/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Depends on how much you cook and what you're using your knives for. Also budget. I usually say if you're not sure and just cook as a general thing, just get what you need unless you spot a really good set deal. The cost should go into the steel quality, and maybe warranty if you value that. Otherwise just get what you need. Make sure you get good quality metal, remember that stainless is stainLESS and not stainfree, and if you get high carbon to read up on how to take care of it. Carbon steel will also get some discoloration over time and this is normal. Full tang with flush rivets is ideal, careful with wood or cheap plastic handles with gaps since bacteria can fuck you up pretty bad.

A good chef knife is a jack-of-all-trades and will cover pretty much everything decently if you don't care, but if you want more specialized cuts and performance then go for more. Other blades will be better at the one thing they do. Santoku is fairly flexible for use and nice if you deal with vegetables a lot. There's several different knives depending on what kinds of meat you prepare (fillet, roast), and paring knives are great if you're just cutting something small and don't need a fucking zweihander for it. Bread knives are only if you use whole loaves or cut a lot of buns at home and can be skipped otherwise. The honing stick is not a sharpener and not strictly necessary, but useful for general upkeep.

When I worked in a specialty kitchenware store, I usually set cooking newfags up with a chef knife + santoku + paring to get them started and most people didn't ever need to spend more since that covered everything. Others cooked all the time and liked to experiment, so having a full set was more beneficial. There were also aestheticfags that just likes having a fuckload of knives in their bigass kitchen, but you probably don't fit into this category if you're asking these questions.