RaVis
Oi!
- Jun 19, 2011
- 2,192
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s38/...noteGuid=99d295ce-676f-47b2-98ff-d5e53f0e63ee
$32K for a kitchen knife?
$32K for a kitchen knife?
I jusy can't fathom someone spending that much money on a knife to chop onions with. Apparently I'm in the wrong line of work.
The patterned Damascus process is obviously not lost; blademakers have been churning out interesting steel for quite a while. But what does seem to elude steelmakers is the exact process of making Wootz steel. There are still ingots of it available from India, and blades were made of it through the end of the 19th century, if I'm not mistaken. (And I often am). This wootz stuff seems to have inclusions of carbide crystals, and no one seems to understand quite how to replicate the stuff - or at least, they hadn't the last time I looked into it.
My friend's wife is a chef. She said that it's not uncommon at all for chef's at higher end restaurants to have knives that are $10,000 and up. She said the head chef at the place she works in now has probably $60k-$70k in knives. Personally I think it's ridiculous but her attitude is, "it's no different than a high end mechanic having $100K or more wrapped up in tools."
An interesting justification. Knives cut - that's it.
A professional mechanic's tools will disassemble and reassemble an entire automobile. In addition, the multitude of other things these tools can be used for.
Bit of a difference there.
Yeah but there are multiple types of knives in a chef's tool kit. And much like a mechanic's tool kit; there are different tools for different jobs. Not all knives are meant solely for cutting. Some do different things and some cut in ways that others can't. I'm not trying to justify a $32K knife-I had trouble forking over $200 for my first Benchmade. But to suggest it's reasonable for a mechanic to spend thousands on tools and to scoff at a chef spending thousands on tools is a bit short sighted...IMHO.
Here is a video of Kramer. I thought it was kind of interesting:
http://www.wimp.com/incredibleknives/
Would never pay anything near that though, I don't care how interesting or good.
Here is a video of Kramer. I thought it was kind of interesting:
http://www.wimp.com/incredibleknives/
Would never pay anything near that though, I don't care how interesting or good.