Does your knife have soul?

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Marko Tsourkan said:
The bottom one is a miroshi deba, so not too much exposure to acidic food and not too much usage in the Western kitchen either. :)
Click to expand...
Correct, and on top of that, my fish filleting skillz suck... However, I do use miroshis as heavy gyutos on occasion.
 
I felt like some of my knifes had soul right out of the box. All of my knifes made by hand by a person came with a soul / personality all their own.
I think that with use / exposure people kind of rub off on their things / things take on part of the character or soul of their user. However, i do think that some things are more absorbitive than others.

As to the OT of photo sharing sites: google's picasa is the best that I've used (and I've used a lot). Their desktop photo manager is also very good and makes uploading albums painless.
 
I don't think my knives have souls, but I do connect memories with pretty much every one of them. Can't help thinking of Fish if I use a knife with one of his handles etc. And familiarity plays a big role. I am currently selling my Nenox 230 slicer because I hardly ever use it. My go-to slicer in that length is my (gasp!) Henckels slicer - the first 'good' knife I ever bought from my own money over 30 years ago... The Nenox is by far the better knife, but the Henckels is so familiar that it makes up for a lot.

Stefan
 
Do my knives have soul? Some have a little bit of "I don't know what", for sure. My Carters and my Rodrigue make me feel good when I use them, and it's more than just the performance. The feel warm in the hand, and the cuts are almost intuitive. I often get my fingers within a hair's width of the edge and feel secure, almost as though the blade is being guided by more than just my hand.
My Misono moly feels good because it is light and nimble, with a razor's edge AND it was a gift from wifey. It's great to use but I think I reach for it often because I truly give a crap about it.
My Dad's old Henckels chef has more soul than James Brown and a choir combined. The handle is beaten, the tip is bent about 3-4mm to the left and there are dings all over the spine and choil, but it will NEVER be taken off the rack unless it's being used/washed/moved with the other everydays. There is a concept of "Soul Vessels" that I find intriguing in part because I was raised with antiques/heirlooms all around me, and partly because some items just speak to people. It's a pretty out there concept, an inanimate object containing soul, but then again so is a soul, at all.
 
I'm very Shinto in my beliefs that everything has a soul, so I would have to say yes. Though, saying that, there are differences in the quality of that soul. Take for instance a 75 year old butcher's cleaver I have, it's the wise old soul that has seen everything, and has no pretension about it, just gets the job done, shrugs its shoulders, and asks whats next. As for the difference of my 10 year old henckels and some of my hand forged knives, it like comparing a minnow to a sword fish, the sword fish gets the awe every time.
 
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