing knife, and a larger paring knife.
Knife blades are either forged or stamped. Forged knives are better because they are made of harder steel that takes and keeps an edge. Top-of-the-line forged knives include Wusthof and Henckels from Europe and Shun and Global from Japan. There are many stamped knife manufacturers. Forschner/Victorinox is the best of a bad lot. Professional cooks have their own knives and pride of possession, and woe to anyone who borrows another’s without permission.
This brings us to the subject of sharp knives. “Sharper is safer” may strike you as counterintuitive, but it’s a truism of the trade. A dull knife is prone to slip and move the product, as more pressure and effort must be applied to complete the cutting task. And more often than not, the dull blade will slip toward you. When cutting bulky meat or veggies, always keep the tip of the knife in view, or “you will find it in your thumb” as the saying goes.
So sharp is better. The good news is that good-quality forged knives keep their edge and seldom need to be sharpened, even when used a lot. What they do need is a frequent realignment of their sharp edge, accomplished by passing the knife blade along a honing steel in two or three practiced swipes. However, a honing steel does nothing for a dull knife. So, you have to sharpen it once in a while.
Electric sharpeners and other mechanical gadgets are available. Next up are diamond dust stones by Diamond Machining Technology (DMT), which work great. Pros and users of big-buck hand-forged knives use natural water stones. Learning to use them takes practice, is an art form in Japan, and is very rewarding.
