Knives

Appears in

By Alastair Little and Richard Whittington

Published 1998

About

Blunt knives are worse than useless and indeed can be dangerous. Once blunt, a steel will never bring a knife back to the razor-sharpness that is its ideal state, but should still be applied every time you use a knife as you see butchers doing. In reality nobody does this, but in an ideal world you should. It helps maintain the edge, and the more expensive the steel the better it is likely to be.

The best way to sharpen knives in the kitchen is with whetstones of varying coarseness, which are lubricated prior to use, either with oil or water, depending on the type of stone used. Buy these from a hardware store, take along a knife when you buy one, and have them show you how to use it before you take it home. Alternatively, buy Japanese water stones. These are soaked in water and you then make an abrasive paste on the surface by rubbing with a soft stone called nagura.

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