Wounded Beauty: the Backbone

Wounded Beauty part 2

What I have heard for years about Shun knives is: they cut true. I am in a position to agree. But why do they perform so well? Any knife geek can tell you that a good edge makes a good tool.  But it's the backbone and handle of the Edo knife that elevate it in my experience.  

Work-Hardened (Chefs are too!)

When you bend a flexible metal paper clip the first time, it bends like plastic then stays bent.  When you bend it back and forth at the same joint a few times, it suddenly snaps.  Working a piece of steel changes its internal structure and characteristics.  Work (hammering is a type of work) can make steel harder, more rigid and even more brittle.  With the paper clip, the place that gets bent over and over gets worked very hard, and loses its flexibility, breaking off in a jagged point.  With hammered steel, each dent leaves a hardened pocket in the surface of otherwise homogeneous metal.  Add a zone of precisely made dents, and now a band of extra tough and rigid steel supports the very thin blade.  The Edo's blade goes where your hand directs it partly because it doesn't flex.  

It felt odd at first, really.  My hands sense minute changes in the edge of my knives as I use them, little ripples of discord that alert me to hone the blade as I work.  I didn't realize that my hands had become accustomed to the minute flexing of my Wusthof, but they had.  Also, my wrists had become adept at compensating slightly for the 22 degree edge of that knife, tilting it slightly when I would slice a roasted duck breast into medallions for example.  The tilting I noticed long ago and always bothered me, but I never experienced a knife that didn't need that subtle correction in order to cut straight.  Well, this is that knife.  

I keep having the urge to cut vegetables into brunoise (tiny dice) for the fun of it, which many prep cooks will attest is an odd compulsion.  The feeling of the handle contributes here, as it has the warmth of wood and smoothness of polymer.  It's rounded to seat gently in the palm and deliver an easy grip even when bearing down on a tough tuber.  

We're all eating finely cut vegetables in my house this week, and boy does the baby love 'em.  Should have cut soup carrots to tiny cubes long before now, as they go down easy with the younger set.  

Post Script

Just before I left Minneapolis for Missouri in the summer of 2003, a woman approached me on the street and came right into my physical space like a friend would.  "Hi," she said. "I just wanted to say thank you, and let you know that I am doing well." She took my hand but held it for a moment instead of shaking it.  A friend of hers stood a few steps away, looking at us quizzically. I myself struggled to form context for the meeting with this beautiful woman who radiated confidence.  

I just said "I'm glad to know that," and squeezed her hand.  After she had crossed the street with her friend I remembered who she was.  Happiness had changed her profoundly.  I'll admit I did a kind of Yogi Strut down the sidewalk for the next few minutes, feeling potent and joyful and pretty damned righteous that I had helped someone in a memorable way. 

Courage! Namaste!