The Care and Feeding of Kitchen Knives
By Micah Cheek
A good knife is widely regarded as the most important part of any kitchen. Educating customers on the techniques that keep a knife in working order can help new knife owners avoid costly repairs and premature wear. According to Bob Tate, former student of cutlery legend Bob Kramer and current owner of Seattle Knife Sharpening, a number of factors contribute to wear on the blade and how often it needs to be sharpened. “When you ask what people aren’t doing right — they’re not honing, they’re not using a good cutting board, they’re using bad technique, [and] they’re chopping through food that’s much too hard for the knife,” says Tate.
The first factor is what the cook is cutting regularly. “If you’re using your knife to cut parsnips and cantaloupes and things like that, your knives are going to last longer than if you’re cutting kabocha squash, for instance,” says Tate. “What I tell people is if you eat a lot of winter squash, use one large knife for it, and I can put a stronger edge on it with a stronger bevel at the edge.”
Cutting boards come in different levels of hardness, and some can have adverse effects on the blade. Tate recommends a quality maple Boos board or a good plastic board that’s made of soft plastic, not a hard acrylic. “There are companies that make extremely hard cutting boards that I don’t recommend,” he said. “A cutting board made out of countertop material is not the kind of cutting board you want.”
Different chopping and slicing movements can cause a surprising amount of wear on a knife. “If you’ve got a good rocking motion where the knife is always in contact with the board’s surface, that’s a good technique. But a lot of people will just whack at stuff – the harder you are like that, the more you’re going to wear away the edge of the knife,” says Tate. “If you’re really pushing 3 or 4 inches each stroke, you’re really wearing your blade out. A lot of people, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s insane the amount of [effort] people put into stuff that’s just wasted.”
If getting knives sharpened is like going to the dentist, honing knives is like brushing your teeth: a daily regimen to keep things working between checkups. “I ask them if they have a steel. If they say they have one, I ask them how they use it. If they’re doing it wrong, I’ll teach them,” says Tate. “A lot of times in knife skills classes they’ll have you hold the knife at a 45 degree angle to the steel. But the way I [hone] knives, it’s like a 15 degree angle. I encourage people to keep the spine about a quarter inch above the steel. I don’t use degrees because it’s easier for people to understand inches.”
Even a well-honed knife will eventually need sharpening. For sharpening at home, Tate recommends going with an old-fashioned approach. “I think for home sharpening, the best way to sharpen at home is with a set of good quality water stones and all the things that come with that. As far as gadgets that sit on counter and you drag your knife through, I strongly discourage those. What happens is, there are little metal and ceramic things in there that are set at a certain angle that will just scrape the side of the bevel of the knife. It’ll chew up the edge and it’ll be extremely rough,” says Tate. “You wind up losing more material than you should at the edge.” Countertop grinders can do even more damage to knives that have bolsters, a part of the blade that widens out to meet the edges of the handle. “With German knives that have bolsters, you pull it through a number of times; you wind up hollowing out the edge of the knife. You can see light coming through [when the blade is resting on a flat surface] because of the way it’s chewing out there. I spend all day fixing that; it’s one of the main things I do.”
Keeping a knife in use for decades comes down to a few basic principles. “As far as home knife care, there’s some dos and don’ts,” says Tate. “The main thing is, never put your knife in the dishwasher. Most of it is just common sense stuff; don’t throw a knife in a drawer without a cover.” While a more expensive knife might require more care to keep it in working condition, a customer’s primary goal should be comfort. “The main thing for me, you need to have a knife that you’re comfortable with. I encourage people to try them out first. Even if your budget is such that you can afford a $300 knife, it might not feel good in your hand,” says Tate. “When you buy a knife, it’s an investment; it’s something you’re going to be having for 20 years, so you always want to get something you’re comfortable with.”
