The largest Chinese cleaver, the guillotine of the kitchen, is a heavyweight, broad, thick-bladed monster designed for no-nonsense chores like chopping through pork and beef bones. It is likely the very model used by Chuang Tzu’s Cook Ting to cleave his thousand palace-bred oxen into bits. The handle is deeply grooved for a secure grip and tapers to a narrow, ringlike juncture, emphasizing that one wields such a cleaver by holding the handle near the end. The blade is a merciless 1¾ pounds heavy, 8 inches long, 4½ inches broad, and ¼ inch thick at the top—sheer muscle for banging with no subtlety intended.
