I totally understand
D
Dr. Rayeye
- that is a very good strategy and you can sort the wheat from the chaff and end up with a gorgeous collection that is high-performance and dependable.
I would have trouble deciding what are my current favourite sharpies - I take a worn-out cheap carbon caidao to work with a cheapie Chinese bread-knife and Lancashire peeler for bread and root veg etc.
That`s like someone asking me what my favourite music is - one day it`s Classical Iraqi oud recitals, next it`s Japanese all-girl heavy metal groups.
I have catholic reading tastes too - at the moment I have Wilfred Owen - a World War One English poet downstairs and an intriguing English translation of the 40`s classic - Phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty upstairs - They both ground me in these tumultuous times.
My girlfriend knew I was chopping in China in the 1990`s using just a cheap caidao and occasionally a small parer or Asian 5" - 6" petty.
I have been cooking since I was seven and until I was a teenager all I used was a 1970`s Tramontina 6" utility , a 10" no brand Japanese bread knife and a Lancashire peeler and I cooked for big get togethers feeding hundreds at least once a month and my family of 6 weekly - at least breakfast and evening meal.
My Mother and grandparents were amazing cooks and made their own pasta, bread, cakes, biscuits , minced beef for schnitzels, grew veggies, brewed beer and wine - everything.
My grandparents would not have a freezer or eat tinned goods so everything was cooked fresh either before work or early evening.
Mum bought them a chest freezer which they used as a blanket box - it was never plugged in !
Later in college and uni I tried to teach the other students to buy good produce and do rudimentary meals usually with no change in their behaviour.
So, often pooling meagre resources I made communal meals, made lots of solid friends and did my best to encourage them to use their imagination.
I was not going to eat dried, often dead cereals, cold snacks, sandwiches and processed junk food.I tried to tell my mates that you are what you eat, you need brainfood to make neuro transmitters and build muscle to be normally healthy with a sensible diet and the odd treat but not typical student fare that gave them unstable energy levels, obesity and depression.
In my mid twenties I moved to London and I ended up doing fusion cooking from at least 2-3 Countries with every meal.
My favourite mixtures were Eastern European, Middle Eastern and English or English, French and Indian or Tex-Mex, Spanish and British or Thai / Malay / Chinese / Japanese or Scandinavian / Russian / Polish meals or my Gf loved Italian and Asian concoctions haha !
The reason we had World cuisine is because my friends were from all over and they wanted to reminisce about food in their old country - it was fascinating blending and experimenting - I learnt loads.
To cut a long story short I went to live and work in Hong Kong and Macau 30 years ago and my knife skills got different using a budget caidao mainly.
I also lived in Egypt where I adored the locals and cooked mad new things.
I smithed as a hobby at weekend making 1-2 Asian carbon knives a week in Asia after being a blacksmith in England from the late seventies to the early eighties.
I mostly made sickles, hoes, axes and spades then and loads of ironmongery for farmers and villagers - not many knives at first !
In China I made loads of knives but in the last 30 years I`ve hardly done any because my arthritis is too bad and it`s too demanding.
In Wetherby, Yorkshire it was a mad horsey town with a racetrack and farms everywhere and there was only two local farriers who were rushed off their two feet for quadrupeds so I did the honours after making loads of horse-shoes in a little 19th century 2-bed forge cottage.
I was so hot I lost 15 lbs a weekend; no need for a diet or gym in the country.
It was even worse in the fox hunting season - there was a lot of worn-out shoes to hammer and shod.
To me the most important thing was practice cooking for big groups and socialising playing my sax, impromptu jams with piano / keyboards and guitar or having a card school or boardgames / charades nights - brilliant for integration in different social strata - and fun to boot !
I don`t need fancy knives because I am so used to using a 5" - 6" £1 - £5 knife alone to cook for a big wedding reception / wake / party; I had no choice 40 years ago.
To me knife-skills are much more important than the cutting implement and speed and accuracy goes up when you do serious bulk cooking.
I have never done recipes, don`t weigh or measure anything or need to look at the kitchen clock anymore - it just happens and I rarely undercook / overcook / over-season / under-season - just done it too often home and away.
It happens when I`m over-tired, too drunk or over-busy / rushed but not very often.
My girlfriend follows recipes and cookbooks and measures things but I just do things by feel - opposites attract haha !
One day was funny - she looked up how to roast chestnuts on the net and I told her just to put `em in a medium oven, middle shelf and take them out when they`re slightly splitting - I said there`s no cooking instructions written on the side of a cow or big sea bass haha !
To me, being a pro chef is too boring and limiting - I never have the same meal twice - never.
One thing that pro chefs don`t have is time - I`ve taken weeks making a cake and ages making ham and jerky, jam, pickles, canning, drying, desiccating, milling custom grain and nut flours etc.I love doing soft cheeses and plain / fruit yogurts because the raw unpasteurised ones are so healthy.
I have one decent heirloom knife - that`s all I need - and that`s a caidao haha ! - I think I have about 20-odd caidaos, bone choppers and nakiri`s - I`ve not counted.
Variety is the spice of Life.
