One thing to consider is who is using your steak knives versus you kitchen knives. You may be particular about your kitchen knives, and careful of them, but your steak knives will be used by your guests, who may not be as demanding or careful.
Personally, when I bought a new set of steak knives, my major requirement was that they be one piece of steel, and dishwasher safe. To some, this may mark me as a barbarian. So be it. I use the steak knives for a lot of things besides steak, and life is too short to have to hand wash them. (I don’t buy clothes that require dry cleaning either.)
Are they straight (handle and blade in the same plane) or offset, like a butter knife? The shapes of fish knife and butter knife blades are similar, but I have always thought fish knives were wider and butter knives (not butter spreaders) were smaller and offset.
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CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
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That’s a part of it that I hadn’t examined but it makes a ton of sense. My other knives are in daily use. My steak knives (poor as they are) for steak or for chicken or pork cutlets, are in use maybe once or twice a week. That’s probably why I don’t care about them, as long as they are able to be kept sharp enough to do that job 1 or 2x per week.
As an aside, do y’all despise “serrated” steak knives as much as I do? Lower end places like Longhorn always have these beasts which rip through (rather than cut) meat. UUUUGGGGHHH. I even ate at a Ruth’s Chris (Indpls) that had serrated knives. WTF?
Yeah. I am worse. I don’t even eat steak (at home) more than once every two months. I am not the biggest fan of serrated knife. However, I do have a reverse serrated bread knife.
A good steak shouldn’t need a heavily serrated steak knife. At home, I have had used a regular paring knife and it worked great for steak. I think the main reason for serrated steak knives at steakhouse is that they don’t need to worry about knife sharpening. e.g. less for the steak, and more for maintenance.
That’s what my “master butter knives” all look like - the large knife that’s shared around the table for butter. Individual butter knives are way smaller and look like little paddle spreaders (there’s one in my photo, on the bread plate).
Yes, pretty much. However, somewhere I have a large set of all-SS steak knives (inherited, and likely a 1950s promotional deal) that have very, very fine serrations. Those do an acceptable job without–much–tearing, and they’re great for entertaining larger groups.
Fish knives are usually more straight; butter knives are usually more offset. Can be identical shape but as noted above, butter knives are smaller, shorter than fish knives.
We always called the one passed with the butter the butter knife and the smaller one at each place a butter spreader. Another interesting knife from my childhood was the fruit knife, much like a small, pointed steak knife. It was fun to spear an orange with a fork and cut the skin away in as few pieces as possible without touching it, then put the peeled orange back on the plate and eat it with knife and fork.
Can be identical shape but as noted above, butter knives are smaller, shorter than fish knives.
