Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

Why So Many Knives?

I am often asked by friends and fam­ily why I have so many knives. The belief is that all knives are the same — they are sharp­ened slabs of metal with a sharp edge to cut your food. Many good homes make do with 1 or 2 knives. Really, even I would sug­gest to most friends to avoid buy­ing knife sets and sim­ply buy a good chef’s knife and a good par­ing knife. That’s all you really need.

So really, the answer about why so many knives in my kitchen really isn’t about neces­sity. It’s about per­fec­tion and enjoy­ment. Per­fec­tion is never a neces­sity, espe­cially when it comes to food. Enjoy­ment isn’t a neces­sity either when it comes to cook­ing… for most peo­ple, anyway.

I came upon an inter­est­ing quote today that I think sheds light on this issue:

“The Japan­ese are famous for their acutely overde­vel­oped sense of spe­cial­iza­tion. They are the world’s fore­most per­fec­tion­ists, even more so than Germans.”

Knives are tools used to pre­pare food. They are the same as saws to a car­pen­ter, dance shoes to a dancer, and brushes to a painter. Why does a car­pen­ter need dif­fer­ent kinds of saws? Because each is made to cut wood dif­fer­ently to suit the pur­pose of the cut. Why does a dancer need dif­fer­ent pairs of dance shoes? Because, other than visu­ally match­ing what­ever out­fits the dancer may be wear­ing, a lower and higher heel height actu­ally suits dif­fer­ent dance styles bet­ter. Why does a painter need dif­fer­ent brushes? Because to cre­ate dif­fer­ent effects, the painter needs dif­fer­ent brush sizes and textures.

Does the car­pen­ter need many dif­fer­ent kinds of saws? No, unless he wants to do the job per­fectly. Does a dancer need dif­fer­ent kinds of shoes? No, unless he or she wants to look and move per­fectly. Does an artist need dif­fer­ent kinds of brushes? No, unless the artist wants to trans­fer what he or she sees in the mind’s eye to the paper or can­vas perfectly.

Does a home chef need mul­ti­ple knives? Do I need 5 chef knives & gyu­tos of dif­fer­ent sizes & geome­tries, a deba (fish butcher­ing & fil­let­ing knife), 2 yanag­iba (fish slicers) of dif­fer­ent lengths, a gara­suki (chicken bon­ing knife), 3 Chi­nese cleavers (all slicers) of dif­fer­ent sizes, 2 nakiri (double-edged veg­etable knives), a usuba (single-edged veg­etable knife), 3 petty knives (large par­ing knives, essen­tially), 2 san­toku, a par­ing knife, and a bread knife? No, but I want to cre­ate not just good food, but per­fect food, and I want to enjoy the entire process for a per­fect experience.

Knives are spe­cial­ized tools. Each knife is designed with a par­tic­u­lar pro­file (what you see from the side) and geom­e­try (what you’d see if you cut it and looked at its cross-section) to suit a par­tic­u­lar task. Yes, some knives are pretty much gen­er­al­ists, and other knives are def­i­nitely spe­cial­ists. The gen­er­al­ists like the gyu­tos and Chi­nese cleavers can be pressed into ser­vice for almost any­thing you want. The ques­tion is, though, will they be the best tool for the job? If you want the clean­est tex­ture to your food, or the fastest, most enjoy­able prep ses­sion, then maybe not.

“Good enough is good enough” is, I imag­ine, how most of us approach most of what we do.

“Only per­fec­tion is good enough” is how those who take real pride approach what they do.

My friend’s fam­ily base­ment was fin­ished roughly by an eco­nom­i­cal con­trac­tor and car­pen­ter. It’s good enough for fam­ily use, but very evi­dently not a mas­ter­ful job even to their own layper­sons’ eyes. Good enough is good enough.

My danc­ing friend who is also an instruc­tor wears soft street shoes when teach­ing casu­ally, but he would never wear them to a com­pe­ti­tion. He would wear only the shoes that allow him to per­form his best. Only per­fec­tion is good enough.

If I wanted to cre­ate food that’s just pass­able, I could make do with just 2 knives. But if I want to cre­ate food that’s absolutely fan­tas­tic, and remain happy while doing so, I need spe­cial­ized tools. I need far more than just 2 knives.

Many of my knives are Japan­ese. They are spe­cial­ized knives, and they were cre­ated to an exact­ing stan­dard. The Japan­ese cul­tural obses­sion with per­fec­tion is a com­mend­able thing and one that ought to be adopted in many fields of prac­tice. Cook­ing, I believe, should be one of those fields.

Food is not just fuel. Food is adven­ture, food is plea­sure, food is fam­ily, food is friend­ship, food is love, food is fun.

Food is a reflec­tion of how one lives life. It begins not with the first bite, but from the very selec­tion of ingre­di­ents and con­tin­ues through the prepa­ra­tion of the food and through the enjoy­ment of the food. Per­fec­tion may never be achieved, but surely it is worth­while to strive for it at every step along the way.