Week 7: The knife
Blade geometry, steel and hardness, sharpening and honing, grip and the cuts — the most detailed lecture in the course, and the one it is demonstrated rather than described
5 April 2027
This is the most detailed lecture in the course, and the only one where the slide deck, not this page, is the primary artefact. What follows is a summary of what the deck covers; the deck itself carries the labelled detail — blade geometry, edge angles, hardness figures, the sharpening and honing schedule, and the cuts — because a knife is demonstrated, not described.
None of this week is cooking. A knife is used to prepare an ingredient for storage, for a later step, or for the plate it will eventually reach — never over heat. The distinction matters because a blunt or wrong knife is where a preparation decision most visibly fails: an uneven cut cooks unevenly weeks eleven and twelve later, which is the thesis this course keeps returning to.
Outline#
- knife types, and what each is built to do
- blade anatomy: edge, bevel, spine, heel, tip, bolster, tang
- edge angle and steel hardness, and why the two trade off against each other
- typical blade lengths and weights, and what balance means in practice
- sharpening and honing as two distinct operations, with a stated maintenance schedule
- grip, and the standard cuts built from it
Open the deck for the detail. The week 7 session is where the cuts are practised under supervision — the deck sets up what the session tests.
Teaching team
- Idris Fenn — teacher