by Tim Hayward
Japanese knifemaking centres on the shokunin or craftsman tradition – long and formal apprenticeships in which the trainee, even after the completion of the formal relationship with the teacher, continues to work in largely the same style. This patrilineal system of training creates ‘schools’ of craftsmanship and tends towards regionally characteristic styles. This is a goldmine for the knife geek as you can end up with a half dozen or so confusing descriptors for every blade. It is also part of shokunin tradition to do one thing, preferably as simple a thing as possible, with excellence. Where a Western artist or craftsman might want to ‘push the boundaries’ of his medium or aspire to make great creative leaps forward, the shokunin desires nothing more than to spend the rest of his working life doing the same thing, ever closer to the perfection of the way he was taught. It is nothing less than a total inversion – at a deep, culture-wide level – of the notion of what it is to be a creator. The notion of shokunin is so specific to Japanese culture that Western writers regard it with a kind of mystic awe, and is why the Japanese state considers some of the knife craftsmen so symbolic of their heritage that they’ve been named Living National Treasures.
In Sakai, the place near Osaka where the finest knives are still made, shokunin work in tiny workshops with complete division of labour – each completing, as perfectly as they can, a single stage in the making of the knife. One man forges, another shapes, another polishes; others create the edge and fit the handle.
The shokunin also go some way to explaining the huge variety in Japanese knives. Though there are three basic styles, there are numerous variations by region, as each school of craftsmen has evolved along their own lines. There are also variations by trade. The fishmonger and the chef, shokunin in their own way, demand infinite variety in the tools of their own trades. There are knives in the styles of different regions but also subtle variations for individual species of fish or particular vegetables.
Perhaps the most important skill the master swordmakers brought to the kitchen knife was that of combining different metals to create strong and sharp blades. A sword blade needed to be hard, in order to hold an edge and cut, but also to be ductile so it could hit another blade and not shatter. The answer was to take a strip of hagane, or high-carbon steel, and wrap it in jigane, or soft steel. This slug would be heated and beaten to create the basic form of a blade that could combine the ability to carry an edge with resilience. When you’re buying a knife today, this will be referred to as awase-style, meaning ‘joined’, or sometimes kasumi-style which means ‘enfolded’.
Today the outer layers on your knife blade might well be stainless steel – a lot easier to keep shiny in the kitchen than the soft steel of a fourteenth-century sword blade – or it may be sumptuous suminagashi, a steel with a pattern created by layering and acid etching that refers to the Japanese art of paper marbling, for which the Western term ‘Damascus’ is often used.
* This technique is raised to an art form in katsuramuki, a rotary cutting technique. Japanese chefs train in knifework by cutting a chunk of daikon (a giant radish) into paper-thin ribbons.
DEBA
BLADE LENGTH: 105MM
OVERALL LENGTH: 290MM
WEIGHT: 239G
MANUFACTURED BY: SAKON
MATERIALS: MACHINE-FORGED SHIROGAMI STEEL*, HO (MAGNOLIA WOOD), BUFFALO HORN
USES: FILLETING, SKINNING, BONING AND SLICING
FISH ORIGINALLY, NOW ALSO MEAT
THE DEBA LOOKS, and initially feels, like a heavy ‘chopper’-style blade. It’s thick at the spine and doesn’t begin to narrow much until the shinogi line, at least halfway down the blade. There’s nothing in the design calculated to minimise weight. Indeed, the heel end of the blade is used as a chopper when removing fish heads. The cook takes a ‘hammer’ grip on the handle and brings the very back end of the blade down hard on the bone – and usually goes through at a stroke. But that’s where things change. Shifting grip so the handle is in line with the forearm and extending the finger along the spine brings the tip end of the blade into play. The deba is single-ground – so it’s wickedly sharp and zips through skin and scales – and flat-backed, so it glides over rib bones. Suddenly that extra weight isn’t a barrier to delicate work; quite the opposite, in fact – it seems to steady the tip.
Some experts sharpen their deba in different ways at different places on the blade, with the tip as delicate as a yanagiba and the heel with a more robust angle – it’s a lovely idea but way beyond most of our day-to-day knife-maintenance skills.
* Japanese knife steels are predominantly made by the Hitachi company. The name refers to the paper it comes wrapped in on delivery. These are the types most often used in knifemaking:
Aogami (Blue Paper) series
Aogami #1: High tensile strength, soft enough to be easy to sharpen
Aogami #2: High toughness and edge retention
Aogami Super: Ideal combination of the above
Shirogami (White Paper) series
Shirogami #1: Hardest among the Hitachi steels, higher carbon
Shirogami #2: Tougher than #1 but slightly less hard
Kigami (Yellow Paper) series
A good-quality general tool steel
The deba has become a general-purpose kitchen knife in Japanese cuisine and many good everyday examples are forged from a single steel. It is possible, though, to create an asymmetric awase-style laminate which brings all the added advantages of a hard-edge/resilient blade to the deba shape. This everyday, machine-forged deba is very much to my taste, with an uncomplicated simplicity to it – it’s probably about right for my skills in cutting and sharpening too – but there are also incredibly beautiful suminagashi pattern versions.
There are dozens of types of deba, mostly of similar shape and proportions, but in various sizes, some adapted or recommended for particular species of fish. It’s possible to argue that the yanagiba is structurally identical to the deba, except in length and depth, and is just highly adapted for a single-stroke cutting style.
When double-ground, and particularly when fitted with a ‘yo’-style handle for the Western market, the deba feels and operates very much like a pleasantly hefty classic chef ’s knife.
DEBA TYPES
AI-DEBA light deba
ATSU-DEBA heavy-duty deba
HON-DEBA true/original deba
KAKO-DEBA fishmonger’s deba, thinner blade (also usudeba)
KANISAKI-DEBA deba for filleting crustacea and shellfish
KASHIWA-DEBA flat-blade deba for poultry
KATAI-DEBA deba for breaking down fish and meat
KO-DEBA small deba for filleting smaller fish
MIROSHI-DEBA filleting deba
RYO-DEBA double-ground deba
SAKA-DEBA salmon deba
YO-DEBA deba with a Western-style handle and double ground
USUBA
BLADE LENGTH: 170MM
OVERALL LENGTH: 320MM
WEIGHT: 126G
MANUFACTURED BY: SHIRO KAMO
MATERIALS: AWASE-FORGED AOGAMI #2 STEEL, HO (MAGNOLIA WOOD), BUFFALO HORN
USE: VEGETABLE CUTTING
THERE IS SOMETHING UTTERLY DIRECT about the usuba. At its simplest it is just the straightest cutting edge – no point, no curve – the most basic expression of a blade, ground only on one side.
Sure there are some refinements. The kamagata usuba is a style associated with Osaka, with a quadrant curve between the spine and the tip. The more common kanto style is sometimes finished with a one-sided taper towards the square tip – an elegant little refi
nement that evokes a Japanese-style sword tip but has no culinary function. However, even with these tweaks, the usuba is just about applying a dead-straight cutting edge to vegetables.
While meat needs to be placed on a surface and sliced or chopped, a vegetable is often picked up and cut in the hand. The usuba, therefore, is light and easy to use in that characteristic ‘cut-towards-the-thumb’ style, as well as in the same vertical slicing action as the Chinese cai dao.
A variety of small usuba are available, adapted for slicing particular vegetables or for decorative carving.
ON CUTTING VEGETABLES
JAPANESE COOKS have elevated the ‘rotary’ veg cutting technique to the art of katsuramuki. This is where the chef takes a hand-sized length of cylindrical root veg, usually daikon (a large radish) in one hand, lays the flat side of the blade on its surface and, slowly rotating it towards his thumb, reduces the entire thing to one long transparent strip, like unrolling paper. This piece can be folded on itself in layers and then chiffonaded to create the shredded, woolly ‘nest’ of daikon that often accompanies your sashimi. Katsuramuki is one of the techniques apprentice chefs are expected to master, attempting to turn out at least a 2-metre length without mistakes, but for it to work, the blade must be so sharp that no undue pressure is needed – and the cook has to be brave enough to aim that lethal edge right at the most vulnerable part of his own hand.*
Such cutting is usually undertaken with an usuba, traditionally the first knife that an apprentice cook will learn to use (as vegetables are cheaper than meat or fish). In rotary cutting the single grind of this blade is an advantage, the flat side gliding the blade parallel to the outer surface of the vegetable, but it also makes it difficult for inexperienced cooks to use for regular slicing. If you’re used to a normal, double-ground blade you’ll find that the usuba wants to drift off to one side and needs constant correcting. The usuba is also a little more complicated to keep sharp. The blade shape is so useful, though, that many non-Japanese cooks have either learned to adapt or will buy a nakiri – a lighter double-ground usuba, designed for the Western cutting style.
COMMON CUTS
KUSHIGATA GIRI Wedges (like orange segments) cut from spherical vegetables
WA GIRI Round slice right across the round or cylindrical vegetable
HANGETSU GIRI Half of round slice
ICHO GIRI Quarter of round slice
SEN GIRI Thin strips (julienne)
HOSO GIRI Thicker strips (baton)
HYOSHIGI GIRI Thick baton for root or other hard vegetables
TANZAKU GIRI Like hyoshigi but thinner in one dimension. Rectangles
SOGI GIRI Paring or shaving cut
MIJIN GIRI Fine dice
ARAMIJIN GIRI Coarse dice
RAN GIRI Irregular shapes created by cutting long thin vegetables diagonally while rolling
ARARE GIRI Approx. 5mm dice
SAINOME GIRI Approx. 10mm dice
USU ZUKURI Single diagonal cut, across grain, turning blade to vertical at the end to create koba – defined edge. Paper-thin, transparent slices. Fundamental cut. Used for firm white fish and fugu (blowfish)
SOGI ZUKURI As usu zukuri but thicker slices (more than 2.5mm)
HIRA ZUKURI Thick vertical slices. Common for salmon and tuna from fillet
YAE ZUKURI Cross-hatched cuts halfway through squid, to tenderise
KAKU ZUKURI Cubes or dice of soft fish
ITO ZUKURI Thin, thread-like slices
* If you’re going to try this, and it is worth having a go, I strongly suggest you use a knitted Kevlar cut-resistant glove on the hand that is holding the vegetable. These are easy to find in hardware stores and online and are much cheaper than a cab to A&E.
NAKIRI
BLADE LENGTH: 135MM
OVERALL LENGTH: 235MM
WEIGHT: 90G
MANUFACTURED BY: BLENHEIM FORGE
MATERIALS: AWASE-FORGED HIGH-CARBON STEEL, BOG OAK
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK
USES: VEGETABLE CUTTING AND PEELING
THE NAME NAKIRI indicates that the knife is intended for cutting greens. The knife is the same shape as the usuba vegetable knife with a flat edge for downwards chopping, but it’s not intended for katsuramuki rotary cutting of hard root veg so it can take a double grind to the blade.
The deba and the yanagiba are thick, with a second angle halfway between cutting edge and back – this gives extra strength to the blade. The nakiri is thin with smooth, flat faces. Cut a carrot with the wedge-shaped deba and it will break away as it slices. Cut with a nakiri and you’ll have a perfect, smooth edge.
This makes the nakiri much easier for Westerners to use than the usuba: double-ground blades don’t drift off to one side while cutting and are easier to maintain. Perhaps for this reason the nakiri has begun to gain ground in Japanese domestic kitchens, much like the santoku.
Like the usuba, the nakiri has regional shape variations – the kamagata rounded end is more common in Osaka.
The nakiri in the photograph was custom-made for a British cook. The blade is thin, light and very slightly curved, the handle is neither the traditional Japanese wa nor the Western yo type but a hybrid, thinning towards the heel. It’s an incredibly light and delicate knife, small and with a wonderful feeling of flexibility and control.
YANAGIBA
BLADE LENGTH: 260MM
OVERALL LENGTH: 410MM
WEIGHT: 194G
MANUFACTURED BY: SAKON
MATERIALS: HONYAKI (TRUE-FORGED) SHIROGAMI STEEL, HO (MAGNOLIA WOOD), BUFFALO HORN
USES: FILLETING, SKINNING, BONING
AND SLICING FISH
KENSAKI-STYLE (PICTURED OVERLEAF)
BLADE LENGTH: 260MM
OVERALL LENGTH: 420MM
WEIGHT: 205G
MANUFACTURED BY: KIKUICHI
MATERIALS: AWASE-FORGED GINSANKO STEEL, BUFFALO HORN, HANDLE UNIDEN TIFIED
USES: FISH AND MEAT
THE YANAGIBA or ‘willow blade knife’ is part of a family of knives used in sushi, sashimi and other fish preparation. By Western standards, the blade is exceptionally long, with professional sashimi cutters using blades over 360mm. The reason for this is that with a longer blade, the cut can be made with a single motion. ‘Sawing’ or repeated cuts mark the surface of the fish which, in such delicate presentations, should be pristine.
Japanese cooks believe that putting any undue physical stress on the fish during cutting reduces the quality of the finished dish. This requirement for a visually perfect and mechanically efficient cut means that the yanagiba is probably the most highly evolved knife type in existence. A yanagiba blade can be pushed or pulled through the fish – more weight is applied to a push cut, so it is used when there are scales or small bones to deal with, whereas the delicate final cut on a carefully trimmed fillet is always the more delicate and controllable pull stroke.
Watch a sashimi chef at work and you’ll see he begins the stroke by addressing the fish with the heel of the blade and the whole knife pointing upwards at almost 45º. He then pulls the whole length of the blade down and through, an action that can involve moving the whole body.
The blade is honyaki forged (made from one type of steel) and single ground, which gives better control of the blade angle in skilled hands. The back face of the blade is ground slightly concave, which helps to break suction with the cut face of the fish but also enables the back of the blade to be run over the sharpening stone with only the very edges in contact. The blade is thin and highly polished to reduce friction and therefore the effort required to cut.
The single grind means that the cut piece of fish falls away from the main piece more naturally but it also means that left-handed cooks are disadvantaged. Specially made left-handed yanagibas do exist, but they are rare and expensive.
Western chefs use a flexible blade to skin fish, bending it so it runs flat against the back of the skin that’s pushed flat to the cutting board. The yanagiba has no flexibility and will snap easily if used in this way.*
THE KENSAKI-STYLE YANAGIBA is inspired by sword design and sports a rather fetching dropped tip, sometimes called ‘tanto’-style after the short sword or dagger of the samurai tradition.
* Yes. You have correctly detected a note of bitter and very expensive experience.
TAKOHIKI
BLADE LENGTH: 270MM
OVERALL LENGTH: 420MM
WEIGHT: 220G
MANUFACTURED BY: SAJI
MATERIALS: TRUE-FORGED AOGAMI STEEL (UNUSUALLY DOUBLE GROUND)
USES: NOMINALLY FOR OCTOPUS BUT USED FOR ALL KINDS OF SASHIMI
THE TAKOHIKI or ‘octopus slicer’ is used in exactly the same way as the yanagiba but the blade edge is straighter. These are common in the east of Japan and around Tokyo while the yanagiba is traditionally found in the west and around Osaka. The fact that two parallel blade styles can evolve for exactly the same purpose does make you wonder what the point of the point is. The slicing action is a long pull and there are few circumstances in which you’d want to use the sharp tip – it would be incredibly hard to control in a foot-long blade. I rather like the idea that this is a quiet reminder of the samurai traditions underlying Japanese knifemaking – that kind of thing appeals to chefs, no matter what culture they come from.