Melba's Jammin' > wrote:

> Cleaver speaks
> to me of sharp tool and brute whacking

I am not sure you are quite fluent in cleaver-speak, Barbabietola. Here
is the best description of the use of the cleaver given by Chuangtse
(4th century B.C.), as it appears in _The Art of Chinese Cuisine_ by
Hsiang Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin.

Bubba

Prince Huei's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand,
every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of
his knee, every _whshh_ of rent flesh, every _chhk_ of the chopper, was
in perfect rhythm - like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, like the
harmonious chords of Ching Shou.
"Well-done!" cried the Prince. "Yours is skill indeed!"
"Sire," replied the cook, laying down his chopper, "I have always
devoted myself to Tao, which is higher than mere skill. When I first
began to cut up bullocks, I saw before me whole bullocks. After three
years' practice, I no longer saw whole animals. And now I work with my
mind and not with my eye. My mind works without control of the senses.
Falling back on eternal principles, I glide through such great joints or
cavities as there may be, according to the natural constitution of the
animal. I do not even touch the convolution of the muscle and tendon,
still less attempt to cut through large bones.
"A good cook changes his chopper once a year - because he cuts. An
ordinary cook once a month - because he hacks. But I have had this
chopper for nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand
bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the wetstone. For at the joints
there are always interstices, and the edge of the chopper being without
thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness
into such an interstice. Indeed there is plenty of room for the blade
to move about. It is thus that I have kept my chopper for nineteen
years as though fresh from the wetstone.
"Nevertheless, when I come upon a knotty part which is difficult to
tackle, I am all caution. Fixing my eye on it, I stay my hand, and
gently apply my blade, until with a _hwah_ the part yields like earth
crumbling to the ground. Then I take my chopper, stand up and look
around with an air of triumph. Then, wiping my chopper, I put it
carefully away."
"Bravo!" cried the Prince. "From the words of this cook I have
learnt how to take care of my life."