I'm Just Here for the Food_ Version 2.0 - Alton Brown [109]
Chance favors only the prepared mind.
—LOUIS PASTEUR
ROCKWELL
The relative hardness or softness of a knife is reflected in the Rockwell of its metal. The Rockwell scale is a 100-point scale used to rate the hardness of minerals, metals, and ceramics. Diamonds have a Rockwell rating of 100. Most high-end HCS knives come in between 55 and 58, while carbon steel knives are softer, at 51. Some of the new ceramic knives on the market boast near diamondlike hardness, which their manufacturers claim gives them a longer-lasting edge. I find their lack of heft annoying, and the fact that they break like a plate when dropped is especially painful given their car-payment-like price tags.
Knives
I used to have a lot of knives: five or six boning knives, chef’s knives in every size from 4 to 14 inches, and even three or four different paring knives. Why so many? Because I didn’t know what I was doing and thought that my mediocre swordsmanship could somehow be improved by a great number of tools. Since I also didn’t know how to take care of knives properly, I spread the abuse out among the lot. Now I’m down to five knives. I use an 8-inch Asian-style cleaver, a semiflexible boning knife, a French-style paring knife, a serrated electric knife, and a 12-inch cimeter, which I mostly use to cut the backbones out of chickens and to break down large fish and beef sub primals. The cimeter and the boning knife are stamped-blade knives made by Forschner, the Swiss Army knife folks. The electric knife is specially made for fish cutting and came from a sporting goods store. It’s an ugly thing with a two-tone blue-and-gold chassis, but it has several different blades, two speeds, and it cost less than thirty bucks. My paring knife came from France and cost about thirty bucks. The cleaver was handmade by the only American-born master of Japanese blade making and cost more than two hundred smackers. If I had to choose one knife to live the rest of my cooking days with, this would be the one.
To be of real use a knife must be sharp, but it must possess the correct heft, shape, and balance for the job. Most of all, it must suit the hand holding it. Before you buy, you should know what you’re looking for (and at), how and from what it’s made, and the reputation of those who made it. Once you get it home, you should know how to store it, use it, and maintain it.
Metal Matters
When it comes to metal, there are basically two choices: carbon steel or alloys referred to as high-carbon stainless steel. Stainless-steel knives are widely available but impossible to sharpen, and quality knifesmiths never mess with the stuff unless they’re making pocket knives.
Steel is an amalgam of 80 percent iron and 20 percent other elements. In carbon steel, which has been around for quite a while, that 20 percent is carbon. A relatively soft yet resilient metal, carbon steel is easy to sharpen and holds an edge well. No matter what the knife salesman tells you, no high-carbon stainless-steel blade can match carbon steel’s sharpness. Carbon steel is, however, vulnerable in the kitchen environment. Acid, moisture, and salt will stain, rust, or even pit the blade if it’s not promptly cleaned and dried after each use. (You should probably pass on carbon steel when outfitting the beach house kitchen.) Slicing even one tomato with a new carbon steel knife will change the color of the blade. In time, it will take on a dark patina that some find charming, others nasty.
Most professional-grade knives on the market today are high-carbon stainless steel. This is an alloy of iron and carbon combined with other metals such as chromium or nickel (for corrosion resistance), and molybdenum or vanadium (for durability and flexibility, respectively). Although the exact formula varies from brand to brand, HCS knives possess some of the positive attributes of both carbon steel and stainless steel. The edge will never