This site will give you the confidence to choose and use the knives and other nonelectric sharp tools in your kitchen. It’s also a reference site that you can use as you improve your skills and acquire the tools that will make you a better cook!

Slicer

The slicer has one function: to slice the meat or fish in one slicing motion. There is no back-and-forth motion needed for a slicer. The knife is very long, usually 12 inches, although shorter ones are available. It’s most often seen in slicing the white (breast) meat off turkey, or carving thin slices off large cuts of beef.

Most slicers are used by food service professionals, as most people rarely have the volume of food that would necessitate a slicer. The slicing knife’s blade is very thin and flexible, which allows for very thin slices. This is most visible in New York delicatessens serving beef brisket or corned beef, or sliced-toorder smoked salmon. It’s been said that some longtime workers in New York delis can slice smoked salmon so thin that you could read a newspaper through it. That comes from years of practice, and a very sharp slicer.

Some slicing knives have rounded tips. These are seen mostly in restaurants that have carving stations. The rounded tip is a safety measure, to prevent customers from being jabbed when they, or the chef, lean too far forward to place the food on the plate with the knife under the food.

Steak knives

Meat cleaver

A mountain of knives and a sea of fire.

If fate throws a knife at you, there are two ways of catching it: by the blade or by the handle.

The tongue like a sharp knife...Kills without drawing blood.

Javier Perez De Cuellar

I am like a doctor. I have written a prescription to help the patient. If the patient doesn’t want all the pills I’ve recommended, that’s up to him. But I must warn that next time I will have to come as a surgeon with a knife.

John Owen

Temptation is like a knife, that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or his), poison, his exercise or his destruction.

Knife Skills —

a kitchen guide to using the right knife the right way

Slicer

Javier Perez De Cuellar

John Owen