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/ck/ - Food & Cooking

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5006794 No.5006794[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What is the point of spending hundreds on good knives? Are they more or less cook's jewelry?

I use Walmart knives but I have a set of Arkansas stones so they cut perfectly.

>> No.5006795

I have a Chicago cutlery chefs knife. Its fine, just need a good shapener.

>> No.5006798

You pay for the steel...

Also, those "chef" knives that sell for like 500 bucks are really only designed for people that spend 18 hours a day in the kitchen and don't have a lot of time to sharpen it all the time.

Also, don't believe the Japanese knives hype... Japan has some of the shittiest steel in the world. The best knives either come from Israel, Northern Europe, or North America.

>> No.5006800

>>5006794

Diminishing returns set in around $100 for a chef's knife. Beyond that a lot of it is down to personal preference.

Don't let anyone tell you that their $40 victorinox chef knife is just as good as a $200 masamoto. More like just as good as a $20 dexter russell that didn't get the ATK seal of approval.

>> No.5006812

>>5006798
>Japan has some of the shittiest steel in the world.

what, you think they're still beating together nuggets of bog iron?
katana hype is annoying but anti-katana butthate is just as bad.

>> No.5006848

I purchased a Masamoto 12" virgin carbon steel chefs knife from Korin.com. It took over 3 months to ship because the knife makers were backed up.

It arrived at my house in a 3ft long bamboo case with parchment and twine wrapped around it and signed in Japanese by the craftsmen.

I removed it from the case and the build quality and balance blew me away.

Then I tested the edge. Dull as can be.

I was heartbroken. I relegated it to my knife roll for a few months until I got mad at myself for letting it languish like that.

One day I pulled it out, put it on the stone for a couple hours a day now it is an amazing piece of cutlery.

It holds a razor edge for weeks. I can butcher a case of chickens, chop up 20# of parsnips, and then chiffon are a bunch of chives like it was a razor.

To this day I don't know why it came to me dull but now it is my pride and joy and the envy of all my cooks in the kitchen.

I also have knives from $30 Henkels, to Globals, to an entire Miyabi set.

All will cut well when maintained property but for fit, finish, and quality of steel nothing holds a candle to my Masamoto.

I do have a knife in my hand for about 14 hours a day so I feel the expense is justified.

I'm just putting my two cents in.

>> No.5006872
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5006872

>>5006794
>What is the point of spending hundreds on good knives?
I don't know. This is what I use most of the time.

>> No.5006888

>>5006848

Most likely they ship it dull intentionally so every cook can put his preferred kind of edge with his own personal angles and degrees of asymmetry on it.

>> No.5006893

>>5006888

Yep pretty much this. I have yet to buy a Japanese knife that came with a good edge. 45 minutes on the stones and it's a different story.

>> No.5006924

>
>>5006888

Wow I can't believe I never thought of that. It makes total sense.

>> No.5006940
File: 343 KB, 3300x2550, KnivesTypes_copy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5006940

PROTIP: put a convex edge* on your knives for best results.

*best done with a belt grinder

>> No.5006945

>>5006940

Or you could just gradually increase the angle as you go up in grit, and strop on leather with a polishing compound...

>> No.5006953
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5006953

>>5006945
>>5006940

Also that single bevel image doesn't represent the typical single bevel Japanese style grind, except honesukis which are more like 99/1.

This is more like what most people mean when they say "single bevel"

>> No.5006964

It's the executive gift of the chef world. That's it. Period. Compare it to the swiss watch, or gold pen, or collector's edition automobile, designer pocketbook or briefcase, or whatever else you get for someone who has everything, in whatever career they do. It's meant to be graduation gifts. New business relationship commemorations. That kind of thing.

Since you only name where you purchased your knifes, and nothing about their handles or composition, your question is pretty naive. I visit a physician sibling who has never-sharpened-once IKEA knives purchased the first week of medical school about 10 years ago...no issues cutting a tomato or bread when I visit.

>> No.5006974

>>5006794
>I use Walmart knives but I have a set of Arkansas stones so they cut perfectly.

Same here pretty much. Not Walmart, but I picked up a chef knife, one knife, from a cooking store for like $12. That was 4 years ago and it still lasts me. It's only just now starting to get a little bit dull. Last year I picked up a second knife at Fred Meyer for $7. Haven't even opened it yet. But I don't see the point in spending $100-200 on knifes when I can just buy one knife for ~$10 every 5 years and it'll work just as well. I only do routine home cooking though, so I can't speak for the guys who work at Benihana, but I don't think that's who this thread is about.

>> No.5007028

i have some OK knifes that dont hold an edge but they have done till now. Since my cooking has ramped up and i have the means, I was considering buying a nicer chefs knife.

To date, I know that i like a flatter edge like a french chefs or gyuoto(sp?)
my question is: where can I hold a bunch of different knives to see which one feels right?
Im not a fan of buying knives blindly online, at least with my minimal amount of knowledge

>> No.5007036

>>5007028
Korin has a pretty good showroom. It's on Warren Street near West Broadway. Just take the R train down to City Hall and it's like 2 blocks over.

NY Mutual Trading near GCT is good too but their hours are ridiculous.

>> No.5007044

>>5007036
luckily i will be in NYC but not for a while

Are there generally showrooms in most major cities or is the Korin one an outsider.

I live in San Francisco

>> No.5007046

>>5007028
depends where you are... near me Ares has a great selection that they let you handle and try on wooden cutting board until you figure out the one you like to hold.

I have a strong leaning toward German knives. I personally like Henckels because of they way they feel in my hand. My flatmate's knives are Wusthof and while they hold a edge nicely I hate the way they feel.

>> No.5007049
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5007049

>>5006798
> Japan has some of the shittiest steel in the world.

Nonsense, the Japanese steel industry is among the best and has been for a long time.

>> No.5007061

>>5007044

I don't know about SF proper as I haven't spent much time there, but Japan Woodworker across the bay in Alameda has a decent selection although it leans heavily towards traditional style single bevel. They do have some western style knives though. The majority of their store is woodworking supplies so look in the corner for the kitchen knives.

>> No.5007071

Knives are the most important tool in your kitchen and a shitty knife makes cooking into a chore. I used to think a knife was just a knife until i moved out of the house and my parents gave me a set of budget knives. They're so cheap and flimsy that they visibly flex and threaten to snap even when cutting cheese. feelsbadman

>> No.5007082

>>5007071
My old roomates had really bad knives. Cheap, dull, flimsy... Made cutting chicken breasts into a messy sawing job. I saved up and bought myself 1 good knife and protected this thing like it was my baby. Still have it a decade later, still one I reach first. Definitely worth the investment.

>> No.5007088

>>5007061
on their website right now.
Any other places in the bay area that I should check out?

>> No.5007365
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5007365

I can't say enough good things about this tool. I will probably never touch a waterstone again.

With this tool I can take a knife that's completely dull to a knife that make matchsticks out of hairs plucked from my head just by resting the hairs on the edge. Holy fuck.

>> No.5007374
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5007374

>>5007365
>powered sharpener without water cooling

Enjoy your loss of temper

>> No.5007375

>>5007365
That's so fucking stupid. Whetstones will give you the best results with relatively minimal chances of fucking up the blade. I can't say the same for these power sharpeners.

>> No.5007380
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5007380

>>5007365
>Ken fucking Onion
Jeeeeh!

>> No.5007404

>>5006794
You are right, OP, a fine knife is just that, fine. But a good utilitarian knife works great.

>> No.5007425
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5007425

>>5007375
No, using a power tool will give you better results than any manual method. I once thought the same as you. Believe me. Better results in 1/20th of the time and effort, I might add.

I went from rather dull to easily the most finely honed knife you've ever seen in about 5 minutes.

>> No.5007431

>>5007425
>honed
opinion denied>>5007425

>> No.5007435

>>5007425
>most finely honed
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

>> No.5007444

>>5007435
Sharpened, honed, whatever. In the end it's the same thing. I can bust out a sharp knife now in minutes. Better now?

>> No.5007447

>>5007444
lazy

>> No.5007448

>>5007444
I'm satisfied you're retarded, but hey, they're your knives to chew through, so have fun with that.

>> No.5007462

>>5007448
>only my way is the right way
>you're retarded

Grow up.

>> No.5007465

>>5007462
its only an opinion but now I, the other anon, am satisfied that you are stupid as well

>> No.5007514

>>5007462
You don't know what honing or sharpening mean. Congrats, you win?

>> No.5007525

>>5007514
In the end, they both mean taking a dull knife back to sharp. Semantics, much?

>> No.5007585

>>5007049
Japanese steel only became important because it was cheaper than US steel. Because nobody wanted to spend extra shekels on stronger steel, the market evaporated and I beams and shit like that are now shitty jap steel.

>> No.5007599

>>5007525
>tires and sandals are the same thing, they both involve transportation.

>> No.5007604
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5007604

> all this uninformed /int/

America, Japan, and Sweden make the best cutlery steels in the world today. That's why you see knife makers from all three countries using steel from the other two.

At the moment, Japan makes the best actual mass produced kitchen knives. Most of those are from Japanese steel, but not all. Some of the best use Swedish steel. American steel is less common at the higher end, although it does exist.

Germany is deprecated, only people living under a rock still buy knives from there, let alone their terrible 1960s-era cutlery steel.

>> No.5007936

>>5007604
>sweden
As a Swiss, I am offended. You mean Switzerland. I hate when we get confused for Swedes by foreigners.

>> No.5007951

>>5007936
I'm pretty sure he meant Sweden. Sandvik 14c28n > that soft Rostfrei crap that Victorinox uses.

That said, American and Japanese steels are the best for cutlery. ZDP-189 > CPM-S30V > rest

>> No.5007955

>>5007936
lol, no. Sorry Switzerland. You are irrelevant. Enjoy your jew golds.

>> No.5007981
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5007981

One thousand dollars worth of knives.

>> No.5007991
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5007991

You have to make sure you always have the edge in the competition, even if you suck at cooking, you can still be the best if nobody else is there to compete.

>> No.5010288

Knife bump

>> No.5010293

>>5007981
And yet they are so fucking ugly...
Also the top one has a major design flaw in my book, with the handle continuing over the blade, making it impossible to use the whole length when cutting something thicker and longer than the blade.

>> No.5010676

>>5006794
Buy a $25 chef's knife by Victorinox.

>>5006798
No. $500 knives are lifestyle accessories. Yeah, they look nice, but I'm never going to actually use them.

>> No.5010677

>>5006794
There really isn't a point.

>> No.5010736

I one literally two kitchen knives. I just use a chef's knife for everything. I love chef's knives. Mine is serrated and full-tang and it works fine.

If I was to get an expensive knife, it'd be a nice 7 inch ceramic chef's knife, just for the novelty of having a ceramic knife. Or like, a maguro bocho knife.

If your going for novelty, might as well go all out. I don't see the point in 600$ kitchen sets.

>> No.5010794

>>5010736
I own figuratively two kitchen knives
(eight, literally).

>> No.5010801

A pro chef has some very expensive knives for the same reason a pro mechanic has a running account with the SnapOn truck.

They use their tools all day and make serious demands of them. That difference that is imperceptible to a layperson is a big freakin deal on the job.

And past a certain point they are jewelry.

>> No.5010806

>>5007425
the worst part is, your edge isnt even straight.