VIDEO: Kevin Kent on Japanese Knives
Who: Kevin Kent
Age: 39
Experience: This man of steel is the owner of Knifewear, a specialty knife store in Inglewood; he started selling knives out of his backpack to local chefs and is now the go-to knife guy for chefs at Divino, Catch, Teatro and Rush (who all make an appearance in Calgary Best Restaurants 2010); he’s a self-proclaimed “knife nerd” who studied culinary arts at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology; for 20 years he worked as a chef — a sous chef at London’s famed St. John Restaurant and in Calgary, at River Café, Diner Deluxe and Big Fish; he owns so many knives, he has lost count.
- “There are whole groups of knife nuts out there; people who just like knives. You always think they’re mostly dudes, but there are loads of girls who are into them, too.”
"A knife is your number one, two and three tool in the kitchen.”
“Someone once told me that food is the new rock n’ roll. In that case, the new leather pants are Japanese kitchen knives.”
“When I was working in London, there was this tiny little store that sold exquisite Japanese knives. The knife maker there sold me an Akifusa knife and it was so sharp, it blew my mind. All of a sudden, it was a completely different world for me.”
“Japanese knives are made with much harder steel. They’re like the Ferraris of the knife world. They stay sharper longer and can be sharpened to a finer point and edge. European knives can be sharpened to 45 degrees, whereas Japanese blades start at 30 degrees. We even sharpen some blades to about 10 degrees, which is ridiculous because a razor is 8 degrees. We’re talking sharp.”
“There’s nothing more frustrating than a dull knife. Cheap knives are made with really soft ceramic steel and a serrated edge. They’re like mini-saws and don’t cut as much as tear through things. There’s no precision there.”
“The knife you never have to sharpen? Garbage. That’s called a laser or a lightsabre.”
“Your knife needs to be sharpened when you can’t stand it anymore. Between sharpening knives on stones, you can use a honing rod or a leather strap like the old barber shops do with their razors. Once you get really good at that, you spend less time sharpening your knives.”
“My idea of a good knife is as thin as you can go and as hard a steel you can get. Stainless steel is the future.”
“I have a lot of knives. One day, I brought a new knife home and my wife said, jokingly, ‘Is there something wrong with the other 58?’ I still bring one home a month.”
“In Japan, you’ll find that both the cheapest supermarket knifes and the most expensive handmade knives are black. A very traditional way of finishing a knife in Japan is to make it black and textured. The technique is called Kurochi; it means, ‘The Black One.’”
“Don’t put your knives in the dishwasher. Get a good cutting board and don’t use glass or granite, because they’re all harder than steel. If you take your beautiful, sharp knife and grind it into something that’s harder than steel, it’s the same as if you take a banana and bash it into the side of a tree. The banana loses, and so does your knife.”
“Learn to hold your knife right. Chefs pinch the blades. It feels awkward, but you have more control over a blade this way — when you hold a knife at the handle, it can get away from you.”
“If I could only have one knife ever, it’d be a multi-purpose knife, a chef’s knife or what the Japanese call gyuto. It means ‘cow sword’ and is a pretty cool knife.”
“I get cuts all the time.”
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