I have a special affection for kitchen knives.
I don't think they should have the same hardness as a field knife.
They should have a softer steel which will tolerate side loads and resist chipping and breaking, and then come back with a few strokes of the steel.
If we restrict the use of kitchen to food things, like meat, soft knives will serve us better than hard because we can repair and maintain the edge without removing metal.
In a slaughter house or meat cutting plant the meat cutters steel their knives everytime they pick them up or set them down.
You don't let them get dull.
However, in the modern kitchen we don't have the tradition or skill of constant steeling, and so we think we want a hard steel which will hold its edge longer; and if we think we want that the knife manufacturers will give it to us.
I find the ergonomics of a knife much more important than the steel, mostly because we have such good and inexpensive knife steels for kitchen cutlery use.
I steel my knives regularly and only have to resort to a stone when I have let them go too far; maybe once a year or even longer if they have a good starting edge and I don't let it go.
So I say, handle a lot of knives and hold them as you would cutting something on a counter top.
How they feel should determine which you choose.
And the expensive ones feel good, just not always enough to make it worth the money.
I like the wood handled Forschners.
They cut, they hold up, and they cost one fourth what the prestige knives cost.
If I had more money I would buy more expensive knives for the aesthetics and feel, not for how well they cut.
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Luke 22:36, John 18:6-11,
Freedom
