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All I Want for Christmas is a Hand-Forged Kramer Chef's Knife
Filed under: Pick of the Issue Tagged: Benjamin Chambers, Digital Edition, newyorker.com, Todd Oppenheimer
Benjamin Chambers writes:
I don’t tend to like theme issues; I find the uniformity of subject matter makes me less interested in reading. But in the The New Yorker’s November 24, 2008 “food” issue, one piece jumped out at me: Todd Oppenheimer’s profile of Bob Kramer (Digital Edition link here), who is one of the only 122 people in the world certified as a Master Bladesmith.
To be certified, Kramer had to hand-forge six knives.
One of those was a roughly finished, fifteen-inch bowie knife, which Kramer had to use to accomplish four tasks, in this order: cut through an inch-thick piece of Manila rope in a single swipe; chop through a two-by-four, twice; place the blade on his forearm and, with the belly of the blade that had done all the chopping, shave a swath of arm hair; and, finally, lock the knife in a vise and permanently bend it ninety degrees.
If I used that bent knife to carve the Thanksgiving Day turkey, it would be far more effective than the bludgeons we keep in our kitchen for cutting up food.
Perhaps, in this post-consumer economy we’ve now entered, I might be excused an anachronistic desire to possess a well-made tool?
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Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
Sounds like another satisfied Ginsu customer!
An aficionado of both food and classic hardware, I too loved “Sharper” better than any of the more edible articles.
But I wonder if anyone else detected a certain laziness about looking for the science under this subject? The writer seemed to have simply accepted the bladesmiths’ assertions of an unknowable metallurgy. And in what sense does a Japanese knife edge have “teeth?”