Japanese knives used to sculpt ice?

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Korin_Mari

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I had a customer the other day that purchased stain resistant traditional Japanese knives and when I asked what she does, she told me that she is a bartender... She apparently carves ice with the knives. Naturally my first thought was "HERESY!" Especially after all of these years of being told "Mari don't use knives to cut frozen things!"

I looked it up and told this:
http://www.starchefs.com/events/studio/techniques/takaaki-hashimoto/html/index.shtml

hand-sculpted-ice-2_lg.jpg


hand-sculpted-ice-3_lg.jpg


Now my main question is... What happens if the knife chips, get stuck to the ice and no one notices... Someone dies? Also is this new? Is this allowed?
 
Dude, the video in the link is even more disturbing then the pictures in the post:scared4:
 
[video=youtube;cDGlN6mluGA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGlN6mluGA[/video]
 
I saw this awhile ago, I can't remember if it was on this forum or somewhere else. Even though this gentleman looks like he knows what he is doing, it still makes me cringe a bit.

[video=youtube;mRlnkyIhbeU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRlnkyIhbeU[/video]
 
Slypig5000 said:
I saw this awhile ago, I can't remember if it was on this forum or somewhere else. Even though this gentleman looks like he knows what he is doing, it still makes me cringe a bit.

[video=youtube;mRlnkyIhbeU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRlnkyIhbeU[/video]
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure there are better tools available to scuplt ice......
 
Where is Keith when you need him, he did this for a living and competed in ice carving.

Stefan
 
Pensacola Tiger said:
I've always seen ice sculptors use chisels. Seems to me that you'd have much better control with a chisel.
Click to expand...

That's what I've always seen, too. The chisels might be a bit weird for doing this at the bar, but it also seems to me that molding the ice cubes would be a lot easier, and there are ways of molding ice and retaining clarity.
 
Ice sculptors and bartenders are quite different in my opinion. I honestly do not see how a bartender will use a chisel or a chainsaw to create a nice cube of ice in a hurry. If this is a tool that suites their needs, what is the issue? It does not appear to me that this market is big enough to have variety of special tools. As long as they do not complaint to the vendor why the knifes are chipped all is "kosher" imho.
 
Ruso said:
Ice sculptors and bartenders are quite different in my opinion. I honestly do not see how a bartender will use a chisel or a chainsaw to create a nice cube of ice in a hurry. If this is a tool that suites their needs, what is the issue? It does not appear to me that this market is big enough to have variety of special tools. As long as they do not complaint to the vendor why the knifes are chipped all is "kosher" imho.
Click to expand...

you know that this is a knife junkie forum, right?
 
The exec chef at my club is a very accomplished competitor. He has a kit of specialty tools actually made by Misono.
 
Squilliam said:
Because we own similar knives and would never do anything remotely as risky/destructive as this.
Click to expand...

If I needed to create an ice cube, I would do this with my knives. Any damage that ice would cause can surely be fixed.
 
cheezit said:
If I needed to create an ice cube, I would do this with my knives. Any damage that ice would cause can surely be fixed.
Click to expand...

Seeing as ice is significantly harder than the majority of food you cut, then a knife which will stand up to cutting ice would be significantly thicker than it should be for food, and thus will be under performing. A high performing knife could easily sustain significant damage behind the edge cutting ice, which may require 1-2mm of steel to be ground off to be fully repaired.

The takohiki(?) used in the video should have quite an acute bevel, and the steel is balanced more towards hardness than toughness. It is a knife designed to provide the maximum possible performance in the tasks it is designed for, and to see it used in this way, no doubt with altered geometry is near sacrilege.

You may disagree but I am explaining why some people here are shocked to see a knife like that used in this way.
 
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Squilliam said:
Seeing as ice is significantly harder than the majority of food you cut, then a knife which will stand up to cutting ice would be significantly thicker than it should be for food, and thus will be under performing. A high performing knife could easily sustain significant damage behind the edge cutting ice, which may require 1-2mm of steel to be ground off to be fully repaired.

The takohiki(?) used in the video should have quite an acute bevel, and the steel is balanced more towards hardness than toughness. It is a knife designed to provide the maximum possible performance in the tasks it is designed for, and to see it used in this way, no doubt with altered geometry is near sacrilege.

You may disagree but I am explaining why some people here are shocked to see a knife like that used in this way.
Click to expand...

Seeing regular Western knives doesn't concern me as much as the traditional Japanese knives. They chip so easily that I also can't help but worry about what would happen if a little piece of the knife chipped into the ice and someone drank it. Probably hasn't happened, but still makes me nervous.
 
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