On Knives

another day in paradise

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For someone who cooks for a living, I spend a surprisingly large amount of time using blunt knives. Obviously this only happens in other people’s kitchens (!) - friends’ houses we visit in the countryside, my mother-in-law’s flat, my wife’s grandmother’s place in Florida, and almost every family holiday we’ve ever been on. More often than not, I end up as the designated cook, never remembering to bring my knife roll (or even a sharpener), and find myself chopping with knives that are, quite frankly, in a shit state - trying not to complain, or hurt myself.

You may well know this, but blunt kitchen knives are more dangerous than sharp ones, as they’re more likely to slip. And I’ve noticed that so many home kitchens have drawers stuffed with a jumble of blades in different shapes, all at various stages of bluntness.

I’ve been wanting to write about knives ever since the response to my Substack post on pans. Knives feel trickier, though - I want this to be useful, but risk being a condescending bore to those who already know, or intimidating to those for whom even the thought of sharpening a knife is scary and simply not something they’d ever imagine themselves doing.

As you might expect, I’ve collected kitchen knives pretty obsessively. A few treasured ones from Japan, others from makers like Two Sticks Forge, in different shapes, weights and sizes. I keep them sharp with various stones and tools, and I enjoy the rituals.

But really, I thought it might be most useful to write something for the normal home cook: which knives are worth having if you can’t spend hundreds on specialist Japanese steel, how to keep them sharp with minimal effort, and how often to do it. Plus a few of my dogmas (never leave a knife wet in the sink, always dry straight after washing, and so on). A small bit of kitchen maintenance that makes cooking faster, easier, and safer.

The knives everyone needs: