[Sca-cooks] Knives

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Mar 29, 2006, at 4:02 AM, Laura C. Minnick wrote:

> At 02:03 AM 3/29/2006, you wrote:
>> Am Mittwoch, 29. März 2006 00:46 schrieb Tom Vincent:
>> > To open a different topic altogether:
>> >
>> >   What about knives?  What are folk's favorites, least  
>> favorites, dream
>> > knives, etc?
>
> Isn't it about time for Adamantius to pop up and wax rhapsodic  
> about his 10" Dick? ;-D)

At Mei Dick, your satisfaction guaranteed.
Mei Dick -- where only the hair gets shorter.
Mei Dick -- Where our tools make the difference.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about something else...

But seriously, I don't normally use the legendary 10" Dick at home;  
it lives in my traveling tool roll. At home, unless I have some  
specific reason not to, I mostly use my wife's carbon-steel 8-inch  
and 6-inch Sabatier chef's knives, although a 6-inch knife can hardly  
be called a chef's knife IMO, even if it resembles one in shape.

I use cleavers fairly often, especially a strange little Hoffritz one  
I discovered while cleaning out my late aunt's kitchen; I think it's  
for boning poultry, but it has none of the flexibility of your  
standard boning knife. The leading edge is curved around a radius, as  
if the lower front corner was shaved off, and the cutting edge goes  
in a curve along the main edge to the upper front corner.

I also own an ulu that I haven't figured out how to use effectively  
yet...

Serrated knives are for cutting bread, and not much else.

The knives I keep in my tool roll include the aforseyd 10" Dick, a  
high-carbon stainless chef's knife, a 12" Medal D'Or carbon-steel  
chef's knife that probably dates from the 1930's (it has the old- 
fashioned single-rivet/peened tang in the handle, instead of the more  
common two or three-rivet "sandwich" form factor). Also a salmon  
slicing knife with a 12" blade by either Forschner or Victorinox (I  
forget, will have to check), two 7" boning knives from F. Dick (one  
stiff and one flexible), one 3" Dick paring knife and one which  
magically transformed one day from a Dick into a Wusthof (I assume  
someone accidentally walked off with mine and left the Wusthof, which  
it greatly resembles, in its place). Finally, a 12" Victorinox  
serrated slicer for bread and pastry, and a truly scary 12" Forschner  
scimitar.

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