Let’s get down to business: Even the best bread knife can only do four things. But two of them are so important to the daily functioning of my life that I cannot imagine living without one.
1: Slice a crispy, fresh one a body of bread.
2: Cutting a ripe summer tomato to go on this bread.
As sure as I feed a meow cat every morning, my bread knife comes out too the block. This $ 22 knife is the one who uses the BA Test Kitchen; Its sharp teeth bounce along the 10-inch blade like a scribble on the top of your loose-leaf homework page. Something of that also reminds me of the decoratively bordered ones Craft scissors My mother always threatened to cut my hair. (She never did, FWIW.) Its name, Mercer Culinary Millennia, is reminiscent of a futuristic spaceship, one with an excellent canteen.
Mercer Culinary Millennia 10 “Bread Knife
Why is it the best?
This shape isn’t based on a cute aesthetic choice, but based on some really damn physics that I’m not very good at. I do subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated (love words and pictures) however, and read a lot about serrated knives a few years ago when they were all ridiculously thoroughly tested. In true Cook’s Illustrated fashion, they tested every knife loaf, tomatoes, Cake layersand crowded BLTs. (Sometimes I think they choose these tests based on what the staff want to eat, and I appreciate that.) At least the physics. If you put pressure on the knife while slicing bread (remember “force” ??) it will be evenly distributed among the prongs (remember “distributed energy”?), Meaning the fewer points the better because they each have more POWER. The “gorges”, a term that I learned In this videoare also important as they reduce the friction that would otherwise damage the food.
There are other factors in a large bread knife. The handle needs some grip, the length needs to be long enough to get through rustic breads sourdoughThe prongs need to be pointed and not smooth (to bite into soft tomato peel). And my humble ones $ 22 bread knife tick all boxes.
Hey, what else can I do with a bread knife?
One afternoon I asked in the test kitchen Andy Baraghani what he used a serrated knife other than bread and tomatoes, and he said, “Tomatoes! I never would. If you were to cut a tomato with a bread knife, the chef would take that tomato “- he mimicked taking it out of my hands -” and throw it away. Your Chef’s knife should be sharp enough to cut through everything. “Well Andy – I mimicked the way I threw the tomato back – my chef’s knife isn’t guillotine sharp every day, so I’m going to need that serrated knife, and I suspect most home cooks will, too.
For tomatoes. For bread. To the great honkin ‘sandwiches made of bread and tomatoes and probably a few other things too. For cutting a cake into several layers so that you can cut into each one lovingly glaze and then reassemble (which I probably never will, but would certainly love to do). That may be because … but these are some of the most important things in life, aren’t they?
How do I keep my bread knife in first-class cutting condition?
If you notice your knife is starting to dull, you can take it to your hardware store and have someone sharpen it, although I’ve found my knife can still cut cleanly years later. Please note this Amazon reviewer’s photo of his cut index finger, one of the most notable Amazon reviews I have come across lately:
