The knife front

Several weeks agao, I spent the weekend working on a comprehensive reorging my Kitchen. Saturday was spent at Ikea. On Sunday, I spent some time between 2:30pm and 4:00pm with my local CutCo representative. As I mentioned, I was interested in aquiring a cheese knife, and having a look at the "famous" Cutco brand.

It was quite an eye opener. I began with the hypothesis that the Cutco Santoku style cheese knife would be the victor in this contest, and might get the other one in the two-piece set. It didn't work out that way. I also had some curiosity and qualms about the nature of Vector Marketing.

I arrived at the Cutco office with a bag full of radishes, ruddabegas, turnips. I also had three types of cheese: super sharp vermont chetter, semi-soft habenero pepper jack, and ultra-hard 5 year old Gouda. The new Santoku style cheese knife did do a basic job of cutting these three cheeses, but much more physical effort was required than I suspected. My right thumb started to tire. That is not typical of me. I don't fatigue easily. On the other hand, the classic Cutco Cheese knife just killed the task. Using their classic cheese knife on any of the three types I brought to the test was like watch the proverbial hot-knife go through butter. Little effort was required, and no fatgue was felt.

Unfortunately, the new Santoku cheese knife failed the test. I didn't buy one. Rather, I bought the classic cheese knife. The classic passed with flying colors.

Now on to the vegetable test! I brought both my Wusthof Santoku and my Shun Gokujo to the Cutco test for comparison purposes. This did not alarm the Cutco rep at all. The kid was not bothered at all. He was glad to see I had expensive tast in kitchen cutlery. He wanted to test-drive both of my knifes. He particularly liked the Wusthof. In the meanwhile I got to work on the hard veggies with the Cutco Santoku, Vegtable Clever, and the French Chef's knife. I intermittantly switched back and forth to the Wusthof to compare on the same materials.

I have to tell you, I very impressed by the Cutco knives. The French Chef's knife is extremely effective, and very comfortable to use. It chopped up the Raddishes, Rudabegas and turnips with ease. However, the Nakiri vegetable clever was the real surprise story here.

The Cutco Nakiri was the best I have ever tried, and I own the Kyocera Revolution Nakiri. That Kyocera is no mean piece of equipment. I've tried several others, including the much-vaunted Shun Classic. My chief complaint about these Nakiris is that they aren't big enough or weighty enough to be hepful with big nasty 2 pound turnip. [Shun makes a Chinese Chef's knife which should be the ultimate in this regard.] The Cutco unit is the biggest and heaviest I've ever seen. I would call it a meat cleaver, except for the fact that the blade is too thin. Under my careful guidance, the Cutco Nakiri minced the big turnip pretty quick, and without a lot of sweat.

Regrettably, I was not pleased by the performance of the Cutco Santoku. I have both a Kyocera Revolution Santoku and a Wusthof Classic Ikon. This is my favorite category of knife. I know it well. The Cutco Santoku was quite underwhelming. Both the Cutco French Chef and the Nakiri ran circles around the Cutco Santoku. So did my Wusthof Sanoku.

It looks like Cutco is just now learning how to make Santokus for the first time. The 1.0 edition is not so good. It's like a Microsoft 1.0 edition, which is more like a public beta trial. If you folks at Cutco will contact me, I would be more than happy to give you some serious pointers and helpful feedback. I believe your design should be revisited. There is some work to do here.

In the end, I was impressed enough to buy the French Chef, the Nakiri vegtable clever, the classic cheese knife and the peeler. All four of those items are high-performance knives. I left both the Santoku and the Santoku cheese knife on the table. They didn't impress me much.

I walked away from the Cutco office stunned. I did not walk in the door with plans to purchase $300 woth of cutlery. The young rep didn't do a lot of selling. He just invited me to try various blades on the good stuff I brought to the test. Very soft-sell approach there. As he said when we walked out the door "It's like selling Honda; these knives sell themselves." Indeed, there was nothing he said that convinced me. After trying the Cheese, Nakiri and French Chefs, I just didn't want to walk out the door without them.

I reflected on several findings as I drove home:

1. It is nice to know that American goods have not been completely expelled from the Kitchen Cutlery market. It's good to know we can compete.
2. I am surprised I never see any of these knives in the hands of celebrity chefs
3. I am surprised that these knives never get much word of mouth on the gourmet forums.
4. The product could be improved a great deal if they would introduce a synthetic non-slip grip with a big-back bolster.
5. I miss my kullens. I think kullens are cool.

My knives arrived more than a week ago, and I have been leaning on them heavily, trying to discover if the famous Cutco brand is worth it or not. I have to nod my head in a approval and give them the thumbs up. The French Chef's knife and the Vegetable cleaver make minced meat out of everything. They are big, heavy, and sharper than hell. Nice balance also. I cut Tagliatelle last night with the cleaver. That was some of the cleanest Tagliatelle noodle I have ever cut.

At the moment, I can say that Cutco is performing right on par with Wusthof's Classic Ikon and the Shun Elite knife I have. Cutco fits into the new collection just fine. I am satisfied that it is now safe to send all my Kyocera's back to Japan for re-sharpening. I should be able to do just fine until they return.

Above all, I am surprised at the rankled and venomous comments I read out there on the web about Cutco. In every cullenary forum on the web, there always seems to be 1 or 2 unsophisticated home cooks who are perfectly happy with their Cutco knives. Over and against that are a few angry critics who complain that they were duped into buying cheap stainless steel, or sold a lot of outrageously over-priced knives to unsuspecting cutomers.

F. Dick Meat Cleavers

Oye! Will hilarious culinary names never end!?!?! No sooner do I encounter Spotted Dick & Custard Sauce than I discover F. Dick Meat Cleavers. No bullshit. Let me tell you how I discovered these little bad-asses.

As you know, I like Paella. Most of the time, I prefer a fully authentic Allevante Valencia Paella. That means chicken, rabbit and snails. There is just one problem: Bristol Fams is the sole local source for fresh rabbit, and they only sell whole rabbits. You cannot buy rabbit meat by the pound, as you would chuck steak, or chicken breasts. Of course, they kill, behead, and skin the rabbit for you. You don't have to kill him yourself. They also get out the bandsaw and cut him in half. However, this is where the process stops.

Half a rabbit is too much rabbit to lay down in the paella. It doesn't cook well, and it doesn't divvy up well amongst guests. Rabits have relatively tough meat, and soft bones. You can work through it with a Wusthof Chef's knife, or a Cutco French Chef's knife, but why damage your edge? This is the workload intended for the meat cleaver. You are supposed to bust up that rabbit with a good meat cleaver.

Chicken is also less expensive if you buy whole chickens, or leg quarters. The problem is that this leaves you with the undesirable tail, back bones, and knees. Once again, you can work through it with a chef's knife, but why spoil your edge? This is the workload intended for the meat cleaver. You are supposed to bust up that leg quarter with a meat cleaver.

So, about a week ago, David goes on a question to discover who makes the ultimate meat cleaver. I don't like buying rubbish. Do it once. Do it right. Make the right call up front and prosper. The search went in several different directions.

The first name that came up was the Global G-12. Global is well respected and endorsed by Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurenttis on the Food Network. I handled the blade yesterday at Sur Le Table. It did not impress me much. It is a simple 6 inch blade which is not particularly heavy weight. Sure, it will probably work, but it just wasn't compelling. Use might have changed my mind, but I did not like it much.

The next name in line was J.A. Henckels. I also handled those at Sur Le Table yesterday. They were even lighter in weight than the Global. It did not feel right in my hand. I was turned off. I didn't want it.

Extensive research on the net yesterday evening yielded two findings:

• There is a clergy layman distinction in meat cleaver market
• Butcher's equipment is made by different vendors than Chef's equipment.

You will find the so-called 'experts' on-line pleading the following case:

1. There is such a thing as home kitchen gear
2. There is such a thing as professional butcher gear
3. Never the twain shall meat (pardon the pun)
4. Butcher's gear is not appropriate for the home environment
5. Chefs and cooks need a tiny fraction of butcher's power.
6. If you are a chef or a home cook, stick with your fancy-lad little cleavers.
7. Home cooks buy Global, Henckels, and Wusthof.
8. Butchers buy Wenger Swibo, Victorinox, and F. Dick...

F who? F what? F. Dick?!?!

Oh, I hate 'dem goddamn fancy lads. If this was reverse psychology designed to undermine the big vendors, it worked perfectly on me. Global, Henckels and Wusthof were instantly disqualified. I see no reason why I aught to own a weapon inferior to the one a butcher would use.

Reviews of Butcher's gear on the Internet are very sketchy things at best. Butchers just ain't 21st Century Internet kinda people. They don't seem to be the sorts of guys who post-up on webforums around the net. Reviewing their tools on line is not the sort of thing they seem to like doing.

From the few meager breadcrumbs of information I could gather on the web the following information seemed to emerge: F. Dick makes some of the best butcher's gear in the world. Victorinox also makes some of the most respected gear, and the dudes at my local Whole Foods tell me it works great. Unfortunately, Victorinox does not make a good cleaver. Swibo does, but I didn't much like it.

F. Dick specializes in the meat cleavers. They have them in all shapes and sizes. They make more models than anyone else. They have crazy cleavers. They make some cleavers that look more like Medieval weapons of war (Bishamon Yari spear, battle axe, kilij, or war scythe) than meat cleavers. I would hate to be attacked in the dark by a moefoe with one of those things. One shot with an F. Dick and it's all over.

So to make a long story short, I purchased a 9 inch 3.5 pound F. Dick meat cleaver last night, on-line, at Mad Cow Cutlery. Mad Cow Cutlery is another hilarious culinary name for you.

Mad Cow seems to specialize in butcher's gear. I loved the fact that I could use PayPal.com. PalyPal informed me this morning that Mad Cow has already shipped out my cleaver. You gotta love that efficiency! I will shop there again.

I hope I get this cleaver tomorrow or Saturday. I would like to do another Paella this weekend. It would be very good to cleave Bugs Bunny down to to nice cookable and edible bits this weekend. Kilw da Wabbit! You gotta chop those little fuckers up. There is no alternative.

The next step, of course, is to cut up some Spotted Dick with the F. Dick meat cleaver. This is the natural thing to do.

Of course the F. Dick Meat Cleaver is the perfect tool for use in circumcision. F. Dick also makes sharpening wheels for wet grinding. F. Dick Wet grinding, aye? F. Dick also has a tool called the Rapid Steel, for male enhancement.

German cutlery is on very hard-times right now

When I was kid, expensive, elite kitchen cutlery was a German thing. It was understood by us kids that Moms and Grandmoms would get very jealous when they heard a certain neighbor-lady just got a set of German knives.

German knives were the best. German knives were expensive also. Everybody wanted them. Not everybody could or would afford them. They were kinda like a KitchenAid stand mixer these days. German knives were the "some-day, eventually, maybe soon" thing grandma might buy. We wanted to get grandma a set of these things for Christmas, but damn... they were just so expensive.

Today, I am amazed to see how completely the Japanese have taken over the market. The Germans are way off in the distance. Not since the 49ers blew past the Rams in the NFC West during the 1980s have I seen such a thing. The Rams owned the West for decades. The 49ers seized control in one fell-swoop. Likewise, the Japanese have completely taken control of the cutlery market, setting the Germans in deep second place.

How the hell did they do it? It's a complex picture. It would include all of the following things:

1. A radical new design (from the viewpoint of the West) call the Santoko
2. A radical new design (from the viewpoint of the West) called the Gokujo.
3. The rediscovery of how to make Damascus steel.
4. The use of the 15 degree angle rather than a 22.
5. The use of double-hollow ground blades rather than a single bevel.
6. The use of V10 steel and beyond
7. Some very beautiful design work.
8. Some hellacious demos.

First and foremost, it has to be understood that a thousand years of Japanese technological development in relative isolation brought about some unique fruits. The Gokujo fillet knife and the Santoko chef's knife are completely traditional designs in Japan. We have analogs, but they aren't much like these blades.

Everybody who tries a Santoku is instantly converted. I, personally, have never found a more useful instrument. The only thing it lacks is a sharp point at the end, which would help. Enter the Gokujo. We think of it as fillet knife, but it is a lot more than than. It is the other general purpose blade in a Japanese chef's toolkit. Believe me, they beat the living hell out of a fillet knife.

Using these two blades for the first time, especially if they are from high-end vendors like Shun, blows the mind of the typical middle-american kitchen cook. It has a similar effect of Le Cordon Bleu certified master chefs. It makes you believe the Japanese are a bunch of geniuses.

The Damascus steel is another monster. The real Damascus steel was made by taking wootz steel, with mineral resources flowing from India, and using several pattern welding techniques pioneered by the various Celtic tribes. It made legendary blades that could actually slice through European swords, and pierce shields.

The Japanese don't use wootz steel or pattern welding. They fold two super-thin sheets of steel, one stainless and one high carbon, some 33 times until they form their blank. This is a forging technique, but not from castings. The favorite claim is that V10 steel exceeds anything else known to mankind. There is a group called Masahiro who claims MBS-26 steel is even better.

Whatever the case may, Japanese 'Damascus' steel is absolutely fascinating stuff, and it has totally captured the imagination of the entire world. Japanese Damascus steel now defines the high-end of kitchen cutlery. Everybody wants some. The blades look sensational. To see them is to see artwork. Not just artwork, but highly functional artwork. Even Ginsu is playing this game with devastating effects.

J.A. Henckels sold-out almost completely, gave up on their traditional lines of German cutlery, and got Iron Chef Morimoto to lend some street-cred to their fusion line of Japan-esque knives. You can't exactly call them Japanese. You can call this full-market capitulation.

But what of Wüsthof? For those who don't know, Wüsthof once defined the high-end of the kitchen cutlery market... in the whole world. Nobody but nobody was better. At the risk of quoting Soundgarden, they fell on black days.

Well, they have responded, and they are adapting. Their big move was to get together with Le Cordon Bleu in France and workup an all-new set of highly-refined knives that would be ideal for the European cooking tradition. Evidently, Le Cordon Bleu's staff of culinary professors took this opportunity seriously, and worked very hard with Wüsthof on this project. They came up with a set of knives that now bears the school's name.

Evidentially, these blades are 30% lighter than their other Wüsthof analogs. They are still made out of high carbon steel, not stainless steel, or Damascus. The are still forged from poured blanks. They are now hollow ground rather than beveled on the edge. They now have a synthetic stock material rather than wood. They still have the full-tang. They still have the signature three rivets. They have even embraced a limited use of kullens on a limited basis. The reviews are pretty sweet. Most experts are giving these items an A to A+ grade.

Still, the powerful shift in world-market tastes are hurting Wüsthof. Le Cordon Bleu is arguably the finest product they have ever made, yet they command far fewer dollars than their Japanese competitors do. At this very moment, you can buy a 8-piece set of Wüsthof Le Cordon Bleu knives for just $279 bucks, which I find shocking... shockingly low, in case you were wondering. At the same time a 7 piece set of Miyabi knives will set you back $449.

It is unfortunate that I am having such trouble finding the Le Cordon Bleu 8 inch chef's knife. I would have purchased it already. It looks like the perfect knife. The kullens make it perfect. I like kullens. Kullens do break friction and make for way less 'stickiness'.

I must say, I am sorely tempted to get a set of these Le Cordon Bleu knives. But then again, you know I love ceramic cubic zirconia.

If I were you, and if I were looking for an absolute steal on killer kitchen steel, I would definitely take advantage of the Wüsthof offer. You simply can't do better than this offer at this price.

Kyocera advanced ceramic blades

About a year or two ago, I saw an amazing episode of "How it's Made" regarding the world's greatest knives. They elected Kyocera advanced ceramic blades, and showed us just how they are made.

I was more than stunned. I had no idea that there was any such thing as a ceramic knife. I had no idea Kyocera made knives. I knew them only as the manufacturer of my then-present cell phone. I was amazed that these blades (that looked like white plastic disposable knives) were actually the sharpest things on earth this side of a laser beam. I could not believe steel had been surpassed by another material. It was all stunning.

Kyocera blades are made from cubic zirconia. You may know this substance as fake diamond; the stuff they make fake jewelery out of. Don't let that turn you off. Whilst cubic ziroconia may not fit your cultural prejudices regarding high-quality jewelery, it is an absolutely superb industrial material. Specifically you can make pretty outrageous knives out this stuff.

Cubic zirconia, when refined in a proper manufacturing process, is the second hardest material known to mankind. It is second only to real diamond. You can only sharpen these blades with real diamond. They will cut through steel sharpeners.

You can put an absurdly fine edge on these blades. They are more than a match for surgical scalpels. They are almost a match for the (extremely fragile) cracked obsidian blades ancient man used to use during the stone age. Those remain the sharpest edged tools man has ever used, but they last 10 minutes and they are gone. Kyocera edges last a very, very long time. I have been putting mine into a dish washer for almost 2 years now, and they still cut like straight razors.

There are more things to love about these ceramic blades. They are utterly non-reactive. They never absorb or carry the flavors of the items you cut. A simple wash and wipe and the substance is utterly gone. The pores are just too microscopic for infiltration. Unlike steel blades, no shards or particles will get in your food. Acid and base does nothing to cubic zirconia, unlike steel. This means you get the flavor of your food, and nothing more.

I don't know what it was about that short documentary, but it was pretty overwhelming. I was not that into gourmet cooking at the time. However, I was convinced beyond conviction that these were the greatest knives yet made by man. I had to own some. I grit my teeth, gulped hard, and spent a few hundred dollars on amazon.com.

It didn't take long for me to realize I made the right choice. The blades were pure murder; ungodly sharp right out of the box. The interesting thing is that I have never cut myself with one of these knives. I used to (accidentally) cut myself every now and again with steel blades. I think that is because of the force and effort it took to cut with steel Ronco blades. It takes little effort to slice anything with a Kyocera. I never struggle with anything, ergo there are no thrashing efforts. Everything is now an easy stroke.

With all this in the rear view mirror, I have been stunned that I have never seen any chef on the Food Network work with or advocate ceramic blades. They like big heavy steel blades. Alton Brown strongly endorses Shun, which is an amazing Damascus steel blade made in Japan. Tyler Florence seems to do it all with a single 7 inch Chef's knife from God knows who.

Lately I have been learning why this is so. Kyocera Ceramic blades are unbelievably light. I like this. I am used to it. Master Chef's don't like that. They are trained from day #1 of school to use a fast rocking motion in their prep. This technique is entirely predicated on using the weight of your blade to execute that cut. They like heavy blades. Within reason, they heavier the better.

Heavy blades make it easy to cut things like carrots. I stick carrots in the food processor, or I use a Kyocera mandolin slicer. It is a question of approach. There are different approaches.

Just to see how the other half lives, and to try the amazing Damascus steel Shun makes, I bought Alton Brown's signature weapon. It is a damn nice knife. I can rock with it like crazy. With that said it is not as sharp as my Kyoceras.

Just two days ago, when I was slicing up some pancetta for Bolognese sauce, the Shun got pretty tiresome. As the pancetta warmed, it became harder and harder to cut with the Shun. I could have done it, but I got frustrated. I reached for my Kyocera meat cleaver. The job got done quick. Believe me, that 1/2 pound of pancetta was diced inside 1 minutes.

I think I will get another Shun or two. I want the Ken Onion 7 inch Santuko, and I know where I can get it at a steep discount. I may get the Chef's knife also. That would be the ideal rocker.

To you guys at the Food Network: Give Kyocera a shot. It has been scientifically proven that these are the hardest and sharpest blades.

I bought mine in black.