Ethnographic Kitchen Knives??

[Nathaniel]

Originally Posted by Montino Bourbon

On a tour, I stopped in a large outdoor market in Chang Mai. A butcher there was using this, or something like it. I knew I had to have one.

Couple of days later I stopped along the road in a little village where they specialize in blacksmithing. One of the smiths was just putting the finishing touches on this. 16 inches long, blade 9 inches long, 3 inches wide. it weighs 1 1/2 solid pounds. And yes, I do use it occasionally. The last time I used it was to take apart a large fish.

Heavy blade. The spine is a quarter of an inch thick at the handle. It can be used as a throwing knife too, since it's heavy enough that no matter how it hits it'll hurt!

Speaking of which Montino, you all should check out the Thai movie, Chocolate....there is a fight scene in a meat market with much larger knives that will have you jaw dropped and cringing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcgt_NsPq3w

[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.