[Sca-cooks] Electric knives

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Huette von Ahrens:
>I am sorry that you and Cadoc don't like the
>Krups slicer.  I like it and I think that it is
>infinitely better than an electric knife.
>
>However, I am _not_ a professional chef like the
>two of you are.  I _haven't_ been trained
>properly in how to carve.  Whenever I hand carve
>meats, no matter how hard I try, I can't get
>even cuts.  While that may be okay in a family
>setting, it bothers me enough that I don't like
>to do it in a banquet setting.

My comments were entirely based on an "all-other-things-being-equal" 
basis. The Krups slicer makes me nervous, for the reasons I 
mentioned. A more heavy-duty, professional version of the same 
machine makes me nervous, too, but to a lesser extent. As I mention, 
I was given a Krups slicer, but I haven't used it. Something about 
the rapidly moving, serrated blade in a setting that might flex just 
a touch when a heavy chunk of meat is placed on that sliding 
carriage, makes me nervous. To me, it's a trip to the hospital. Not 
guaranteed, and your mileage may vary. It's my emotional response.

>I don't know where you got the "snaggle-toothed
>edge", because my Krups blade is very smooth,
>very sharp and easy to sharpen.

If you look at it closely, the blade in the picture you posted was 
clearly serrated, and all the Krups machines I've seen have a 
serrated edge, like a saw. This is why I asked if Krups made more 
than one model, because I didn't want to characterize them all in 
that way, possibly unfairly.

>   I will admit
>I have not sliced a roast beef with it yet, but
>I have done hams and pork roasts with it.  It
>cuts cleanly, uniformly, and quickly.  I haven't
>noticed any problems with texture or dryness.

I haven't, either. My complaint about such machines is that they can 
be extremely dangerous, and the only way I can think of to make your 
typical deli or supermarket slicing machine more dangerous in my eyes 
than it already is, is to have a dull blade, or to make any part of 
it out of plastic.

None of this is a comment on you, or your machine. Not to sound too 
90's or anything, but "It's not you, it's me." I've sliced, as a 
rough guess here, more than a thousand pounds of meats, raw, frozen, 
hot and cold, on a heavy-duty Hobart slicer, and after more than a 
year of it I was never truly at ease around it. I kept it sharp and 
cleaned it religiously, but I guess it never truly was my friend. I 
also can't say it ever cut me, which I can't say for my infamous 
10-inch Dick, which once bit off a chunk of the middle knuckle on my 
left index finger. But I think there's something about the relative 
substantiality and permanence, if you know what I mean, about a 
cast-aluminum-cased Hobart, which makes the Krups seem, only by 
comparison, like playing frisbee with a guillotine blade.

It's a perception issue.

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04