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10
DESCRIPTION OF EURO/AMERICAN AND ASIAN BLADES
In general you will find that Euro/American blades shown in Figure 10a are sturdier than the
more delicate and thinner contemporary Asian blades. The variation among commercially
available knives of any type is great and in fact some Euro/American blades are very thin and
certain Asian knives have a thicker cross-section designed for heavier work.
1. EUROPEAN/AMERICAN BLADES
While most of the Euro/American knives (shown
on the right), Figure 10a have a thick cross-section
designed for heavier work, the range of blade thick-
ness in these familiar blades is great and certain of
these knives, such as the conventional paring, fillet
and utility blades, have a relatively thin cross-section
well suited to their intended application. Euro-pean/
American straight edge blades are universally double
beveled (sharpened on both sides of the blade.)
2. CONTEMPORARY ASIAN KNIVES
The more popular Asian blades; the thin, light weight
Santoku and Nakiri for example are generally double
faceted (sharpened on both faces of the blade) as
shown in Figure 10b. Occasionally Santoku knives
are sold with single facets (Figure 10c below) but
these are not readily available in the United States.
There are other but somewhat heavier double-fac-
eted Asian knives, the Deba and Gyutou, popular in
Asia, which are used for chopping hard vegetables,
for tailing and filleting fish and for meats. These are
basically Asian chefs knives designed for heavier duty
work. The Chinese cleaver is included in this class.
3. TRADITIONAL JAPANESE KNIVES
The traditional Japanese knife is single beveled and
has a wide factory bevel A along one face of the
blade above a small edge facet. These are sold as
either right handed or left handed
versions as shown in Figure 10c. The large wide
factory bevel A is ground, commonly at about 10
degrees. The most popular example of this type
blade is the sashimi knife also known as Yanagi and
Takohiki, designed as shown to the right. This lengthy,
slicing blade is ideal for preparing very thin slices
of raw tuna or salmon. The back side of this blade
is commonly slightly hollow ground. A small single
cutting edge facet of about 15º is created along the
Figure 10a. European/American blade.
Figure 10b. Double faceted contemporary Asian blades.
Figure 10c. Single beveled traditional Asian blades.
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