Toward a Hierarchy of Kitchen Utensils
 
There’s no mincing the truth. The chef’s knife is king of kitchen cutlery. It slices and chops and stabs vegetables in the heart with efficient fluency. But for more delicate work, deveining the hot devil soul of a pepper, or excising the offending eye of an assailant, a paring knife is supreme. It’s murder in the kitchen when the knives come out. The teeth of a bread knife saw their way across fields of soldiers dressed as wheat. The filet knife bends its will along boulevards of bone. Once or twice a year the carving knife thins a sacrificial breast. When you were in your prime, beef was a bargain. Your steak knives have long since lost their edge but haven’t we all.