Maybe. But everyone should realize that any such preference is based largely on tradition and convention, partly on profile, and hardly at all on sharpness.
Exactly the same can be said of the gyuto. There are Western analogues to virtually all the specialty and regional-variant J-knives you mention.
Well, for “just one”, I would choose a 10-inch distal taper chef with a heavy spine at the heel, thinning to quite thin with a usefully acute point at the tip. Tall at the bolster for knuckle clearance, but if it has a forged bolster, it can’t go all the way to the heel. Enough belly for rock-cutting. Flat ground or forged, not hollow-grind. Flat or convex cutting bevels. Probably carbon steel, and in something like 52100. If money isn’t an object, maybe a Kramer. If it is, maybe a licensed Kramer design.
It falls back on them when they’re a lousy cook. If you can’t cook, you usually know it deep down. Surrounding yourself with expensive equipment is just prolonging the eventual “outing” - at least with what my group does. Your butt can’t run and hide. Everybody in my small operation has cooked at the very highest levels.
My post was somewhat hyperbole, I do admit that – but not by much! I can’t describe the whole vibe unless you’ve been there. When somebody is asking for a half million dollar revolver, term piece, whatever – you tend to notice things. My role as a private equity entrepreneur in the Manhattan fine dining space is to make sure priorities are sharply in focus, and when they’re not, to re-focus them – even if we don’t end up doing a deal. They get that as a freebie. What they do with it? That’s their business. It’s like handing a panhandler a $100 bill-- God has an opportunity to intervene. I’ve done my part.
We’ve done bridge loans and what would be called mezzanine financing in other contexts, with Michelin starred restaurants. We’re not worried about knives in those situations. The conversation is on a different plane altogether. Some names can call us and, no questions asked, we make an ACH transfer next day. Every business needs short-term financing from time to time. Even the big boys. I haven’t had to say no in over twenty years.
And besides all of this rot – I am a damned devastating cook. If it all went to $hit, I can still get it done at the stove. I can always make the rent shaking a pan.
Run your home kitchen like you were trying to win a star - creatively and financially. Prioritize ingredients. Buy the equipment that is a must-have. Save on the stuff that isn’t.
zilch to do with brand or stainless or carbon or hardness or , , , , anything else.
keeping the knife sharp is the whole game. I use a steel (just about) every time the knife comes out of the block. which reduces my ‘get out the stones’ thing to 2x year - and I cook from scratch (at home) every dinging day . . .
I will go further out on the limb . . .
not really one knife that will do all for everybody…
my 8" chef’s does most of the heavy work.
but for veggie prep, finer dicing/slicing, the ‘flatness’ of the 7" santoku rules.
neither is worth a hoot for deboning a chicken, or a pork chop, or a ‘bone in’ most anything…
(okay, I’m a bone in fan, but DW prefers hers boneless… your marriage may vary…)
the 10" chef will do most general tasks - but it is longer and a bit more cumbersome for ‘smaller’ tasks. aka, the 6" chef’s is ideal for trimming the outer fat from a chop.
and the 10" slicer is da’ bomb for skinning a big ole salmon filet - a 10" chef . . . no, that’s not so kool, way too much sticking surface and inflexibility . . .
so, whether one knife will do everything in your kitchen really depends on what you do in your kitchen . .
I thank you for saying it. My Kiwis are cheap as are my Dexters and radas. I love them because I can get them sharp right now. I’m not boning out 50 chickens, mind you; but for my purposes, I love them for that.
One knife? My favorite knives are on the thinner side. They slide through foods with less resistance and they are just easier to handle for majority of my tasks. However, I have thick cleavers to complement these thin knives.
If I can have one knife, then maybe a medium or thin-medium Chinese style knife.
Currently I would pick the best kitchen knife I have yet to work with since I started amateur home cooking many years ago.
It’s not an official steel type, it’s not SG2/R2 steel, so probably a modification of a VG10 of some kind.
There are no official info about the steel used in this knife.
It’s my Mac Ultimate 26.5 cm chefs knife.
The best knife I have ever worked with. Love the balance in it. It feels like a part of my arm, when I cut with it.
It’s balance suits me perfectly, the handle is made from solid feeling pakkawood, the bolster is quite thick, but it’s only half a bolster, so you can sharpen the entire knife blade very easily.
It stays sharp for a very long time. I have only sharpened my Mac Ultimate knives once on my Naniwa stones. The Mac Ultimate knife stays sharp far longer than what I would have thought and I just use a fine ceramic honing rod and my F. Dick Combi steel on it and it stays extremely sharp day in and day out.
I’m so in love with this quite bland looking knife, that I have seriously thought about seeling my entire knife collection and just stay with my 2 x 23.5 cm Mac Ultimate and 2 x 26.5 cm Mac Ultimate chef’s knives and the Mac Ultimate 26.5 cm slicer and simply stop right there.
It behaves like a top Euro chef knife, and it just cuts extremely well for such a big knife.
Mac says they have used their’ sub-zero tempered steel’ in the Ultimate line, and I don’t really know what that means, all I can tell is that they stay sharp for a really long time - on par with my SG2/R2 knives in this regard.
It feels like a forged knife, yet it is made with a stamped blade.
No. I’m not sponsored by Mac, I just found the perfect chefs knife for my needs.
So if i understand your logic right. Expensive knives and cookware are only for what qualifies as great chefs in your opinion?
Regarding the risk of being “outed” I have no problems with letting the world now that I’m nothing more then a descent home cook, and that’s on a good day. My profession is a whole other field.
Still I enjoy using the knives I have purchased over the years. I never bought any of them to help me pretend I’m something I’m not. I bought them because they make it more fun to cook.
I can’t help thinking that what you describe is essentially a very unhealthy culture where it apparently takes nothing more then your choice of kitchen knives to be looked down on. I don’t get it.
The Forschner Rosewood line is what I almost always recommend to folks who want great, affordable knives. Not only do they easily take a fantastic edge, but they’re wonderfully lightweight, well-balanced, and comfortable. Their stamped construction makes them fantastic all-around performers. I also suggest the oft-repeated comment that they should NOT buy a pre-boxed knife set, but to put their knife budget towards a single knife of the style they use most often at home. That way, they’ll get a better quality knife that they’ll be happier using for a longer time (and maybe even pass down).
my kids are not (yet) old enough to get into the idea of DIY satisfaction and really sharp knives…
so, reading up on Chad Ward’s treatises, I made some maple/stainless/mouse pad blocks where they could simply use wet/dry fine grit papers to maintain a real edge.
it works. son-in-law recently blurted out - “Dang that makes sharp knife!”
as does honing . . . DD#1 didn’t use the hone because it made such a horrible scraping noise . . . and when I demonstrated “this is your dull knife” vs “this is your honed knife” she changed her mind.
here’s the simple Chard Ward design - added the side friction lever to give an indication of chef’s angle vs slicer angle . . .
Stamped knives get a bad rap. I think this is because most consumers don’t understand well how knives are made commercially. A stamped billet or blank of tool steel is used as a starting point regardless of whether the blank is ground to shape and primary bevel (a/k/a stock relief) or whether it is forged to size shape and primary bevels (and THEN gets ground).
Consumers commonly conflate hammer forging with the robotic electro-stretch-push most industrial cutlers use to form their integral bolsters. From a user’s standpoint, there is no metallurgical difference between Toolsteel X that has been stamped and ground and the same steel that has been electro-forged. Some steels will exhibit a finer grain structure after being hammer-forged, but in the hand, I defy anyone to tell the difference. Cryogenically treating a suitable steel makes more difference, IMO, just as it does with rifle barrels.
Another thing… You already know this, but there are steps done AFTER heat treating. These include more grinding, polishing, and setting the cutting bevels. If the heat treat is done wrong, or if any of those after-steps mess up a good heat treat, it doesn’t matter if the blade was forged or stamped, or what the steel is. What DOES matter is whether the cutler has good quality control and testing.
What you offer–at a great value, BTW–is the bespoke, hand-made aspect and your stylistic imprimatur. The profiles, bevels, weight and balance DO make a difference. But I bet your blades would perform the same whether you plasma-cut your blanks from barstock or forged them from ball bearings or John Deere load shafts.
Tim’s “One Knife” question, taken literally, is that you only get one. Like you, if I get MORE than one, I prefer thinner. But if you get only one, and that one needs to be able to both bone and spatchcock a chicken, slice and dice vegetables, and cleanly slice bread and larger cuts of protein, what do you choose?
The hidden beauty of Tim’s choice is that it is the best of both the Thin and Thick worlds. It can cudgel through small bones using the thicker base. Its tip is thin and narrow enough to bone and disjoint, and it’s long enough to push/pull slice. It’s got a belly to rock. It’s easy to resharpen and not prone to chip or break the tip.
Great looking honing/debur block. I also like Chad’s book a lot. I think I may have read through most of his online manuscript before purchasing his book. It was still a great read (when I read his content the second time in his book).
I think for me… it was simply following one’s parents footstep. I didn’t even know there is such a thing called carbon steel knife or as a matter carbon steel cookware before my grad school time. So naturally, I just buy what looked similar to what I have seen as a child.
I don’t think I have ever even seen a carbon steel knife in a supermarket.
I simply don’t like things that will react and rust if you don’t wipe it after each time you’ve cut a lemon or tomato with your knife. That’s why I never went further into carbon steel knives.
I know they are easier to sharpen and can get very very sharp, but they rust or should I say react naturally with the environment and that’s just not for me unfortunately.
