Bossnass

I've always believed that a sharper knife is safer than a dull one- no need to force it, etc. My dad has long promoted this belief. And I'm pretty handy with my honer/sharpening steel, keeping my 'good quality' cooking knives sharp enough. I also use what I thought was proper techniques to hold the food being cut, a claw-like "finger tips in" method, allowing the blade to slide off of the fingernail is the slicing gets too close.

My wife bought me a rather beautiful knife for my birthday a few days ago. A Henckels 7" Santoku, professional quality. Crazy sharp, nicely balanced. Slices an 8x11 sheet of loosely held lightweight paper in slow motion.

I was careful the first time I used it. The second time too. Then last night's dinner called for thinly sliced pearl onions. I managed to slice right through the edge of my finger nail and the edge of my finger, about 3mm at the widest slice. Not much blood, it was a very clean cut. I was even able to find the missing parts and keep them out of the meal.

The moral of this story is that very sharp knives are dangerous in the hands of an amateur.

clavus

If you had a less sharp knife, you would have been cutting with more pressure, and you still would have lopped off a part. Don't fear the sharp knives. Keep doing what you are doing.

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Psycho Dad

And it is widely held that a dull knife cut causes more pain.

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shakran

This is completely true. This is why way back in my days as a security guard in college I never had a razor sharp knife on me - - If it came to that, I wanted the guy to KNOW he was cut.

those santokus are crazy sharp. It's very easy to slice through anything with them (btw cutting paper dulls the edge . As others have mentioned that means you can use less pressure, which gives you more control, and makes it less likely that you will cut yourself. But if you DO cut yourself. . . just consider yourself lucky that you only got a slice off this time

Daniel_

I use Global knives, and have exactly the same thoughts re: sharpnes being equivalent to safety.

To date, the only bad knife cut I ever got was using a knife that was slightly less sharp (a Sabatier knife that had been insufficiently honed) and skated off the outer skin of an onion, through the side of my left thumb - it was the nail that stopped it going bone deep.

Sadly it was while I was making lunch before my first important "A" Level exam (aged 18 - the UK equivalent of graduation, i guess).

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Bossnass

The scary part is that I needed so little pressure to cut through my fingernail. I've developed my technique to almost use my fingernails as a blade guide, and it was never an issue with my 10" MAC French knife which I keep (I think) somewhat sharper than most knives in home kitchens. I just wanted a Santoku with the 'granton' sides. I'm not used to the flat blade yet either.


I was a few slices past cutting myself before I realized I had done so. I had noticed a bit more resistance, but that didn't register until I saw blood, but it didn't actually hurt until I started running water over it.


Yeah, but after I unwrapped it and shaved off a patch of arm hair, the paper seemed like a more hygienic way to show off my new knife)