[Sca-cooks] Fwd: When a Knife Is the Gleam in a Cook's Eye

[Susan Fox-Davis]

December 15, 2004
When a Knife Is the Gleam in a Cook's Eye
By MATT LEE and TED LEE 
 
OE HEFLIN is a roller-coaster salesman with a penchant for hand-forged knives made by the German manufacturer C. Hugo Pott. On business trips to Düsseldorf, Mr. Heflin buys Pott's sleek, expensive Bauhaus-inspired blades at Börgermann, a fifth-generation cutlery shop in the old quarter.

"The heavier handles of the Pott knives are a real advantage for me because it makes chopping and mincing easier," said Mr. Heflin, who lives in Reston, Va. "But there's also the art form: the aesthetics, the craftsmanship, the romance."

Amanda Cohen, a sous-chef at Pure Food and Wine in Manhattan, bought her less exalted Wüsthof chef's knife at a Bed Bath & Beyond store in Manhattan. But she is every bit as sanguine as Mr. Heflin about its form and function.

"My knife fits my hand so perfectly," Ms. Cohen said. "Every time I pick it up, it's like, `Hello, old friend!' "

Our own kitchen knives ? a motley assortment we picked up piece by piece on birthdays or inherited when old roommates left them behind ? inspire no romance and not much friendship. And that's O.K.: affection is not required to get dinner on the table. But we noticed that people who know their cutlery seem to have more fun in the kitchen.

So we immersed ourselves in the knife culture, enrolling in skills classes and trolling cutlery stores. We browsed online knife forums and talked to passionate home cooks and professional chefs to find out what qualities in a blade might make chopping onions a sublime experience.

"A lot of people get befuddled by the number of choices," said Ralph Gervasio, who has collected kitchen knives for more than 50 years and sells vintage cutlery online. "Finding the right knife has to do with what kind of tactile sensations you like, and the size of your hand and the size of the handle. The knife that makes your hand feel happy is the right one."

Once most handles were made of wood riveted to a piece of steel called the tang extending from the blade. Now handles include bulbous, ergonomically suitable ones fashioned from the same piece of steel as the blade itself, as well as traditional shapes in materials like Corian. But the composition and shape of the handle is only one component of a knife's comfort; its balance ? how the weight is distributed from tip to handle ? can vary considerably, and knife lovers have distinct preferences.

Most knives made in Western Europe and North America balance toward the handle. Traditional Japanese knives tend to be "blade heavy" because their detachable handles are made of a lightweight wood. Norman Weinstein, an instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan, prefers heavier Western-style knives.

"A good knife balances near the bolster," Mr. Weinstein said, referring to the shank or transition point where the handle meets the blade. Like many professionals we encountered he holds his knife by pinching the blade between thumb and forefinger, just ahead of the bolster, curling his other fingers lightly around the handle. "A knife is a tool designed to take the work out of muscles. The heavier your knife, the more work it will do for you. It's a myth that a smaller person needs a smaller knife. Would you give a small person a smaller hammer?"

But not everyone agrees that heavier is better. Amy Thielen, a fish specialist at Cru restaurant in Manhattan, recently bought a Japanese chef's knife, a Nenox with an eight-inch blade. Ms. Thielen, who estimates that she spends 14 hours a day knife in hand, said: "I work faster and better with a lighter, smaller knife. My cooking school knife was so enormous and heavy."

A truly helpful knife store will offer demonstration knives and cutting boards so customers can try the weight, balance and movement of a knife. And although we have yet to find one that stocks vegetables to cut, Korin, a store in TriBeCa that specializes in Japanese knives, provides spongy foam to use in lieu of vegetables.

Beyond the basic tactile comfort of the knife, the shape of the blade is also important. The most commonly used knives in the West ? the chef's knife and its cousin the somewhat smaller utility knife ? come in two basic profiles: with a flatter, straighter edge suited to the long strokes of tasks like butchering a loin of tuna, or with a gently curved blade that eases the rocking motion common to dicing and mincing. No matter the shape, it may be advantageous to seek some width in the blade to give the fingers ample clearance between the handle and the work surface. The blades of traditional Japanese knives tend to be specialized for particular kitchen tasks and often appear more lissome than brawny.

For knife enthusiasts the metal in the blade is fundamental to its function. With the exception of ceramic knives, kitchen cutlery is a precise blend of iron and other metals like chromium and molybdenum, forged in molds or hammered by hand. Toward the end of the 19th century the composite used in most kitchen knives was carbon steel, which is stained by acid and rusts easily. Such knives fell out of favor with the invention of super-hard high-carbon stainless steel in the early 20th century.

Stainless steel knives hold their edges longer and require less frequent sharpening. But giving a harder knife the right edge requires more time and skill if you are using special sharpeners like water stones; that is work best left to a specialist, since improper use of stones can damage a blade. Softer carbon steel knives lose their edge very quickly, but it is easy to slow that process with daily strokes on a honing steel.

A few manufacturers of new carbon steel knives remain, particularly in Japan, and online trade is brisk in vintage blades made in Europe. Enthusiasts exchange tips on how to find those knives, as well as other good ones, in forums like knifeforums.com, chowhound.com and egullet.com.

Dennison Lee, a port planner who lives in Manhattan, was turned on to carbon steel knives when he found a vintage Sabatier chef's knife in a thrift store.

"The ability to sharpen it is what drew me," Mr. Lee said. "It would take a wicked edge very, very quickly." In his view the need to maintain old carbon steel knives by honing them frequently and keeping them clean and dry (no dishwasher, please) is more than offset by their performance and the gravity that age gives them. "There's truth to the samurai belief that a sword has a soul, at least the handcrafted ones," he said. "I have knives that have been used hard for a great many years, and they have a different feel to them altogether."

By far the most striking trend in the world of knife enthusiasts is the surge of interest in Japanese knives, whose thinner, harder blades have nearly become the professional standard in New York restaurant kitchens.

"Everywhere I go chefs are using Japanese knives," said David Bouley, the executive chef and owner of the Manhattan restaurants Bouley and Danube. Mr. Bouley first used Japanese knives seven years ago, when he visited the Tsuji Culinary Institute in Tokyo and was impressed with, among other attributes, their accuracy. "They cut more smoothly with less pressure, and they give you a cleaner cut," he said.

JAPANESE knives are beveled, or ground, on only one side, whereas Western knives are ground on both sides. So the edge of a Western knife comes to a V, while the Japanese edge tapers on only one side and is vertical on the other. These single-bevel knives are all right-handed knives, unless they are custom ordered at a cost that is typically 50 percent higher.

"A V blade can actually mash the tissue of what you're cutting, and you can see it when you marinate fish," Mr. Bouley said. "Fish cut with a Western blade will turn mealy. With a Japanese blade it will be firmer. There's a different feeling on the palate and a different taste."

And some chefs say the steel in Japanese knives is superior. "Japan has the best steel for the money," said Paul Magro, a chef and instructor at the Joseph M. Barry Career and Technical School in Westbury, N.Y.

Mr. Magro can cite the merits of every grade of cutlery steel in the Japanese market. Several years ago he came upon the perfect shape for a knife he wanted, a santoku, or chef's knife that tapers bluntly at the tip. But the blade was too short.

"In Japan they grow beautiful, delicate, wonderful vegetables, and they'll use a six-inch santoku," he said. "In America we have onions six inches thick. So I wanted to get a larger santoku, about nine inches."

Mr. Magro chose the steel, the shape and the handle and commissioned a Japanese blacksmith to make the knife he wanted. Since then he has had five custom made, buying the haute couture of the knife world.

But such knives may not be practical for the casual home cook. Many Japanese knives are made of new hard carbon steel and require extra care to keep clean as well as patience and skill to sharpen. And when the knives are not keenly sharp, Mr. Bouley said, they are more difficult to work with. For that reason he expects the ardor for Japanese knives to cool.

"We've seen this happen before with the Chinese cleaver," he said. "Everyone was learning about it 10 years ago, and now that's come and gone."

Not all chefs find premium knives alluring. "As long as you get the job done on time, a knife is a knife," said Ms. Cohen, the sous-chef at Pure Food and Wine. "I see all these guys with their knives in fancy carrying cases, and I always want to ask them, `Does that make the food taste better?' "

In fact, the flavors do seem to remain the same, but the knife obsessives inspired some changes in our kitchen anyway. Mr. Weinstein's fearlessness about big blades encouraged us to buy a 10-inch German chef's knife, whose heft does make dicing onions truly effortless (if not sublime). 

The most striking change occurred, though, when we took our old knives to be professionally sharpened and found that their personalities improved. Our old American carbon steel chef's knife, which we had avoided because it seemed demanding, is now as smooth and agreeable as a seasoned cast-iron skillet. And the lighter-handled utility knife seems less like a ragged murder weapon; it's perfect for delicate work like cutting strips from a bell pepper.

We began to experience the sort of pleasure that Mr. Gervasio, the collector and seller of vintage knives, described when talking about his favorite slicing knife.

"I like challenging myself to cut a more accurate slice," he said. "How thin can I go without breaking it? I pour myself a glass of wine ? this is very slow preparation time, and that's always a good thing.

"You know you've got the right knife when you're getting as much joy from preparing dinner as you are from eating it."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company