Kitchen knives are so personally. You can do almost everything you need in the kitchen with a a chef’s knifeparing knife, and a bread knife. But the more time you spend in the kitchen, the more you develop a preference, and soon it becomes an n+1 thing, and there you are, pondering the mess.
There is a lot of room between most chef’s knives and paring knives. What’s in that slot – often called small, prep or utility knives – is often a mystery. Consider the knives you never use from a set and you’ll likely think of short, curved knives or small knives that don’t have room for your fingers between the handle and the cutting board.
What if you’re on the smaller side, or have small hands, or just think a small but still high-performance all-around knife might be your jam? What if the right version of those middle knives turned out to be so important?
To my delight, it is good. With equal parts luck, research, and trial and error, I found new and existing-but-flying-under-the-radar models of mid-sized knives that worked well, in part because of their size. The fit ones are very important and the big ones are beasts to prepare.
Recently, I saw a sign my favorite trade show so that I may be on to something. In the Messermeister knife booth, the medium-sized blade stood out thanks to the olive wood handle and attractive geometry. It felt balanced and comfortable with room for hands of any size to move back on the handle, or further forward in a Pinch the trap. Most importantly, there was enough clearance, so that the knuckles do not hit the cutting board under the stroke. With my eyes wide open, I saw more potential from Cangshan, Tarrerias-Bonjean, and Zwilling. This made my mind go. I remembered the Wusthöf Classic chef’s knife that goes in a Size 5 inches. Also, I was hoping I could find a shortened version of a Japanese smart knife called a kiritsuke and put a call to good people Stop the Knife he is in Portland, Oregon.
Before long, I had a stack of beautiful knives on my cutting board. I put my knives in my knife rack for storage and, for a week, used the new, smaller models as my daily drivers.
The more I used them, the more I understood what I wanted. First, I threw their inappropriate names out the window: small, utility, preparation … whatever. Next, I decided on my girlfriend Tadafusa santokumy longest knives, would be the longest I would use at about 6.5 inches. Having these “do it all” knives felt like a stretch, but they really needed to be able to do a lot. I was willing to work with the knife to get its strength, but I preferred something that could handle different cutting styles and all kinds of food. They had to be creatures of preparation.
