Knives

I have alot of knfes in my kit but the realalty is 90% of all my preping and line work with one knife...25 year old 10" henkle

There are many good knives on the market as soon as youŕe willing to spend over $50.

Below $50 there are so many crappy knives that are not worth anything even in your home kitchen. Of the cheaper brands, only Victorynox knives will match up to the professional brands. Tramontina, the worlds biggest machete manufacturer from Brazil, is a good runner up. Perhaps there are more good cheap brands, but these are the ones that I know of.

I am still very satisfied with my primary use knives.  While I have a great many blades, the ones I use most are carbon steel k Sabatier.

Pirate Chef with your interest in Charcuterie I would want to add a boning knife and perhaps a Wusthof or forschner scimitar to your kit.

My favorites are Ikkanshi-Tadatsuna (suji, gyuto, petty) and I really enjoy my Kagayaki gyuto from JCK as well. I also have a Dexter Chinese cleaver that gets a ton of use.

Dave

My partner is a garage sale aholic and cannot pass by an antique or pawn shop.  Some 6 years ago we were visiting friends in Edmonton, AB and he wanted to check on hunting knives at a huge pawn shop.  I got tired looking at stuff and asked the clerk if they had any 'cooks' knives.  He went in the back and came out with two sets - one was all Henckels and the other was a rather good collection of knives.  Price for the first was 375.00 and the other was 300.00.  I asked if that was all he had and he came back with a box with 6 global knives in it - price $ 150.00. Done - bought them and said to my partner - go - lets get out of here - run - before someone catches me.  It was like the Ikea tv ad in reality - start the car - start the car!  I absolutely love the global chefs knife.  Advice -   never ask for chef's knives - ask for cooking knives and act like you don't know much about them - you never know what you can find.  Now I go with him and look for anything unusual culinary.     

We have a whole sub-forum for kitchen knives; you're likely to get some good feedback there. 

The search for the right cook's knife can be complicated or simple.  Budget, likes and dislikes, knife skills and sharpening skills all play a role.  As it happens, I don't much care for Shun chef's knives.  I think the profiles are horrible.  I don't care much for Globals either, because the blade alloy is so soft and requires so much steeling.  The point to talking about my dislikes is that we're not necessarily going to like (or dislike) the same knives.  That's why knife recommendations which only reflect the tastes of the person giving the recommendation can be problematic. 

The trick, such as it is, is finding the right type of knife for the user.

The more we know about what you really want from your new knife, and the more we know about how you plan to use and sharpen, the better able we'll be to make specific suggestions.

Why not start a thread in the Knife sub-forum of the Equipment forum?

BDL