FoodBanter.com - View Single Post

in article , Peter Aitken at
wrote on 6/16/05 8:38 AM:

> Not necessarily. The way a knife works requires some sliding movement. After
> all it is a knife and not a chisel! I will never forget the demonstration of
> this that my high school physics teacher gave us. He (very carefully)
> pressed a single edge razor blade against his thumb without any side to side
> motion and it did not cut him at all. When a knife appears to just fall thru
> something you can be sure there is at least a small perhaps not visible
> amount of sliding going on. My favorite test of a knife is whether it will
> cut thin slices from a ripe tomato under its own weight.

I am also obsessed with knife sharpness. The tomato test is not a very good
one. The result, for me, has much to with the ripeness of the tomato. A
fully ripe tomato just has too much give to slice easily while a firm one
can be slice thinly. Similarly, a thin layer of moister lubricates the knife
and impedes the immediat penetration of the skin. Once I can cut through the
skin, my knives do well.

Bill