[Sca-cooks] Kitchen tools question (mandolin)

[UlfR]

Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> [2001.11.28] wrote:
> The stainless one might be a better buy in the long run than the one you
> reference, and here's why. Others may have different opinions, but what
> happens is that as you use the mandolin, it very slowly begins to become
> dull, like any other knife. Unfortunately, unlike other knives, the
> design doesn't really allow for sharpening.

Why not? The way I understand it the blade can be removed, and once I
have a metal blade in my hand I so far have been able to sharpen it. I
can see the julienne blade being somewhat of a tricky customer here, but
with a small, flat diamond stone even they should be managable.

> holes, and that when using it you can lose something like 25% of your
> usable product, unless you can find another, less cosmetically dependent
> use for those pieces. So, safety risks notwithstanding, I've found that
> a lot of cooks prefer to use a side towel or their bare hands.

Hmm, worth considering.

> Much of what I'm describing applies to all-stainless versions as well,
> Radical or not, I guess what it boils down to is how often you're going
> to use it. If you use it every day, or own a restaurant, etc., I would

You've pretty much have talked me out of the plastic version; I tend to
find uses for my fingers, and thus would like to keep the full set. As
to how much use it is a question of partly everyday home cooking, and
partly SCA feast cooking. Are they that much faster/better for the
slicing jobs that they are worth bothering with, or is a good knife
enough? Any other things I should consider spending the money on
instead?

UlfR

--
UlfR                                                 parlei at algonet.se
I remember about 15 years ago seeing a Lotus 1-2-3 manual which proudly
claimed that the program accepted various date formats, including "the
international standard, mm/dd/yy"       -- Nick Brown