Using the right knife for the job

Prepping food doesn’t have to be a chore if you’ve got the right knife for the job and you use it correctly. Holding the knife wrongly can result in muscle stress. Using a blunt knife can result in a nasty cut. And using the wrong knife for the job can… well, I don’t really want to go into that ever since I used my Rambo-style fisherman’s knife (because it was so sharp) to try to cut a lemon – and nearly took the tops off of two fingers instead. Ouch! Sometimes it’s best not to learn by your own mistakes. Just get it right.

If anyone’s wondering why it was so wrong to cut a lemon with my filleting knife, it’s because the filleting knife has a flexible blade, and even though it was sharp-sharp-sharp it simply wasn’t tough or rigid enough to deal with the thick peel of a lemon and my hand slipped… So much blood everywhere, I could’ve made a black pudding.

Knives have different shapes because they’re designed for different purposes, so please do pay heed and use the right knife for the job. And make sure it’s sharp – blunt knives cause accidents!

Make sure you hold it properly too – but different types of knife call for different grips, so I’ll deal with that issue knife by knife.