Cutting Tomatoes with Your Good Knife?

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chuck_d

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I've been told not to cut tomatoes with my nice carbon steel core knife, and to use a cheap serrated knife instead. Because they are too damaging to the knife and it's better to just use a cheap blade instead.

What do you all think? Are there other foods you avoid using your best knives on as well, like citrus?
 
You seem to have an abundance of unneeded advice, I think.

Cut a tomato with your carbon knife and wipe it or rinse. Is the patina going out of control and leading to rust? If it's hard to manage for you, just swap to a stainless for the task.

Do not smash or torque your edge. Do not cut on hard surfaces. Keep it wiped and washed when working with stuff that oxidizes iron faster. Keep it sharp and do maintenance thinning when convenient. These are all pretty easy to figure out.

Unless you are using a yanagiba to chop pumpkins, I think you'll be fine.
 
I can't see it being that bad. Knife wear stocks tomatoes to show people how their knives cut.
 
I cut tomatoes with CS knives, I'd maybe consider letting a bit of a patina build first, and acknowledge that it may cause the edge to lose its keenness quicker than less reactive produce
 
Tomatoes does take away the edge much faster than other veg. (It is a fruit actually and not a veg).
But not fast enough that it should worry any home user.

We go thru about 20-30 kilos of tomatoes a day at the mad house. When using my Tanaka B2 Nakiri after about 10 kilos I`ll need a quick touch up. Without the tomatoes I´ll get thru a full day or two.

If I use a stainless knife I can prep about three to four times as much. Without the tomatoes both knives will last about the same.

So yeah, they do wear on your carbons a bit more then most other stuff. Should you be concerned? Nah, not the least bit!
 
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Thanks, that was my suspicion, but I figured I'd check with y'all before ignoring that advice.

JaVa said:
Tomatoes does take away the edge much faster than other veg. (It is a fruit actually and not a veg).
But not fast enough that it should worry any home user.

We go thru about 20-30 kilos of tomatoes a day at the mad house. When using my Tanaka B2 Nakiri after about 10 kilos I`ll need a quick touch up. Without the tomatoes I´ll get thru a full day or two.

If I use a stainless knife I can prep about three to four times as much. Without the tomatoes both knives will last about the same.

So yeah, they do wear on your carbons a bit more then most other stuff. Should you be concerned? Nah, not the least bit!
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Yeah, well, I guess it depends on your definition of fruit and vegetable. Botanically, things like tomatoes, cucumbers, avocados, squash, stuff with seeds are fruits. I'm not sure vegetable is botanically defined. In a culinary sense, vegetable means savory plants and fruit means sweet plants. I can see tomatoes being on the boarder between the two, but zucchini and cucumber would fall into the savory category. After getting a math degree, I see things like this as it all depends on your definitions. Let F be a plant with a sweet flavor and V be a plant with a savory flavor. Or let F be plant with seeds and let V be a plant without seeds. Also, strawberries and raspberries aren't actually berries, but a banana is, as well as a tomato in fact, and pumpkins and watermelons, botanically speaking that is.
 
I actually had to go check.

The almighty Wikipedia, in it´s great wisdom says that a tomato is a berry type fruit.
Funnily enough Finish Wikipedia said only fruit? Go figure?

Aanyway... berry or fruit? My point was only meant to underline of the acidity of them. As most fruits are very acidity (and mostly veggies are not). Thats probably why someone would suggest not to use carbon knives for cutting tomatoes?

...Aand then most fruits would be off the table also. (pun intended)
 
JaVa said:
I actually had to go check.

The almighty Wikipedia, in it´s great wisdom says that a tomato is a berry type fruit.
Funnily enough Finish Wikipedia said only fruit? Go figure?

Aanyway... berry or fruit? My point was only meant to underline of the acidity of them. As most fruits are very acidity (and mostly veggies are not). Thats probably why someone would suggest not to use carbon knives for cutting tomatoes?

...Aand then most fruits would be off the table also. (pun intended)
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Yeah, I was just nerding out. I figure it is the same reason as he said not to cut citrus as well, these are highly acidic fruits. But I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal. If the edge is lost more quickly, I'll just sharpen more frequently. If that becomes a problem then I'll switch to using a cheaper knife. But I'm dropping a lot of coin on this knife, not as much as one could. In the grand scheme of JKnives, this is inexpensive. However, in the grand scheme of most people's lives and budgets, it's not cheap. After spending that kind of money, I do want to protect it, but I also want to use it. It's a tool, not a display piece, it's meant to be used. It would be foolish to spend this money and then do so much cutting without it. Over time, I'll build up a decent collection of various knives, many dedicated to specific tasks. Until that time however, a gyuto is a general all-purpose knife and I'm going to generally use it for all purposes.
 
bennyprofane said:
Which Gyuto are you getting?
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It's between the Itto Ryu 210mm or the Masakage Yuki 210mm. I'll know for sure tomorrow or the next day. Both of them are Shirogami #2 core with stainless cladding. The Itto has kurouchi finish and the Masakage has a pear finish, both have oval handles. The Itto is slightly heavier (by 0.2 ounces), slightly longer in the blade (by 3mm), slightly shorter overall (by 19mm), slightly thicker in the heel (by 0.7mm) and slightly taller (by 2.7mm). Oh, and the Masakage is slightly harder, the Itto is listed at 61+ while the Masakage is listed as 62/63.

So in general, very similar knives, with only a few minor differences. What I like about the Masakage is that there seems to be a lot more users out there, while the Itto seems to be fairly new to the scene so not much info on quality/durability/longevity of the knife. I think the Masakage is probably a better known entity. But it'll still probably come down to which feels best in our hands, if it's too hard to decide based on that we'll go with the Masakage.
 
Education will teach you that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
 
Tomato has too much water, and decreases the edge quicker than anything else.
It also leaves ugly colored patinas.
But it is a pure joy to cut lots or loads of tomatoes with a just sharpened carbon, feel the sweetness and as yiu continue to cut to a satisfactory degree, with just a touch up carbons become fully sharp again, and you experience one more time, the sweetness of their cutting performance
 
supersayan3 said:
Tomato has too much water, and decreases the edge quicker than anything else.
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I do not think water content is a culprit. At the end of the day cucumber has more water content and tomato is similar to green cabbage with 94% water. Having an acidic content is what kills it; as previous posters mentioned.
 
@daveb eclecticism is knowing som tam pon lamai.

I always found tomato juice even seems to have a slightly skin irritating quality (not making you get a rash or something, but there is still something that can be felt) if left there for a length of time...
 
Expensive, esoteric kitchen knife which you shouldn't cut tomatoes with? Really?
 
Daveb, you're going to have to change your signature to older and wittier.
 
daveb said:
A tomato or a knife?
Click to expand...

Why not both?

tomato-slicing-knife-12.jpg
 
There is no way I'm going to tear tomatoes apart with a crappie serrated knife. If it won't glide through a tomato leaving paper thin slices, it either needs sharpening or it doesn't belong in my kitchen.
 
Ruso said:
I do not think water content is a culprit. At the end of the day cucumber has more water content and tomato is similar to green cabbage with 94% water. Having an acidic content is what kills it; as previous posters mentioned.
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Tomato water I meant.
You keep on cutting tomatoes with a carbon knife, after a point your edge will be completely dull
 
" i'm pretty sure tomatoes are cut very often in most homes.."

I think some here do not like to refer to that as cutting :)


I guess dicing warm tomatoes (just skinned by blanching, as would be common in making sauces from fresh ones) doesn't exactly help either (acids are more reactive the warmer they are)....

@Noodle soup that's why we sooner or later add some esoteric and expensive stainless I guess ... or keep the G***l around :)
Interestingly, G***** makes a serrated tomato knife too even though their non-serrated ones can be made quite tomato-capable even when using their recommended pull through sharpener.
 
daveb said:
Education will teach you that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
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The Supreme Court disagrees with you. See Nix v. Hedden (1893) in which SCOTUS ruled unanimously that the tomato is a vegetable.
 
TimH said:
The Supreme Court disagrees with you. See Nix v. Hedden (1893) in which SCOTUS ruled unanimously that the tomato is a vegetable.
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Which was the precedent for the Reagan administration calling ketchup a vegetable?
 
If resharpening my knife is the price I have to pay, I am still ready, eager, and willing to slice transparently thin slices of tomato with it -- especially when company is around.
:knife:
 
chuck_d said:
It's between the Itto Ryu 210mm or the Masakage Yuki 210mm. I'll know for sure tomorrow or the next day. Both of them are Shirogami #2 core with stainless cladding. The Itto has kurouchi finish and the Masakage has a pear finish, both have oval handles. The Itto is slightly heavier (by 0.2 ounces), slightly longer in the blade (by 3mm), slightly shorter overall (by 19mm), slightly thicker in the heel (by 0.7mm) and slightly taller (by 2.7mm). Oh, and the Masakage is slightly harder, the Itto is listed at 61+ while the Masakage is listed as 62/63.

So in general, very similar knives, with only a few minor differences. What I like about the Masakage is that there seems to be a lot more users out there, while the Itto seems to be fairly new to the scene so not much info on quality/durability/longevity of the knife. I think the Masakage is probably a better known entity. But it'll still probably come down to which feels best in our hands, if it's too hard to decide based on that we'll go with the Masakage.
Click to expand...

You realize these are both handmade knifes, and are going to vary, right? And that those measurements are probably from one example picked out of a stack of boxes of each model?

I have never seen, much less used, a Yuki, but I got an Itto 240 a couple of weeks ago and it has become about my favorite knife. The Yuki probably holds an edge better, but has a reputation for being a bit wedgy, and I am really not at all a fan of the curved choil. It is very popular, though, and really pretty. Plus it has a nicer handle.
 
chuck_d said:
Which was the precedent for the Reagan administration calling ketchup a vegetable?
Click to expand...

Isn't pizza now considered to contain a serving of vegetables now on account of the tomato sauce (according to the most recent health/nutrition/MyPlate guidelines)?

With rationalizations like these I hope no one is sincerely wonder about our sub-optimal health effects... :scratchhead:
 
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