I have a pet peeve. Perhaps more accurately, there is a phenomenon that both annoys me and amuses me in equal measure. The offender? When statements, billboards, bumper stickers, advertisements, headlines, mottos, and the like leave me utterly uncertain as to what conclusion I am intended to draw. The first time I was explicitly aware that I held this pet peeve there was a huge billboard over one of the major local traffic arteries that read in huge block letters “OBAMACARE” on a blank background. Oh! Oh! I wanna play. Are we listing nouns? Do they have to be proper nouns or will “bellybutton lint” work? Or maybe this is a huge game of hangman. Was this the solution or just a guess? Did the billboard win? Or is there a billboard two towns over with a hung stick figure perplexing their commuting public?
“What the hell are you going on about?” You might ask.
Santoku is often translated as “three virtues.” Ignoring my skepticism about the veracity of that translation, just what the hell am I to make of that description? Are three virtues a lot? As a point of comparison, how many virtues does my 2006 Honda Accord have? Being virtuous is clearly good but the word, something of a synonym for quality, is more often contrasted rather than associated with quantity.
As it has been explained to me, the name is meant to suggest three broad uses for a santoku. I don’t recall what uses they were supposed to be but for now lets say they were cutting food, opening mail, and communing with the spirit of Rachel Ray. Needless to say, this is more than many knives can do. Especially in the world of handmade Japanese cutlery, where many traditional knives are so specialized that versatility is indeed a virtue worth celebrating thrice. The problem is that much of the specialization of Japanese cutlery is a combination of profile and the traditional use of single bevel grinds. Thus the versatility of the santoku is in part of function of its profile but it is equally dependent upon its double bevel grind. So it is that my pet peeve was tickled when I received the Ishikawa, Shirogami #2, single bevel santoku. The knife had the immediate burden of convincing me that this knife deserved its existence. I started by scrutinizing its aesthetics.
Unfortunately, the knife had been handled and sharpened by a long list of people before it reached me and the accumulated wear made assessing its fit and finish difficult. The knife looked attractive enough with a pronounced brushed finish on the blade flat. The handle was well made. While I am partial to wood wearing its natural hues, the blue stained handle material was not nearly so objectionable as some because its dull, matte finish. If I had my druthers, I prefer a tapered octagonal handle over the straight variety but in truth I care just enough to have an opinion, not enough to discriminate on account of it so this handle will do.
The bevel was either poorly made or it was inexpertly sharpened. Very likely, there is adequate fault to go around. Regardless, by the time I got the knife, there was a pronounced angle toward the tip where the bevel suddenly widened. In the large flat that resulted a hollow was apparent because it wore a different finish from the remainder of the bevel after sharpening.
The ura had clearly been touch irregularly by a variety of stones. My assumption was that this was a natural consequence of having been sharpened by a wide range of sharpeners with a wide range of single bevel sharpening experience. However, when I tried to sharpen the ura, I quickly realized the blade would not lay flat but rather rocked between several different facets. Clearly this was not an easy knife to sharpen. These sorts of problems are frustrating and indicate less than perfect craftsmanship but they are common in more modestly priced single bevel knives where the margin is tight.
Steel is almost impossible to assess during a pass around because of the limited time available to put the knife through its paces. This is doubly true of a single bevel knife because I have very limited experience with these grinds so my sharpening is suspect and I have used few knives that are apt comparisons. That said, the steel got reasonably sharp and held an edge reasonably well. Edge retention was particularly impressive when you consider how it fared splitting carrots. That is a very fine edge doing some fairly brutal work.
Performance, by and large, was crap. The Ishikawa opened mail with aplomb, it was useless in reaching Rachel Ray in a séance, and is performed exceptionally in a very limited number of products. I hate baseball but I understand batting .500 is doing well but in this case I feel like it is batting .500 in merely measuring up to definitional criterion of being a santoku.
Single bevel knives are almost universally thicker than their double bevel counterparts. This is especially true behind the edge. With a single bevel knife, the final edge geometry is often extremely acute but because of the nature of the grind, it widens out quickly to the full spine thickness within a few millimeters. The result is a fine, precision cutting instrument backed up by a concrete truck. If an ingredient is thin enough and pliable enough to get out of the way of the traffic behind the edge, the knife excels. This was the case with peeling potatoes, dicing tomatoes and berries, shredding lettuce, or slicing cheese. If an ingredient had any real height or the cuts produced anything more than paper thin slices, the knife either wedged mightily or the product split violently as was the case with carrots, dicing potatoes, or halving apples. And in product with any height, steering was an absolute nightmare. Splitting an apple either required restarting the cut several times or risk the cut ending as much as an inch to the left of where the cut was initiated.
The funny thing is when all was said and done I actually really enjoyed using the knife. The knife is almost functionally worthless. The only situation I could see the utility of this knife is in a pro setting where a chef may need to dice 25# of tomato. The knife would do well at this task and it may be worth a pro’s investment to use it for a limited range of uses but for us homegamers, it is just silly to have a dedicated tomato knife. Not only would you have to buy, store, and maintain the knife, but you would also have to break workflow to shift between kit as you work. That said, the knife is endearing in a quixotic way. Its faults made me laugh at the absurdity of the tool. Its strengths reminded me that as limited as they are, single bevels can offer inspiring performance when used at the right time. What sealed my opinion of the knife was the price. Currently selling for $200 the knife is a costly amusement but it is not an ungodly expensive one. There is a strong argument to be made that a knife that makes you smile, is handcrafted, offers a smattering of tradition, and is moderately priced is a damn good knife just don’t let anyone mislead you by overselling its usefulness. As an aside, I don’t feel santoku is an accurate name. Could anyone tell me what one and a half virtues translates to in Japanese?
Post Script:
Many thanks to Mark Richmond at Chef Knives To Go for making this knife available for demo. The product page for this knife can be found here: http://www.chefknivestogo.com/ishikawaknives1.html.
This knife was part of a pass around on the CKTG forum where a number of reviews were written by various members of the forum there. The pass around thread can be found here: http://www.chefknivestogoforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=350
I did not include any pictures because there are so many already available on the CKTG product page and embedded in the various reviews that preceded mine. Additionally, Steve Gamache has a product video highlighting this knife that can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcOpcceVT-Y
Vignettes by Ryan 