Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/23/the-thai-chefs-moon-knife-can-be-the-new-centerpiece-meal-prep-tool-in-your-kitchen.html
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The Thai Chefs Moon knife looks like it could also be the centerpiece of a high-profile murder trial.
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Hmm… A HC knife that’s probably crafted by an actual craftsman in random thai village?
BB selling a knife that probably doesn’t suck?
Man, I’m going to have to load up the dart gun (think I’m going to have to anesthetize some flying monkeys a bit later).
Just like “distressed” jeans. Already worn out.
A quick Google returns this dryly amusing video:
Not specifically mentioned as such in the video: it’s actually a cheaply constructed knife with a poor attachment to the handle, marked up from the few dollars it would cost in Thailand and marketed with a mysterious name for white people in the US (available at Nordstrom , for example).
Also available here for $28, as a pork vendor’s knife, sold out now apparently because Verve has successfully tricked people into thinking this pedestrian knife is some sort of artisanal artifact to be coveted, with the aid of a ridiculously large, wasteful and impractical solid bamboo presentation box - which likely costs verve as much or more than the knife itself.
I’d say it’s impractical for most people’s knife skills because the blade shape is so radically different in shape and size.
You can also buy sturdier full tang Chinese versions with the much less hip name “Stainless Steel Slaughter Knife”.
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I would recommend any home cook who buys a knife like this to display it prominently in a room of the house where guests are sure to see it, which is why you bought it in the first place, after all.
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I wonder how you would sharpen it?
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I think I saw them open for Death Cab for Cutie a few years back.
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I had an inkling of what to expect before seeing the pages and pages of ads, but this shot near the end of that video still made my jaw drop
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Known as a “Swiss leaf” (feuille suisse) in Europe. Mostly considered a butcher’s tool.
Here’s a very similar vintage one, probably made in some remote village in France with a centuries-old tradition of making things.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-rival-france-chefs-carbon-1830539675
I don’t usually like to make a big deal of it, but I have moon-inspired wheels on my car.
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Did Tonberry give you permission to borrow its knife?
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These aren’t chef knives and they’re not general purpose knives. They’re knives used for hog butchery in SE Asia. It’s absurd to sell this thing as a chef’s knife, and it cannot “be the new centerpiece meal prep tool in your kitchen,” and you can get the same knife for much less money elsewhere – where’s it’s sold as a knife for butchering pigs.
For those who were shocked - shocked - at the way the handle is attached to the tang, this is a common construction method on knives in China and SE Asia, as it allows for easy removal and repair in the event that the handle becomes damaged. These can be found on higher quality blades like the well-regarded CCK slicers and cleavers.
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A curved blade makes it hard to get to the bottom of a cut. Such as the lemon in the picture. Unless you rock or slide the knife, you’ll have an incomplete cut. The remedy is additional arm and wrist motion. If you are chopping lots of things, the additional action will tire you out and slow down the entire process.
This knife is not general purpose. This knife was designed for parting flesh. A flat blade cannot easily wiggle into tight places between joints. A curved blade can. And this one has a point, which lets you do fine detail butchering.
A traditional cleaver with a flat blade was made for chopping and hacking, and can double as a general purpose slicer because of the flat blade. A chef’s knife is best for fast chopping and slicing. Also, the more you use a knife not for its purpose, the faster it dulls.
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Well, it is complete crap, so you won’t have to shift your worldview.
Notice how the handle is “fixed” to the “tang”.
Rivets? We don’t need no stinking rivets!
This strikes me as a very stupid form of hipster cultural appropriation. Take a crude handmade item from one culture and purpose and sell it to Americans for an entirely different and unsuitable purpose at a jacked up price, because Artisanal.
Verve Culture even goes so far as to call the Aranyik village cutlers “our Blacksmitths” and has “Verve CULTURE” cold stamped onto the knives, fully appropriating them and obliterating their value as found objects.
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The majority of knives, and swords for that matter, have probably been made with through tangs like this since the Iron Age. Whether clinched like this example, peened over a washer, or held by a nut on a threaded tang, its a perfectly fine method and as you say, doesn’t indicate poor quality.
The craze for full-tang riveted knives came along when steel got cheap enough that makers could use as much in the handle as the blade.
If I had to slice a lemon, and this was the only knife in my kitchen, I would go to my neighbor and ask to borrow a knife. Any knife.
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I’ve long been sick of the ancient Eastern secrets obsession we’ve had in Western culture. It’s no less cringy than Victorian obsession with ancient Egypt, including completely fake Egyptian stuff.
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Phew!
But actually, there are a lot of knives, particularly Asian kitchen knives that do not have rivets/pins running through the tang. Another hole in the wood is another way for water to get in and corrode the tang, also to crack the wood handle.
I’ve got an old Chinese cleaver that has been used for decades (and yes, occasionally with slightly wet hands) that has no pins, and is crazy solid. I’m pretty sure it’s a pressure fit as well, as I don’t see any signs that any epoxy or even cutler’s resin is in there.
For Japanese kitchen knives, the soft wood handles are thought of as the replaceable part…
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