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A judge has proposed a nationwide programme to file down the points of kitchen knives as a solution to the country’s soaring knife crime epidemic.
Last week in his valedictory address, retiring Luton Crown Court Judge Nic Madge spoke of his concern that carrying a knife had become routine in some circles and called on the Government to ban the sale of large pointed kitchen knives.
[...] He said laws designed to reduce the availability of weapons to young would-be offenders had had “almost no effect”, since the vast majority had merely taken knives from a cutlery drawer.
[...] He asked: “But why we do need eight-inch or ten-inch kitchen knives with points?
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Knives are too Sharp and Filing Down their Points is Solution to Soaring Violent Crime, Judge Says
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Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS ...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday June 01 2018, @07:44PM (2 children)
[Raises hand tentatively...]
There are a few rare tasks where a long knife with a pointy tip is really handy. Cutting up watermelons and similar things comes to mind. Not that you couldn't do it with other knives, but a long chef's knife is easy.
The whole point (no pun intended) of using a traditional chef's knife is the diverse options. For most applications where you'd use the point, a smaller knife is better, but sometimes you just don't want to dirty another knife for a couple short cuts. I'm not going to hull strawberries with an 8-inch chef's knife, but if I'm cutting up a single tomato for dinner and need a piercing knife to cut around the stem end, I'll do it with my chef's knife rather than pulling out another knife just for that purpose. (And I'm using a chef's knife likely because I'm chopping up other vegetables already.) Or, if I'm dicing up potatoes and just need to cut out a couple eyes -- again, the point is useful. In a pinch, you can even grab the back of the knife closer to the blade with your hand and hold the knife briefly that way if you need precision for just a couple cuts. (I don't usually do that, but again it can avoid dirtying another knife.) When mincing onions or garlic, the point can also be really convenient, though you certainly can do it with an Asian-style knife too. I frequently use my nakiri for similar tasks (with no point), but will pull out my gyuto at times too (or my Western-style chef's knife).
But mostly the point is useful for larger pieces of food, and traditionally chef's knives have points partly to deal with the smaller-scale butchering processes in meat preparation. If you're cutting up a turkey or if you are cutting up large pieces of meat and sometimes need a tip to help trimming fat or cutting nearer to a bone or whatever, they can be very useful.
Again, in almost all cases, there are more specialized knives more suited to a particular task -- though for meat fabrication, if you take the point from my chef's knife, you'd better at least leave me with a decent-length boning knife that's going to have a sharp point (and would be just as dangerous for stabbing). I don't do a lot of fish prep, but since you bring up Asian-style knives, note that there are a few different long pointy Asian knives that tend to be used there too (like the yanagiba) -- again, if you actually work with larger pieces of meat (of any sort), having a tip on the knife is often really helpful at various times.
Bottom line is that the most common knife I pull out for random tasks in making dinner every evening is an 8-inch European chef's knife or gyuto. I can often get everything (or almost everything) done with just one knife. If I'll be doing more tasks or need precision work, I'll pull out various smaller knives, or if I'll be doing a lot of chopping/vegetable work, I'll use a nakiri. If I'm not doing a lot of chopping, I'll use a petty instead, but I'll still want the tip usually for something or other.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Friday June 01 2018, @08:43PM (1 child)
Thanks for the detailed reply (and I've modded you up). For quick hacks like cutting out a few stems or potato eyes, I'm often using my santoku, too. And while I'll have to concede a small advantage to the chef's knife, here, those use cases are not important enough to change my general preference. (And, as you say, if they were more important, we'd be using neither chef's knife nor santoku, nor any other long blade).
But so I guess I now understand that the primary reason that I don't miss a (pronounced) pointy tip on my santoku is that I'm not cooking a whole lot of meat. Well that, and probably some random luck with the respective specimens of chef's knives and santokus that I've tried.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday June 01 2018, @11:29PM
Yeah, even if you cooked more with meat, you generally won't *need* a very long knife with a point unless you're working with larger bits of meat. Usually for smaller work a good flexible boning knife (and/or fillet knife if you do a lot of fish) and a sturdier knife (I prefer a honesuki over a western-style butcher's knife) are fine... And don't need to be 8 inches (or more) long. But these knives are pointy, which you really need for boning and trimming.