The Busy Galley: The Servant Blade
(Page 2 of 2)
March/April 1973
By Jan Adkins a Catcher-In-The-Rye
The sharpening angle of chisels and plane irons is especially critical. There are several devices that hold the blades rigidly at angle to make sharpening easier and better.
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Inveterate whittlers and pocket-knife tinkerers, as well as trappers, nurserymen and ropeworkers, may find a pocket steel like this Gerber useful for constant keenness. The grooved edge shapes and the abrasive flat finishes. Another great advantage is that the strong chisel-shaped steel pries, hacks, wedges, and performs all the jobs that can bollix your knife.
An axe or hatchet is immobilized and filed to proper bevel, then a round stone is useful for sharpening and refreshing the edge.
The French Cooks Knife is a deceptively simple instrument that a good cook can use with the grace and flair of a kendo swordsman. It has reached such a peak of simple effectiveness that no one thing can replace its many functions. It is held almost like a fencing foil, controlled by the thumb and index finger on either side of the blade. Its elegant proportions and balance make even a large knife responsive and quick. The blade rocks and pivots on the curve at the tip, and the straight run of the blade minces one way, then at right angles, as fine as desireable. The strong, straight back gathers and slides cut material aside or into bowls. Such an admirable, functional, beautiful tool!
A french cooks knife dices an onion: the stalk top is cut off and four or five shallow slits are made down to the root end. The knife's tip flicks out one section of peel and the rest are folded out anf twisted off with one turn. The root, where most of the bitter oils that attack your eyes reside, is left, but a slice is taken from the side. The onion is laid on the flat base made by the side slice and is cut horizontally four or five times. The thin tip makes four or five vertical cuts. Using the bunched fingernails as guides for the blade, the onion is sliced at any desired thickness, moving the fingernails back each time for quick cutting. The onion is diced. Elapsed time: 30 seconds.
a kitchen armory
"If you want to do a mechanics job, you got to have a mechanic's tools" Hudson Jayne
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