Kitchen knives are available with blades of steel or ceramics in various shapes and sizes. The quality differences are large, ranging from inexpensive hand-stamped blades up to copies. Butcher knife made using less expensive than cooks. The major manufacturers of kitchen knives from Germany, Japan and France. Cheaper qualities come from Spain and Portugal, and especially from China. The mere printing of the word Solingen, however, says nothing about the quality of a knife.

Types of Kitchen Knives

The all-purpose knife or Office serves as the indispensable aid small and has a narrow blade shape. The steel blade of the knife is mostly office up to 8 cm and that of the general-purpose knife 9 to 15 cm long. It tapers in both cases. The utility knife is for cleaning, cutting and peeling vegetables, fruits or even small pieces of meat suitable for the small office is often preferred knife for chopping onions, garlic and herbs or the removal of tomatoes. All-purpose knife and Office, often in different designs and qualities that are missing from almost any budget, and therefore bear depending on region and dialect, many other names: devil cutting, carving, kitchen Pitter, Pitter knife Pitter Chen, Huemmelchen or Hümmeken, zöppken, Kneip’s Kneibchen or where the latter are derived both from the Middle High German Kneip for knives. The English word for knife “knife” is also etymologically back to Kneip.

A boning knife is a knife for removing bones and skinning meat or poultry is used. With the narrow, very short and slightly curved blade, it can be easily guided along the bone.

A bread knife has a long, fitted with rough serrated edge blade. This serrated edge was invented in the 1930s by Francis Draper in Solingen. The length of the blade allows it to cut too large loaves of bread. The coarse grooves prevent flocculation of the disc. There are different forms, in recent years, bread knife – in response to the change in the supply of bread – made often in the form of lighter with a shorter blade. Today, much smaller loaves, and rather light, airy bread (toast, are loaves of white bread), and predominantly with artificial foaming agents produced whole wheat varieties. These do not require such a strong and long knives as they were previously required.

A Buntmesser (also: Decorating knife) is not straight, but a wave or zigzag profiled blade. It is used for raw or cooked vegetables and fruit, cut decorative.
Butter Knife

A butter knife is a household or kitchen knife, whose blade ideal for cutting and painting is designed by butter. The steel blade is broad, stable, not too long and slender polished result. It can be slightly curved upwards with better designs. The cutting edge is smooth, without serrated blade and only moderately sharp. The tip is rounded and can be somewhat broadened in high-quality models. The handle is made of different materials such as wood, metal or plastics, with or without decorations, there are, in historical knives and natural materials such as pearl or ivory were used. He is running long and strong, and so allows for a safe conduct with the whole hand. Handle and blade are usually linked to each other.

A fillet knife (also filleting knife) is long and thin. A special feature is the flexible blade, which in so doing, the progress of bone and bones adapt to the filleting. The filleting knife is very much like the ham, but may have an even narrower blade and taper at the end of both rounded and pointed. A filleting knife is used in fish food, as well as for cutting thin pieces of meat.

A fish knife is long and thin, with this form of a fish can be almost totally excluded or exempted from bones. The blade is about 3 cm wide and 15 cm long. Because of this the knife blade is very elastic, so that it can also be cut in hard to reach areas on the fish. The flexible blade also facilitates the release of the fillets from the skin.

A fruit or vegetable knife is a small knife with a straight, narrow blade to make straight cuts, both in the fruit to be able, as well as curved sections remove the cores with a quartered apple can.

The paring knife is shorter than the tomato knife (up to 9 cm) and has a straight blade with a curved back.

A cheese knife is a medium length blade with cutouts (holes) and / or a fork tip to the blade. This facilitates the cutting of cheese, especially soft cheeses. This, as, for example, mature Brie, Camembert or Romadur have a soft, sticky consistency. To prevent them from sticking a knife in cheese remains that the blade is not solid and just has the above openings. The fork tip makes it easy to capture the severed piece of cheese.

A chef’s knife is a relatively heavy utility knife with a relatively wide and high, tapering blade front and between 15 to 26 cm in length, which is sharpened on both sides. It is the utility knife of the kitchen and serves as slicing, cutting, mincing and chopping, both for meat and vegetables, salads and condiments. Unlike the utility knife, it has a broader blade.

The Japanese Santoku chef’s knife is called, which means three virtues of the knife with which emphasizes that it is suitable for meat, fish and vegetables. It has, in contrast to Europe’s wider, but shorter, and both sides polished blade. There are santoku in lengths 14 to 18 cm, the width can be up to 6 cm.

The Chinese chef’s knife is shaped like a hackebeil, but is not suitable for the destruction of bone and cartilage, but is used for cutting and chopping of herbs and vegetables. The – again polished on both sides – the blade is usually 20 cm long and can be up to 10 cm wide.

The Parmesan cheese knife is used for cutting, but the columns and prizing of pieces of cheese from a large, very tough piece of Parmesan cheese. It has a very short, but sturdy handle and a fuzzy blade.

A paring knife is a very small, usually around 8 cm long knife with a curved blade designed to be able to easily peel round fruit and vegetables.

The carving knife, known in professional circles Slicing Knife, is ideal because of its narrow shape and about 23 cm long, tapering steel blade particularly well with the sheaths of large, well-smoked or cured ham pieces, but also for filleting fish and cutting out paper-thin slices meat like roast beef.

The steak knife is a cutlery knife with a narrow, slightly curved upwards and especially sharp, usually 12 cm long blade. Thus, the meat is tender steak at the table during shredding not torn, but cut.

A tomato knife is suitable, in contrast to general-purpose meter is the sawtooth edge and is therefore ideal for cutting tomatoes and other vegetables. By the upward slightly tapered shape of between 12 to 15 cm long steel blade, the knife penetrates with a slight angle into the Schneidegut and prevents them from crushing it. The match that of the general-purpose knife blade.

The tournament has a knife blade in beak shape, which adapts to the tournaments of fruit, vegetables or potatoes every direction and the work so relieved.

The carving called, even carving knife, is a 15 to 30 cm long, narrow, tapering very knife with a blade on the back of vaulting, which is used primarily (for cutting carving) of meat. The blade is about 2.5 to 3 cm wide.

The Mezzaluna serves the small cutting of herbs and the like. It has two handles and a round, sharp blade. Some models have two parallel blades. The name derives from the use of the knife: it weighs the knife back and forth.