[TheForge] new knife

[ries]

I have been to the Tokyo fish market, and seen these guys using these knives- they only cut the tuna flesh with them, not the scales.
The rough cut is done early on, often before the actual fish seller even buys the tuna at auction.
They buy, at 4 in the morning, a chunk of blood red tuna about the size of a block of ice from one of those old ice machines- a one foot cube or so- and that costs hundreds of dollars.
Then, usually two guys wield the 6' tuna knife, to slice the mother chunks for sushi- somewhere between 1" and 3" in thickness, perfectly parallel, gorgeous in every way.

I also visited the neighborhood in Tokyo where they sell knives like that- there are two or three high end knife shops on the same few blocks. A decent, but not spectacular, chef's knife is several hundred. A good one- from a name brand maker, can easily break a thousand dollars, and goes up to double or triple that. I didnt price the tuna swords, but they are not cheap. Usually in a knife shop with 2000- 4000 amazing handmade blades of all sizes, there might be one or two of those tuna knives. 

Only a few fish wholesalers use them.


ries


On Aug 13, 2010, at 11:50 PM, Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer wrote:

Tuna scales are real hard on a knife's edge. The 
deckhands on the albacore and tuna runs used to sharpen 
their knives with coarse files to put a sort of saw tooth 
edge that would cut when partly dulled.
6'!! Goodness! Wanna see the arm on that guy!

Matt Stevens wrote:
> On 14/08/2010 7:48 a.m., Andy Gladish wrote:
>> The stain isn't too bad and it's on the other side.
>> I put a bevel on both sides, this one- made one for my wife with single
>> bevel and she complained, "this knife is too sharp. it goes through my
>> (thin, cheap plastic) cutting boards!"
> 
> lol. I recently went to Japan & was quite interested in the different 
> cooking knife shapes & sharpening techniques. The most "interesting" 
> knife was the 6' long tuna filleting knife, picture extended sword with 
> more flex and single bevel. Rather intimidating.
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Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist
http://www.riesniemi.com/