Cooking Knives thread

[geormiet]

There are 3 good knives in my kitchen - a $160 MAC japanese 9" chef's knife, a $30 10" forschner, and a maybe $70 global utility knife.

If i could pick only one to use for everything, regardless of price, i'd take the forschner. The MAC's blade is the sharpest, but the weight and the feel of the forschner is better for me.

This 10" knife was issued to me for culinary school. It does not look nearly as good as the german or japanese knives which are 5x expensive, but the blade quality and the balance and the grip are almost as good. Also, I don't feel bad about banging it around or doing heavy chopping with it.

I don't think it can be argued that this is the best value you can get in a chef's knife.

[geormiet]

Also, for your situation spending $800 on knives is beyond ridiculous.

I would recommend you get a chef's knife, a serrated knife (bread knife), and a paring knife. If you are going to be cutting up whole fish and boning meat you can also get a filet knife and a boning knife.

All those other medium sized knives that you would get in a kit don't really add anything.

[MagicNinja]

yea geormiet as you have said i have realised getting a million knives is useless.

I bought a 20cm cooks knife and a paring knife. Had used them in the past, from Wuesthol or whatever the company is called. They are definitely good knives, but i'm obv too newb to know if they're VERY good knives.

[Wu36]

[ QUOTE ]
There are 3 good knives in my kitchen - a $160 MAC japanese 9" chef's knife, a $30 10" forschner, and a maybe $70 global utility knife.

If i could pick only one to use for everything, regardless of price, i'd take the forschner. The MAC's blade is the sharpest, but the weight and the feel of the forschner is better for me.

This 10" knife was issued to me for culinary school. It does not look nearly as good as the german or japanese knives which are 5x expensive, but the blade quality and the balance and the grip are almost as good. Also, I don't feel bad about banging it around or doing heavy chopping with it.

I don't think it can be argued that this is the best value you can get in a chef's knife.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is worth stating again. I have a 12 inch global and a shun cleaver that are both excellent knives (and shuns just look insanely awesome). But the set I got from culinary school (http://www.chefcutlery.com/) still gets heavy use. And now that I'm not working @ restaurants anymore the difference is really negligible for all my kitchen tasks.

So basically, while the japanese/germans are nice (and the better choice if price isnt an issue) there are some very solid knives out there that will be easier to maintain (with the added bonus of being cheaper if you're not altogether positive about how to hone/sharpen them properly).

Last quick thought, make sure whatever knife you pick feels good in your hand, the 12" I got as a gift was good when I was still learning(for some reason the large blade helped) but now it feels a bit unwieldy compared to a more reasonably sized knife (I'm 5'9", and think a well balanced 7-8 inch knife is best for me). I rambled a bit here, just want to reiterate, find a knife thats really comfortable for you. After all, you're the one who has to use it everyday.