Name That Knife!

[ChrisLehrer]

Quickie Quiz
On the bottom is a rather battered metal-handled deba. And on the top...

This is easy -- the brand (if you look carefully, you can see it) is Aritsugu. So...

what kind of knife is this?

[spaceconvoy]

Because of the way the top of the blade curves, I'm going to say 30 year old usuba, sharpened to within an inch of it's life.

[ChrisLehrer]

Only 10 years, but yes, that's a kamagata usuba. It's been sharpened every day for 10 full years, and that's what it looks like now. Pretty soon it's toast, but it's still in service in a distinguished Kyo-ryori (kaiseki) kitchen.

Some remarks from the chef about his knives, photos, whatnot, coming pretty soon....

[spaceconvoy]

I win!

But I did have the Aritsugu catalog in front of me...

Obviously it couldn't have been a wa petty otherwise it wouldn't be a quiz. Still, the curved blade threw me a little. Do you know it he put it there on purpose, or is that just the result of years of slightly uneven sharpening? I thought one of the crucial features of a usuba was their flat edge, no?

[ChrisLehrer]

Apparently it's just years and years of slightly uneven sharpening. They don't use a knife like this for a lot of flat in-hand work, where you need the straight edge and especially that big flat metal surface, but this is the kind of thing that does a lot of basic peeling, chopping, and slicing.

And yes, you win. I'm impressed -- I thought this was going to take a little while.

[kcma]

hurry, i'm in your time zone now, and it's 724pm, and i'm bored!! type faster chris, faster!!

[ChrisLehrer]

KC, it's not going to be like 5 minutes. I've got to think about it, digest, process, check parts of the transcript with my Japanese-fluent wife, whatever. I've got almost 3 hours of taped material, most of it about knives.

But... let me go look at the original thread, see what people asked....