Typical. The best knife?

"SEARCH" is your friend. There are lots of threads that ask the same (?) as you do. If you look through them, you may learn which direction you prefer, then you could ask some more specific questions. I believe in the "QPR" concept; quality / price / ratio. In your shoes I would look at Victorinox/Forschner. I feel for the price, those are very good knives. I think they are good knives regardless of the price. I'm absolutely positive, LOL, that there will be someone to tell you that I am goofy. You know what? For them and their opinion they are correct. Everyone has an opinion and makes their choices. Go look around and see what you think. 

Oh gawd, not again.

If there's one phrase I HATE is, "what's the BEST_________?"

A knife is a hunk of steel with a sharp edge.

The "best" knife for breaking down squashes, chopping slab chocolate, and fabricating chicken parts is...(drum roll please) a monster Henckels or Wusthof with a  1/4" thick spine and a 25 degree bevel.

Best knife for sushi?  A japanese exotic with a single bevel.  Bear in mind, as soon as this knife even looks at food that is harder than boneless fish, the edge will chip and it will require an hour of working on progressive fier and finer waterstones.

Me?  On a typial day, I can pump out 20-30 fruit platters, starting from whole pineapples, melons, mangoes, etc., with a 10" Henckels and a 9" Victorinox.  Luurv the Victorinox, the "Timex" of knives, takes a beating and keeps on ticking

I can fillet a dozen salmon per hour with a Victorinox bread knife ,flexible boning knife and China-town s/s tweezers; head and  belly flap removed, pin bones removed, and flesh inbetween the spinal column removed with  soupspoon for tommorow's quiche or staff meal..

I can turn a sack of potatoes into chateau, nature, en gousse d'ail, etc with an ancient no-name brand paring knife with the tip broken off and reground to a beak shape.

With the same knife I can bone out quail, one every 3 minutes, ribcage, wing bone and thigh bone removed, 2nd joint of the wing  and drumstick bone intact, no tears in the breast or thigh.

I cut warm quiches, delicate  tarts and tortes with a.....(drum roll please) electric B & D knife, croissants too, and every Saturday I slice up pate en croute with it as well.

In my 28-odd years I have seen many things in the kitchen.  I have seen cooks frantically searching through garbage cans and dumpsters for their knives, I have seen co-erced dumpster diving, I have seen fist fights, locker room brawls, and vandalisim done due to lost, misplaced, or stolen knives at the workplace.  I have seen one particualr female cook mispalce her beloved "golden Hamster" knife, assumed it was stolen and accused every human being in the hotel of stealing. Stupid (deleted) had left the knife on a sheet pan with maple drizzled root vegetables that she had personally prepared,  and baked it.  We all forced her into buying a beer for each one she accused.  She quit the next day.............

1) There  is no "best knife"

2) A knife is just a hunk of steel with a sharp edge, O.K.?  The magic is in the user's hands.

I can beat you hands down, hour after hour at any task you desire that needs a knife, and I'll use whatever garbage knife  you give me to use.  Then again, I know of at least a dozen Asian guys who can beat me hands down at any task I choose, with them using nothing more than a cheap-o carbon steel cleaver. 

All of that ... a dozen fish @ 5 min/ea. ... non-stop for an hour .................... Yeah, OK.  (What is the bread knife used for?)

LOL. OK. 

Bread knife is used for cutting off the head, and sawing down along the sping.  Rest the blade ontop of the spine and pull it through, severing  the rib cage.  Once you have your filets, slice into the tail, soon as the knife hits the skin, grasp and pull, wiggling back and forth, the knife wedges inbetween the skin and flesh. No meat will remain on the skin save for about 1/2" at the very end of the tail where you started the cut.  You can do this with a heavier knife, but the bread knife is thinner and saws through ll those fine bones easier.

Portioning is another story...

Boning knife to remove the rib cage and belly flaps, tweezers to remove pin bones, pin bones come out alot easier once the skin is removed.

I've used everything from Chinese cleavers to Ikea knives.  Worked with a racist, stuck-up Frenchman who swore that  Ginzu knves were the best for cutting  frozen foods, I find they excell at one thing best:  removing a year's worth of built up grass on the underside of a lawn-mower

Iceman, you're not the kind of guy to get all white knuckled and deep, ragged--breathy over knives, are you?

LOL My friend. Crack me up!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by foodpump 
Iceman, you're not the kind of guy to get all white knuckled and deep, ragged--breathy over knives, are you?

Have you read any of my other "knife" posts? 

I have and use this set since the mid-'70's.  Chicago Cutlery Walnut Tradition Starter Knife Set 

Mine's a hodge-podge of knives, some "rescue" knives where I've made new wood scales and riveted them on, some are 25 years old, found one Dreizack (Trident, or Wusthof) bolstered paring knife in a Zurich parking lot in the 80's  that I still use today.

I lend them out, I regrind broken tips, I use them.

But my B&D 'lectric knife is my choice of weapon to slice warm quiche with--until it craps out and I have to splurge another $12 on a new one.........

I like to translate "the best" into "fitness for use". Not fitness for use in a general way, but in an individual way, depending on ones needs. And since needs evolve in time, there's no real good answer to your question. Also, a badly sharpened topknife will never perform well.

But, speaking from experience with several kinds of knives, my own preference goes to knives made of Japanese VG10 steel. It's all about toughness of the steel, cutting performance, edge durability and sharpening ability. VG10 steel performs excellent in all these categories. You will need to learn how to sharpen them yourself on waterstones, nothing really difficult.

I bought VG10 knives from different manufactures and they all perform well, but Hattori is my own preference, both HD serie as their FH serie are superb. Most of my knives came from JCK;

http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/

a dozen salmon a hour? really? with what a steak knife? i can do a 18 to 20 pound salmon in under a minute with my Devin Thomas 330 mm. Gyuto,probably 20 to 25 in a hour. now granted most of that is technique with years and years of training but a great knife definitely helps!