Best Knives

Parent Cafe
21

<p>I bought several Cutco knives from one of my son’s friends. I was ****ed when I realized how dang expensive they were, and felt the heavy pressure to purchase. Yet, I am totally happy with the ones I bought and they look and perform as well today as when I purchased them.</p>

22

<p>I have Henkel knives which I bought in my early 20s. They work great now decades later and H sharpens them periodically. Have ony had them “professionally” sharpened once or twice. My B & SIL have Henkels also & B keeps a surgical edge on them. Their knives are about as old as ours!</p>

<p>Costco & Sams & others were having great prices on Henkel knife sets recently–under $200 for an entire set with block (tho we hate having the block & have just used a blade protector & thrown them all in the drawer with no problems for years.</p>

23

<p>I’ve had my Sabatier knives for 22 years. I use to sharpen them on the steel but DH broke it when he used it to try to separate some chops which were frozen together. Sigh. </p>

<p>I take them once a summer to our farmers market to the knife sharpener guy.</p>

24

<p>I think there is some confusion here between “high carbon steel” knives and old-fashioned carbon steel knives. There is NO way that an old-fashioned carbon steel knife would work well if only sharpened once or twice a year. It needs to be sharpened more like several times per week to have the really good edge of which it is capable. :)</p>

<p>In addition, they are so hard to come by that it is unlikely that anyone who has bought knives in the last 30 years or so has one. You have to really search them out. There is a Sabatier outlet right off I95 somewhere in the Carolinas, BTW.</p>

25

<p>I have a whole set of Wustof knives that seemed fine but then somebody gave me a couple of Shun knives and I’m a convert. My Wustofs now seem like butter knives compared to the Shuns. That said, there is no way I’d buy such expensive knives for my kids at this point. I normally just sharpen my knives on the honing thing that came with the set but occasionally I take them to the hardware store or Sur la Table to be professionally sharpened.</p>

26

<p>^^ Good grief! They don’t exactly give those old Sabatier’s away, do they?</p>

<p>[UNUSED</a> Vintage Sabatier Chef Carbon Steel Boning Knife | eBay](<a href=“http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNUSED-Vintage-Sabatier-Chef-Carbon-Steel-Boning-Knife-/290648939639?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43ac06dc77#ht_8417wt_985]UNUSED”>http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNUSED-Vintage-Sabatier-Chef-Carbon-Steel-Boning-Knife-/290648939639?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43ac06dc77#ht_8417wt_985)</p>

27

<p>Just to keep this party going, DS is a serious chef and would not be happy with cr@ppy knives. One of the wonderful things about our HS was that DS was able to take two semesters of Culinary Arts. Many kids from our school have gone on to culinary careers. </p>

<p>Anyway, from my mouth to God’s ears that he moves out soon and works at a real job. That’s more important than knives anyday.</p>

28

<p>I have Henkles and Cutco knives…Cutco wins hands down. I also have a Ginsu knife that my DH purchased at a state fair close to 30 years ago…we love it for cutting bread but it can cut through anything!</p>

29

<p>VH…I would suggest you take your son to Sur L’ Table with a gift “certificate” amount and let him choose a few knives. I talked to my son today and he said no need for a set. Most good cooks need a good chef’s knife first and foremost (or so my kid says) and a good boning knife. He has a bread knife too and a small paring knife which doesn’t really get much use. He suggests setting a budget and getting good knives that can be sharpened with a stone. They will be pricey but will last forever with proper care.</p>

30

<p>We have many Cutco knives (H used to sell them!) and they are still in great shape. We keep meaning to send them off for their promised free sharpening, and we keep not getting around to it. Oh well!</p>

<p>We also have one or two high-carbon steel Sabatiers (purchased at that “outlet” off of I95 in South Carolina) and one of them I use almost every day. It’s a French chef, but a smaller one, with a blade about 6" long. People forget to wash and dry it immediately, but the rust that forms is easy to remove with just a scrubby sponge. It’s great and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!</p>

<p>My other favorites are cheap-ish Victorinox serrated knives with round tips. It’s very difficult to find knives with this shape and I haven’t been able to find any really good ones (with a nice heavy handle, full shank, etc.). Still, they are so useful and I imagine they would be even more useful for young people who are starting small. For example, I get lazy while making sandwiches. I want to slice the bread, and slice the tomato, and the cheese, with the same knife, and spread the mayo, horseradish, or cream cheese with that same one knife! With a rounded-tip serrated knife, you can do it all.</p>

31

<p>Well, if you want to go seriously hard core for a kitchen knife afficianado, you could get him the world’s best knife sharpening system:</p>

<p>[Edge</a> Pro Apex Knife Sharping System 1 - YouTube](<a href=“Edge Pro Apex Knife Sharping System 1 - YouTube”>Edge Pro Apex Knife Sharping System 1 - YouTube)</p>

<p>It uses ceramic stones, but instead of trying to hold the angle of the knife over the stone by hand, it uses a moving handle that holds the stone at a fixed angle to the knife. It is super efficient because of the way it concentrates the pressure of the stone on the blade. It can be used for double-sided western style kitchen knives and single sided traditional Japanese chef’s knives. Having a good sharpening system is far more imporant than the brand of knife. I have the Japanese water stones, but never use them as the Edge Pro is so much better and requires almost no learning curve.</p>

<p>[Edge</a> Pro Apex Model Sharpening System](<a href=“http://www.edgeproinc.com/Apex-Model-Edge-Pro-System-c3/]Edge”>Edge Pro Apex Model Sharpening System Kits | Edge Pro Inc.)</p>

32

<p>The sharpest knives I own (and the sharpest knives I’ve ever seen) are three single-sided carbon steel Japanese knives. </p>

<p><a href=“http://epicedge.com/pics/85694_1_b.jpg[/url]”>http://epicedge.com/pics/85694_1_b.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://epicedge.com/pics/85702_1_b.jpg[/url]”>http://epicedge.com/pics/85702_1_b.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://epicedge.com/pics/85699_1_b.jpg[/url]”>http://epicedge.com/pics/85699_1_b.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>These are made from incredibly brittle high carbon Japanese steel. They start to rust in minutes, and they are so brittle that they chip if you are rough with them at all. They are also crazy dangerous because they are sharper than a razor blade, so you don’t want to make any mistakes. But, if you want sharp, these are off the charts.</p>

<p>Unlike western-style knives, they are only sharpened on one side, like a razor blade. They can slice ridiculously thin slices of veggies or fish or meat. I don’t use them every day because they are just too over the top, both in terms of danger and having to wipe and dry them immediately after use. I do use them to slice a turkey breast (after I’ve already removed it from the bird) or to fine slice flank steak, etc.</p>

33

<p>Again, another Cutco lover. The steak knives I have now were my moms and are probably not much younger than I am. Hands down, I love the way they feel in my hand over any other knife. Our town just started having a summer farmer’s market this last year and each week, there was a guy set up to sharpen your knives, scissors, etc., while you shopped. So I chose to go that route vs. sending them in, and having to pay for shipping and being without knives for a period of time. It was way too convenient to pass up, and he could do all the serrated ones.</p>

<p>D1 asked for a Cutco starter set for her birthday last September, after using all of ours at home over the years. Within two weeks, she sliced one of her fingers pretty good. Probably could have used stitches, but she didn’t want to go out that night, so she cleaned it out well and used medical glue.</p>

34

<p>Interesteddad, my son agrees with you. He says that he would go to a Japanese “kitchen store” and get their knives. They know what “sharp” is and how to keep it that way. </p>

<p>That being said, he used our Cutco knives last night without complaining. He, however, would never buy those, he says.</p>

35

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<p>If I were starting out today, I would buy:</p>

<p>a) The Edge Pro sharpening system, because it can turn the crappiest knife into a razor in ten minutes.</p>

<p>b) A model and brand of everyday stainless steel forged-style knives that has a readily available open-stock assortment of every imaginable size and shape. I have Henkels 4-star collected over many, many years. But, all the German brands (Wusthoff, etc.) are the same. I would probably buy Global or some other Japanese stainless steel brand today as they tend to use slightly harder steels and thinner blade profiles. Little harder to sharpen, little more likely to chip, but, ultimately a little sharper. But, all of the top brands of forged style stainless knives are just fine. The sharpness is in the sharpening, not the knives.</p>

<p>c) I would consider one or two of the traditional Japanese knives as a luxury and certainly not for everyday use. The vegetable knives and the long slender sushi knives are pretty useful, although a bit like trying to keep a Ferrari running as your everyday commuter car. A compromise would be a relatively inexpensive Japanese stainless steel vegetable slicer. These are two-sided like western knives, but very thin blades. These are pretty much what all the “santuko” knives are copied from.</p>

36

<p>interesteddad: I am a huge fan of the Shun knives, specifically the ones designed by Ken Onion, whose hands seem to be the same size as mine, judging by how well they suit my hands.</p>