Down With Snobbery!

[ChrisLehrer]

I am sick and tired of you people and your despicable snobbery about knives. I have here a clear demonstration that it’s all nonsense.

First of all, my set of four knives, which set me back a grand total of $13.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3079/3119984580_fa3fc4342f_d.jpg
Up close and personal, here’s my santoku, a knife you people claim isn’t very useful, but this one... well, you can see all its qualities right here.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3203/3119985058_bdb6a0412a.jpg
Now check out this subtle patina work:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3265/3119985484_a5b0535848_d.jpg
And I just bought this beauty, a 180mm gyuto. Cost $10, and you know what? It’s made of genuine metal. That’s right, actual 100% metal.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3188/3119980800_5fa977726c_d.jpg
Here’s the maker’s device, the mark of quality.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3114/3119151963_1f45e88a90_d.jpg
I know you guys love this one: I can read a paper in the reflection. And you can even read Japanese in reflection. Huh? A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3126/3119155053_2a2477d67e_d.jpg
Okay, so that’s enough about expensive knives, says I!

And no, KC, I won’t trade these to you, however much you beg.

[kcma]

the santokou is great what stone and angle did you use? i dont wanna trade, i want new ones!! where?

[VHo]

no arguing w/ that reflection.

[ChrisLehrer]

the santokou is great what stone and angle did you use? i dont wanna trade, i want new ones!! where?

Stones? No, no, see, really good knives like this never get dull, so you don't have to sharpen them ever. Didn't you even know that?

Buncha amateurs, I tell you.

[SShepherd]

are you sure that isn't a genUwine simulated laminated temperline ???:D


more about the one with the holes in it,,does it make whisteling sounds when you cut really fast with it? Obviously it's made for ninja, it's dark anti-reflective blade.

or-

are the holes for measuring correct individual portions of soba ?

;)

[ksskss]

The holes are where the garlic comes flying out when you smash it :)

---
Ken

[Jannie]

Boy you sure can't get a reflection like that from a German knife!

[thombrogan]

Kai used to make a santoku like that one. Good stuff!

Why down with snobbery, though? Do you have a better way of flaunting one's insecurities with minimal effort?

[SShepherd]

Kai used to make a santoku like that one. Good stuff!

Why down with snobbery, though? Do you have a better way of flaunting one's insecurities with minimal effort?
aw man.....you forgot your smilies:p :p

I'm surprised I havent seen a TiNitride coated knife yet -think gold bling

[thombrogan]

What are you talking about? The Kai santoku that looks like the one Chris bought is good stuff.

I'm surprized about the lack of TiN, too. We're the vacuum that soaks up the pakkawood that didn't find its way onto the handles of imitation Buck folding hunting knives. It is only by the grace of the Heavens, we're not fighting with the tacticool crowd for tritium inserts.

[ChrisLehrer]

What are you talking about? The Kai santoku that looks like the one Chris bought is good stuff.

Thom, I don't know whether to be impressed or disturbed, but I'm pretty sure you're on the money with this one: I think that is the Kai santoku you've got in mind, and it's a great deal better than one would expect.

See, I spent $10 for the gyuto, and $3 for the paring knife, complete with plastic sheath. As I say, I spent $13 for the set of 4. How?

Well, the dark one came with the house -- always a recommendation. More about that in a second.

The other one, the santoku, was given to us by a friend who was finishing his sabbatical when we arrived. You have to pay people to take away your stuff here, unless it's within the narrow limitations of official trash. So you try very hard to give away (or sell, if you're lucky) everything you have that you don't want to take home. And our friend just handed us a pile of stuff from his kitchen, including that knife. It's the best of the four by a very long chalk, and has actually done yeoman service the last 5 months. He had no edge on it, but it comes slightly asymmetrical, so when I tried to sharpen it 15/15 I got about 15/10, and it's done quite well. Based on where his house was and where he shopped, I suspect he spent $40 (more like $37.50 then) at the same place I bought my $10 gyuto, and in that case the knife is indeed a Kai, because the knives that look similar at that place are all by Kai.

Now the dark one that came with the house, that's a great mystery. Here is a close-up of the back face:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3179/3120894068_741b836e7b_d.jpg
and the front face:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3220/3120893536_c7ef63f5eb_d.jpg
note the strange ridge-lines running the length of the front:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3096/3120067613_4682c7be02_d.jpg
Now the ridge-lines are I think a weird imitation of a single-beveled knife. The edge is asymmetrical, too. The strange thing is that with those lines, you get all the wedging and so on of a fattish single-bevel without any of the advantages: it strikes me as an odd thing to want to imitate. And those holes... my guess is that this is the most super-ultra-cheap form of hollow grinding, but I really don't know. The blade itself is surprisingly thick, yet very light, and I think the brown coating is some kind of teflon or something.

Any guesses? I mean, not to identify the brand particularly, but what was someone thinking here? I'm mystified, myself.

[Octaveman]

He had no edge on it, but it comes slightly asymmetrical, so when I tried to sharpen it 15/15 I got about 15/10, and it's done quite well.

And it took you all of 5 minutes to sharpen...............................right? Right??? :p

[thombrogan]

Thom, I don't know whether to be impressed or disturbed, but I'm pretty sure you're on the money with this one: I think that is the Kai santoku you've got in mind, and it's a great deal better than one would expect.

Couldn't tell you about the weird knife you have, but I had that same santoku and now Gunmike1 has it. Kai is the most under-rated cutlery company among foodies, but that's okay. More for me.

[ChrisLehrer]

And it took you all of 5 minutes to sharpen...............................right? Right??? :p

Um, actually yes. I was doing something else and thought, eh, put a little more edge on that thing, and whip-whip-whip it wasn't bad. But it has held that edge surprisingly well, with only one very quick touch-up. I think Thom is right: that's a much better knife than I would have thought.

To give an example, in another thread I asked about getting my mother a better knife. I would not be ashamed to give her one of these, though I doubt she'd go for it with the label "Joy Gourmet" on it.

[thombrogan]

Moms need 270mm gyuto from Takeda.

[iceman01]

The Santoku with the holes, looks similar to this one from Solicut, although they are not identical.Solicut Plenum Santoku (https://www.schneidwaren-solingen.de/images/15611119.jpg)

[ChrisLehrer]

It's a lot like the mysterious black-brown thing with the holes in it that came with our house, and yet, strangely, it's different....
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3550/3292723848_d8f7436ab5_d.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3454/3292727056_a6d5fc096d_d.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3578/3291906327_91d3716e31_d.jpg
Masamoto 270mm gyuto, which as has been mentioned recently, actually measures 280mm.

I bought this because (a) it's a bit cheaper than the Aritsugu Kyoto gyuto, (b) everyone swears up and down that this knife is pretty spectacular, and (c) I have heard a horrible rumor -- on excellent authority, unfortunately -- that Aritsugu Kyoto no longer makes its own knives, but has them made in Seki and brands them with their logo, like (almost) everybody else. If I'm going to drop that much change on a knife, I want to know who made it, right?

On the up side, I got it and there was no saya, so we trooped right off to Aritsugu to get one. Now I had, upon removing it from its box, noted that it is sort of sharp but needs some doing-up. The Aritsugu people took one look and said, "you understand that it hasn't been sharpened, right? I mean, you can't actually cut with it like that. Do you want us to sharpen it?" We said no, and I'm going to have fun doing it, but I was delighted to see that whatever else may have happened to Aritsugu, they haven't completely deserted their standards.

Sad thing is, it's at least as sharp OTB as any knife I can recall buying in the U.S., despite being actually unsharpened.

[ChrisLehrer]

I should probably show my stable of knives, right?

You’ve already seen my good knives, but let me remind you:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3293/3119984184_8793010023_m_d.jpg
And then there’s all that junk I’ve picked up...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3475/3305803187_9014948895_m_d.jpg
Left to right:
165mm deba picked up at a flea market, as yet unidentified
210mm Aritsugu Kyoto black steel deba
270mm Masamoto gyuto
195mm yanagiba which we got as a wedding present
195mm Sakai Takayuki kamagata-usuba
140mm Aritsugu Kyoto stainless-cladded petty
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3557/3305804321_9cdf96d757_d.jpg
Everything looks sort of dull-gray patina'ed here, I don't know why -- just bad photography.

Opinions:
The 165 deba is surprisingly good for the price ($35), and now that Aritsugu has re-ground it it’s holding its edge extremely well. The Aritsugu guy thought it was made in Shikoku, but wasn’t really sure. He seemed positively surprised.

The 210 deba is awesome and I love it. I don’t actually use it to clean a whole lot of fish, because I’m lazy, but it makes the most amazing tataki ever, and it’s just a massive, massive honking piece of very sharp steel.

The gyuto is genius, but you know that.

The yanagiba is very nice — the guys at Aritsugu seemed surprised, because they didn’t know the maker but thought it was pretty well made hon-kasumi sort of stuff — but it’s much too short. Still, I don’t know that I’m going to be cutting all that much sashimi in the U.S., so I may not ever stump up for a bigger one.

The usuba I just got, no comments as yet.

The petty I like: holds a wicked edge, comfortable in the hand, doesn’t seem to like to slip around like most paring knives I’ve used. Cost $45, so no worries there, and the cladding doesn’t bother me — makes it easier to take care of, which is fine.

[Octaveman]

What a snob :)

[ChrisLehrer]

What a snob :)

Hey, you, I'm an academic. Out of my way.

Thom asked if I know of a better way to flaunt my insecurities. Why, yes, I do -- become an academic, inflict them on your students, take credit for being mealymouthed.

Snob? You have no idea. I'm a snob about everything, the academic's academic. I get snobby about what book the next guy on the train is reading. I'm so snobby I bump my forehead trying to look down my nose. I'm so snobby I wear underpants in the bath so as not to be seen looking down on the unemployed.

(where those two rotten kids came from, I have no idea)

[VHo]

copping to it is the first step to redemption.

but step two? I don't see it in this lifetime.

[ChrisLehrer]

I got a friend who is considered a competent adult in Japan -- unlike me, I have to be led around on a leash -- to help me purchase a knife through YahooJapan auctions. After some consultations, I went with one of the no-name brand knives.

Basically the deal here is that some knifemaker in Sakai sells you a knife that he hasn't had engraved with a brand name, at about half price. I don't entirely understand the ins and outs here, but I think the point is that the makers sell their knives to the big brand-names (Aritsugu, Sakai Takayuki, whoever) for like 60% of the ultimate list price. But because the economy is in the toilet, the big brands aren't always buying the knives. My sense is that this is particularly true with high-end non-special-order stuff -- low-end you can generally move, and special-order is special-order so you've got a customer. Instead, the guy sells it online, with no brand name at all, for about 50% of list; you get a knife without a brand, no real warranty or the like, and he gets a little less than he'd usually get but at least he sells the knife.

So when you do this, you get a sort of semi-custom job. You can upgrade the handle, decide on the ferrule, and have a "brand" of your own engraved in the blade. Oh, and the rule is, even if you figure out who actually made the thing, you can't tell, because that sort of screws it up for everyone.

The negotiations are mildly complicated, but in the end I sent my wire transfer and got the knife just the way I wanted:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3391/3659043974_5c8d188986_b.jpg
300mm yanagiba, blue 2 steel, ichii 櫟 handle, engraved 市俄古 作 which I leave to those who read kanji to figure out.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3581/3659044868_3ecafebc41_b.jpg
I was expecting the engraving to be the usual quick tapped-in lines thing, like when you buy a knife in a shop and they put your name on, but instead this is really engraved like it's a brand name. Cool!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2484/3658249849_1b4fa0fdfd_b.jpg
Note the wavy line on the back, suggesting that yes, this is indeed a pretty high-end knife.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3659042394_5a63c85478_b.jpg
One more shot of my toy...

Now I took this to Aritsugu today to get a saya and have them straighten it if need be. It was quite interesting. The saya was no trouble, but the nice man behind the counter kept sort of examining the knife in this odd way. Clearly he couldn't imagine who the maker was -- never heard of THAT brand! But then suddenly he disappears into the back with my knife, and I thought, oh god, he's not going to start grinding it or something, is he? But instead I heard a bit of conversation, fairly serious but not an argument, of which I could only catch a few muffled words. He comes back and apologizes profusely but he can't straighten it.

Why?

Because as you know, sometimes knives break when they're straightened. Especially with blue steel, he says. And if this breaks, he can't replace it, because they didn't make it. I pointed out that he'd straightened a cheap usuba for me once, and he said that that's easy: he's got stacks of them in the case, and besides they don't break much. But this is a very fancy knife, and they don't make them like this. (I think he meant with the blue steel and the wavy forging line, but I'm not 100% certain.) Fortunately, he said, it's extremely close to perfectly straight, and if it's sharpened by someone competent it will be perfectly straight by the time it's sharp.

When I have it sharpened by the famous Mr. Competent, you'll hear all about it.

[kcma]

市俄古? you'll have to help me out since i can only pronounce this in chinese...

she4-e4-gu3?

why not just engrave my name on it ;) when you finall read about me on the michelin guide, you can show it off to your friends :p

[ChrisLehrer]

That's shi4, in standard romanization.

As for e4, note that the really old pronunciations of open vowels are thought to have begun with some sort of aspiration, perhaps on the order of the German "ch" or the like, and this came into early Japanese transcription generally quite hard.

And yes, this is an older Japanese transcription of a foreign word....

[spaceconvoy]

I thought you were a Boston guy? Or maybe you just like jazz fusion? :D

[ChrisLehrer]

I was indeed born and bred just outside Boston. But I was forged, tempered, and honed at the University of Chicago. :)

Yes, KC, that's Shi-Ka-Go in Japanese, shi-'e-gu in modern Chinese --- you can see the connection. It's the old transcription of the place name.

[DrNaka]

Beautiful knife.

The montanren does not fit the images of the google search here:
http://images.google.co.jp/images?q=%E7%B4%8B%E9%8D%9B%E9%8C%AC&lr=lang_ja&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:ja:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

Quite unique.

Now you must make a myth about this brand Chicago.
That it was used in Lexington Hotel or so; something in relation to Al Capone or Eliot Ness.

How is the ichii handle compared to ho?

[ChrisLehrer]

Beautiful knife.

The montanren does not fit the images of the google search here:
http://images.google.co.jp/images?q=%E7%B4%8B%E9%8D%9B%E9%8C%AC&lr=lang_ja&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:ja:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

Quite unique.
Hmm. Not sure what to make of that one.

Now you must make a myth about this brand Chicago.
That it was used in Lexington Hotel or so; something in relation to Al Capone or Eliot Ness.
Oh honestly, we're all grownups now, Chicago is not all about gangsters and so on these days. I mean, they have their fair share, as does New York or Tokyo (seen Minbo lately?). And the Chicago I have in mind is the University of. Increasingly screwing itself up, but even when I was there (AB, AM, PhD -- glutton for punishment) the ONLY place I have ever been where nothing but nothing mattered but your mind and what you did with it. Nobody cared a darn if you showed up for class in pajamas, unwashed... but if you talked idiocy in class that meant you were doomed. We'd stay up nights in college, drinking cheap (cadged) beer and talking about stuff like Kant and Riemann sums and who knows what. Geeks, nerds, and freak geniuses all rubbed elbows, with very few others around... and they were encouraged to go somewhere they'd like better, you know, shoddy places like Harvard and Yale and Stanford. And in the end, you'd roll into class, unwashed, in horrible clothes, full of Kant and Kierkegaard and Bourdieu and whoever, and you'd run smack up against some weird prof who would always live on the sidelines in any sane cocktail party but who had read everything you had, and everything else by the same authors and all their teachers and students, and every critical response since doomsday, and remembered all of it, and who would not smack you down but rather draw you out and build and comment and develop. And in the end, I came away with a very weird sense of what academia was really all about, and one that I still think is what it SHOULD be about. I've lived my academic life by some weak approximation of those standards since then, and shaped my ideals for myself and my students by that world. And that's why I had the knife engraved that way: forged, tempered, shaped, and ground in Chicago. That's me.

Sorry. Rant off.

How is the ichii handle compared to ho?
Ummmm. Heavier? :)

[DrNaka]

Thats a nice story about your student days Chris.

The life time of aogami2 blade is estimated for about 10years of proffesional usage.
Thats something like 50 meals per day multyplied by 300days and 10years. So about 150,000 meals.
A home chef you will make 5 meals per week or so with this Yanagi.
So per year 250meals. 150,000/250=600. This yanagi will last 600years in your family.

Maybe your grand grand grand grand... son will ask a forum like this "I found this yanagi in my house. What maker is this?" :D

[ChrisLehrer]

Bwa ha ha. You live in Tokyo or somewhere like that, right? The home cook in America doesn't use a yanagiba 5 meals a week, I assure you. Do you have ANY idea what "sashimi grade" fish costs here? I am slowly teaching myself to slice beef and poultry (off the bone) with a yanagiba, but still, I will probably use this knife 2 times a week at most.

So I figure it'll last 1500 years. If it dies after 1000, I'm leaving a note in my will that my umpty-something descendant can come back to Japan and dig up the maker and yell at him. Seems fair, don't you think? :p

[kcma]

fish is cheaper than good meat, or those crazy black food chicken...

try to buy them through wholesale outlet somehow...

[ChrisLehrer]

In theory that's true, KC, but at least on the East Coast it's not so easy to find fish that you can be fairly certain has been harvested and brought to the fishmonger's case in a way that is appropriate for something you'd eat raw. And of course, not all fish is like that in the first place: there are parasite problems, and so on. The usual way to be sure is to buy something labeled "sashimi grade," and that means paying a large additional cost. It's not as expensive as buying sashimi in a restaurant, of course -- not by a long chalk -- but it's also considerably more expensive than buying chicken or pork or even beef.

I mean, it's truly sad, but in Boston, cod, scrod, hake, and the like -- fished just up the coast -- will tend to run around $6/lb cut, $2/lb whole, and it's often more. This by comparison to whole chicken at $.99/lb and sometimes $.69/lb if you look around. Cut beef and pork for most reasonable purposes can be had in the $3/lb range, and that's with minimal or no bones, so the yield is 100%.

If on the other hand you want something marked as sashimi-grade, that means only a very small number of fish, invariably frozen (not a problem with tuna, but giving a dubious texture to lots of smaller fish), and you're probably looking in the region of $10/lb or more. For goodness' sake, I can get free-range duck for less than that, and if I just want ultra-fresh duck I can get it at the Chinese markets for $3/lb whole with head and feet (yield is what, about %30? so $10/lb for just meat, plus free fat for rendering and bones for stock?).

The only cheap option on fish that I know of is to buy little "trash fish" at the Chinese markets, things like butterfish and lemonfish, which cost about $.69 each. Then you do them whole, shio-yaki, and they're surprisingly filling -- and butterfish especially are super-sweet and easy to pick off the bone, so you can eat about 2/3 of the thing. That's cheap, but I would be very wary of trying to slice one for sashimi (even if it weren't so tiny, I mean).

[DrNaka]

whole chicken at $.99/lb, Cut beef and pork $3/lb range

Far cheaper than in Kyoto or Tokyo.


sashimi-grade $10/lb or more.

Still cheaper than in Japan where good tuna (kuro maguro) is going 1000Yen/100g and more.

[ChrisLehrer]

Maguro, yes. Sashimi-grade tuna is quite a bit more expensive than $10/lb, more or less in line with Japanese prices. I really meant almost anything else.

The problem, in other words, is that fish is just not handled very well in the US. The demand isn't especially high, and what people do with it tends to involve a lot of cooking -- often over-cooking, but even when it's not over-cooked it's often braised, poached, or fried, all methods that take the internal temperatures way above the safety zone on parasites and other contaminants.

I read an article a couple of years ago that said a lot of distributors were agonizing about labeling things "sashimi-grade." If you label it that way, you can charge WAY more for it. But the problem is that if somebody gets sick, whether in fact the fish had anything to do with it or not, you're going to be slapped with a hefty lawsuit, and even if you spend the necessary money to fight it and you win, the newspapers and such won't bother printing that story except in the back page because who cares? The good story is "death by sushi: fish dealer poisons customers!" So there's lots of excellent seafood that's not marked for raw use but which would be safe in that way, and then there's lots of stuff totally indistinguishable to the naked eye that is in no way safe enough.

Then there's the problem that meats of all kinds, including fish, are held to have a very long shelf life in the US market. I don't know the rules and laws, but certainly meat that is marked down for quick sale has often been on the refrigerated shelf for some days. I don't know about you, but to me the idea of a fish caught and frozen at sea months ago, then defrosted a week ago and sitting on ice ever since, is not one that inspires confidence when it comes to making sashimi.

I don't know, though. Am I worrying too much? When I go into a market here in Kyoto and see the label for sashimi use (御造り用), 90% of the time it's a matter of the cut as much as the quality. I never worry about it: I'll buy something that looks fresh and eat it raw any time. But in the US I'm very nervous about this. I guess I just don't trust the US food distribution system.

[kcma]

99c chicken and meat are really supermarket garbage though... not saying i dont eat them, i do... but you really can't find fish THAT crappy.... even the tilapia from the crowdiest pound is better than mechanically engineered beef and chicken... chicken so fat that they break their legs? cows that sit waist deep in their own poop sharing e. coli because they're not being fed grass?

so as soon as you start buying respectable chicken and meat, the price becomes much more costly than fish, at least here in LA.

great artic char and tasmania ocean trout both for about 6-7/#, good albacore are 5-7/#, and good ahi tuna for 8-10/#. kona kanpachi? saba? saury?

nevermind, next time anyone says LA is not a real food time for food lovers, NY and Chicago are... i'm just gonna point to the fact that you can't even easily get decent fish to eat raw :p

[willspear]

sure you can you just get it in a fedex box :p

sad but true but for things other than shellfish the eastcoast blows. Although I have all the lobster I could ever want for around 4 bucks a lb

[ChrisLehrer]

Hoooookay, here's the collection, which finally fills the rack I built:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4154/4978085959_8b653a4abb.jpg
"Chicago" 300mm blue steel yanagiba
Masamaoto KS 270mm wa-gyuto
Aritsugu Tsukiji 225mm white steel usuba
Aritsugu Kyoto 210mm black deba
(unidentified) 195mm white steel yanagiba
(unidentified --- possibly from Shikoku) 195mm yellow steel usuba
(unidentified) 165mm yellow steel deba
Aritsugu Kyoto 150mm stainless-cladded petty
(hanging) Aritsugu Kyoto folding utility knife

Rack built by me, from my own design.

Pardon the bad photograph, which also explains why it's not going to get any more interesting if I photograph them with sayas off. Anyway, this is what they look like most of the time, which keeps my kids and klutzy wife safe.

[Tippet]

Chris A+++
well done

[VHo]

cha ching sir!

[ChrisLehrer]

Admittedly, I plan eventually to replace the small deba with a good small deba instead of this POS, but it's not like it's urgent or anything. The POS usuba and I have been through a lot, so it'll probably stay rather longer. The small yanagiba is a terrific small slicer, takes a very nice edge, and was given to me as a wedding present, so it stays.

The other five, well, I'll get rid of those when somebody offers to trade for something better or I grind them past their useful lives --- which will take a LONG time for a home cook like me. These are very good knives, if I do say so myself.

[Alchemist]

Very nice!

[wef]

Thom, I don't know whether to be impressed or disturbed, but I'm pretty sure you're on the money with this one: I think that is the Kai santoku you've got in mind, and it's a great deal better than one would expect.

See, I spent $10 for the gyuto, and $3 for the paring knife, complete with plastic sheath. As I say, I spent $13 for the set of 4. How?

Well, the dark one came with the house -- always a recommendation. More about that in a second.

The other one, the santoku, was given to us by a friend who was finishing his sabbatical when we arrived. You have to pay people to take away your stuff here, unless it's within the narrow limitations of official trash. So you try very hard to give away (or sell, if you're lucky) everything you have that you don't want to take home. And our friend just handed us a pile of stuff from his kitchen, including that knife. It's the best of the four by a very long chalk, and has actually done yeoman service the last 5 months. He had no edge on it, but it comes slightly asymmetrical, so when I tried to sharpen it 15/15 I got about 15/10, and it's done quite well. Based on where his house was and where he shopped, I suspect he spent $40 (more like $37.50 then) at the same place I bought my $10 gyuto, and in that case the knife is indeed a Kai, because the knives that look similar at that place are all by Kai.

Now the dark one that came with the house, that's a great mystery. Here is a close-up of the back face:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3179/3120894068_741b836e7b_d.jpg
and the front face:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3220/3120893536_c7ef63f5eb_d.jpg
note the strange ridge-lines running the length of the front:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3096/3120067613_4682c7be02_d.jpg
Now the ridge-lines are I think a weird imitation of a single-beveled knife. The edge is asymmetrical, too. The strange thing is that with those lines, you get all the wedging and so on of a fattish single-bevel without any of the advantages: it strikes me as an odd thing to want to imitate. And those holes... my guess is that this is the most super-ultra-cheap form of hollow grinding, but I really don't know. The blade itself is surprisingly thick, yet very light, and I think the brown coating is some kind of teflon or something.

Any guesses? I mean, not to identify the brand particularly, but what was someone thinking here? I'm mystified, myself.

Chris,

I must have missed this thread first time around but seeing it now reminded me...I have got a knife similar to your 'Holey Terror" so you are not alone in your 'anti-snob' position.


2087
The English translation of the name was Myodo. It was purchased buy a friend of mine at a Japan department store in Brisbane Australia 10 -15 years ago. All the box writing is in Kanji except the name. The profile is Funayuki-ish, with a flat back to the stainless blade with an almost imperceptible bevel. The lower half of the front has a misty finish, (before I started sharpening it) with a hamurigabi edge starting about 1/4in up. The ridge is consistently 0.8 from the edge but only about .005 deep. the shiny part of the front plus the whole back of the blade is mirror polished. The holes in the blade look die-punched as from the back there is an offcentred surrounding depression as if the die struck slightly off perpendicular. The blade length 7in, 0.067in thick at the spine above the heel. The blade is closer to 0.05in thick just below the ridge. The knife weighs 130 grams (4.5oz). The handle is rectanglular, Phenolic or Pakkawood and the tang is full-tang but only half length. Same pair of s/s rivets as in your handle

IIRC when I was using the knife it cut very well with no drag or stiction. I think the ridge, and maybe the holes, acted to break the action of the food sticking to the smooth blade. It sharpened quickly and well. Held a good edge. Early sharpening was probably on Arkansas stones (before I got my waterstones). I think it was a $20-30 purchase so considering Austalian prices not an expensive one.

Hope that adds to our store of knowledge or to our list of 'unexplained' knives. William

[FryBoy]

Hey, you, I'm an academic. Out of my way....

http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/290972.full.gif

http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/292150.full.gif

[ChrisLehrer]

Ha ha ha! I don't have tenure yet, but when I do, hoo boy. A friend of mine used to say, "once I get tenure, out come the hand-puppets."

[thombrogan]

Have you commissioned the shop or maker that will make your celebratory 330mm yanagi when that happens?

[ksskss]

Hello Chris,

Haven't seen you around for quite some time. I should catch up with you.

Ken

[ChrisLehrer]

Have you commissioned the shop or maker that will make your celebratory 330mm yanagi when that happens?

Another knife? I don't use the ones I've got nearly enough. The two yanagiba, the big usuba, and the petty get 90% of the work. The Masamoto is deeply neglected, and the debas await uncut fish, which doesn't happen too often -- though maybe now that we've moved....

If I were going to invest in something of the kind we like to talk about here to honor the occasion -- and I'll think about it -- it would probably be a fancy natural stone, maybe something in about the 6k range and quite hard. That'd dovetail with my very hard Asagi at something around 10-15k. Anyone got a suggestion?