There's a truism that a lot people have picked up throughout their lives and it goes something like, "A dull knife is a dangerous knife." Whether it was your grandmother or the executive chef at the first restaurant you worked at, it stuck. There are certainly people that will push back and say, "but the only time I cut myself is with a sharp knife." As it turns out, those two statements can coexist. Here's how it works: your grandmother is correct (never doubt her again), a dull knife is dangerous because you have very limited control while using it. Have you ever experienced cutting a cantaloupe with a very dull knife? It's downright scary, and that's because you have to apply a lot of pressure, and you can only really guess which direction the blade is going to go if it slips; so yes, a dull knife is in fact a dangerous knife.
But what about the sharp knife always being to blame for causing cuts? As it turns out sharp knives cut really well, so well in fact that if you're accustomed to only using dull knives, you might not be familiar with how easily a sharp knife can cut everything, including your fingers. Fortunately, the majority of the cuts that occur while using sharp knives are small because excessive pressure is generally not a part of the equation. By all means, bad cuts can occur while using sharp knives as well, but it's not a crap shoot. When you get cut with a sharp knife, the tool did what it is designed to do, cut; unfortunately, your appendage was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I sympathize, because it’s happened to me many times.
In the end, you have much more control when using a sharp knife, so sharp knives are much safer than dull knives, and that's why we say, "A PostKnife is a safe knife."
If having sharp knives all the time is of interest to you, check out our sharp kitchen knife subscriptions. There’s more than one way to sharpen a knife, but no matter the method, the work of sharpening must be done or the knife will be dull. At PostKnife we provide professionals and home chefs with a really easy solution for keeping knives sharp through our sharp knife subscriptions. A version of our sharpening services have been available in commercial kitchens for close to 100 years (in the food service world this kind of service is commonly referred to as “knife service” or “knife exchange service”).
People often wonder how professional chefs keep their knives sharp. Interestingly the vast majority of people have no idea that restaurant knife service exists. That’s not to say that many chefs and cooks don’t sharpen their own knives, because that is most definitely the case in many kitchens. It is to say however that often in those very same kitchens (and millions besides), there’s a set of house knives that is provided by a professional knife service, so that everyone in the kitchen has a sharp knife to grab when they need one.
At PostKnife we’re making sure every kitchen has access to professional knife service, no matter how rural, urban, or the size of their kitchen.