Sharp and indispensable

(listening to Ben Harper)

Knives are in my must-have category. You cannot cook without one. Heating up convenience food doesn't count. I have a lot of knives. I don't need a lot, but I like knives. I used to buy them too often, and my credit card situation showed it. Pocket knives, hunting knives, cooking knives. This bit of writing is, however, about what one needs.

First, one needs a fact to sink in: good knives are indispensable tools, and shitty knives are worthless, dangerous sources of disappointment. A good knife is a sharp, edge-retaining one that you like. A shitty knife can be a cheap knife, a good knife that's gone dull, or the wrong knife for the job.

Second, one needs a good knife. Preferably three:

An 8 or 10 inch chef's knife, a 7 inch Santoku also does very nicely
A paring knife, 3 or 4 inches long
A bread knife, serrated, at least 8 inches

They don't have to be terribly expensive, but they'll be more than a few bucks apiece if they're any good. You'll need a sharpening steel, too. Someone who cooks and appreciates a good knife knows where all that money goes. Steel must be high grade, properly heat treated, and correctly ground to make a good knife. There's plenty of shitty steel out there. Good marketing, but shitty steel. And don't buy a set(unless it's the set on Alton Brown's website. His show, Good Eats, is my favorite thing on the Food Network. He knows what's up). His book, Gear for your Kitchen, is a very useful and interesing incarnation of his pragmatic philosophy. He doesn't believe in having cheap crap or unnecesary frills. I agree with his philosophy, but I'm guilty of having more stuff in my kitchen than I absolutely need. And I always want more.

Retailers would love to have you buy a bunch of stuff you don't need. However, knowing what you need and what you don't is inextricably tied to good cooking and good living. You don't appreciate things if they are utterly superfluous. But I digress. Just buy what you need, or steal it from some rich person with a sensational kitchen but who only goes out to eat. Why are there so many of those people? Expensive, neglected knives, custom cabinetry, and not a crumb of cooking going on.

That being said, get a knife. The chef's knife is the "if I was stuck on a desert island" knife. It does just about everything: chop vegetables, cube meat, smash garlic, even open beer bottles if you're foolish like me. A paring knife is for the fine work (boning chicken breasts, making incisions in a leg of lamb for garlic insertion, peeling things, etc.), and the bread knife is important because an unserrated knife tends to smash a loaf to death rather than slice it. By the way, don't go for a serrated chef's knife. That's a saw, not a knife. That "Super Edge, EverSharp, Ginsu or whatever gimmick is just cheap crap. Where are the good knives? What do they look like?

A good knife feels good in the hand. It's not light and flimsy. It has no nicks in the edge. It is sharp. It has no gaps in the handle where germs can hide. It has no cheesy gimmicks.

Most knives these days are made of high carbon stainless steel. It doesn't rust (although it might discolor or develop pitting if you leave it in seawater or something like that), and it can keep a good edge. Some are forged (a heavier knife with a bolster, a thick, solid part between blade and handle), and some are stamped (lighter, less expensive, and the blade is of uniform thickness). I like the forged variety. Good stamped knives can be had, though. Forschner and Dexter-Russell make good examples of these. If you've got a hundred bucks or more to spend on a chef's knife, then Wüsthof, Shun, or Viking are the shit. If you don't, then get what I got:

10 inch Mundial chef's knife (forged, made in Brazil)

8 inch Henckels chef's knife (forged, made in Spain) Well, it's actually my wife's, but I've been known to borrow it.

A Wüsthof 3.5 inch paring knife (forged, made in Germany) nice knife. The Spanish Henckels line is fine, too.

8 inch Mundial bread knife

I've got more stuff, but these are the basic essentials. I've also got a Henckels honing steel and some Kitchenaid kitchen scissors.

To be continued....