Ethnographic Kitchen Knives??

[Timo Nieminen]

A couple of traditional Korean kitchen knives. The larger one is modern, traditional style, forged from railway sleeper steel. It's inspired by the successful drama series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dae_Jang_Geum about a Korean woman who became a palace cook.

The smaller one is, I think, an antique Korean kitchen knife. The handle is natural wood, and ergonomically chosen. I haven't used this one yet.

The modern one is a nice kitchen knife. A few weeks ago, I gave it a quick sandpaper sharpen; before that, it just had the original edge. It was nice and sharp before; now it is nice and very sharp. The last time I used it, I cooked an ancient Babylonian lunch.

My main knife block is populated by mostly Japanese knives. I need to make a larger block that fits my Chinese knives. I don't think of those as ethnographic, but just another style of modern kitchen knife. Korean knives, OTOH, don't seem to be used in modern Korean kitchens.