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stringer said:
Most of the trend toward humongous cutting boards and super tall gyutos is lazy cooks IMO. I admit, I am often a lazy cook. But in the work smarter not harder kind of way. There should only be one ingredient on your board at a time. If you need a place to store your mise use a half/quarter sheet or some small mixing bowls. Work the product in batches that are small enough to quickly scoop with whatever knife you are using. Or if you absolutely need something to scoop product with then invest in a bench scraper. Pictures of humongous cutting boards piled high with eleventy cross contaminated ingredients with a 180x65 "gyuto" lying on top is the thing of nightmares for me.
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Agree! Trying to figure out when the extra-tall gyuto trend started, maybe pandemic-era? Seems to be mostly a western maker thing IMHO. For me, taller gyutos are less nimble/versatile, 48–53mm my sweet spot for 240 gyuto heights.
 
Vertigo said:
OoooOOOOooooOOOOOOOooooOOOOOOOOOOOO
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I'm comin for ya......!!!!
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ethompson said:
Societies put up statues to commemorate and celebrate. The continued existence of confederate leaders’ statues in places of public prominence accomplishes nothing besides perpetuating the Lost Cause fallacy and alienating black Americans. Which is what these statues were created to do when they started going up in earnest during the 20th century.

The proper place to “contextualize” and “preserve” these statues, if such a place exists, is a museum, not areas of public prominence. Budapest has a lovely solution where all the communist-era statues were moved to a separate park where the history can be shown in a manner that doesn’t celebrate the subject and the viewer is deliberately signing up to see this imagery in a historical context - I think that would be a great idea. But if the choice is only between destruction and “history” - **** history
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Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work in many of those states. A lot of them still teach the civil war not as an insane act by terrible people against their proper government, but as a righteous backlash against tyranny and oppression of states rights. Those words probably have more syllables than the actual supporters are used to seeing in words.

It’s crazy, it’s sad, it’s an artifact of how reconstruction was handled by the feds in letting the states mostly direct themselves and in turn write their own accounts of the story combined with generations of chronic poverty which leaves people looking to blame others for their fathers mistakes to explain their situations, and a crippled education system on many levels. Leave the cities of the south, go outside of the NOVA region in VA and it’s rampant.

Again I don’t care about the statues, because naming something after a general who lost a war is both dumb and hilarious (what’s next? The Custer Highway?) but the way of going about it is the issue. Don’t try to force some change from higher authorities, because in the eyes of those people it’s just repeating history. Use the same tools that have shown themselves useful time and time again. Boycott goods from the state, make it known why you’re doing it, and eventually the state government (the people) will have to start addressing the issue because they don’t have the economic power to withstand half the US if people sufficiently care about it. It isn’t perfect, and frankly until the education system is fixed there is no perfect solution down there. That’s enough out of me on this though, it’s not an issue that’s been solved during the last 150 years it’s certainly not one I’m fixing.

Back to unpopular opinions. Having just had raising canes again, it is WILDLY mid. The best thing they have is Texas toast and that’s just because the bread is decent quality.



stringer said:
View attachment 314083
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Look how beautiful that S grind is tho
 
stringer said:
Most of the trend toward humongous cutting boards and super tall gyutos is lazy cooks IMO. I admit, I am often a lazy cook. But in the work smarter not harder kind of way. There should only be one ingredient on your board at a time. If you need a place to store your mise use a half/quarter sheet or some small mixing bowls. Work the product in batches that are small enough to quickly scoop with whatever knife you are using. Or if you absolutely need something to scoop product with then invest in a bench scraper. Pictures of humongous cutting boards piled high with eleventy cross contaminated ingredients with a 180x65 "gyuto" lying on top is the thing of nightmares for me.
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I generally agree with you that the pictures of 'cuttingboards filled with 3 kilos of ingredients' are cringeworthy (how do people make them... do the entire mise en place into bowls and then throw it on the board again?)...
However. Larger board means less fussing with bowls / plates. The amount of stuff you can cut before things get crowded on the board goes up. Stuff doesn't roll off the board as often, etc. I generally found that my efficiency increased with a larger board even though I was already fairly disciplined (just like you I hate cutting on an overcrowded board).

Also, though I am on team bench scraper, the most efficient way in a home environment is still 'bring frying pan to the board with 1 hand, swipe entire pile of product into pan with the other'. ;)
 
I would also like to point out 1 thing that I omitted in my last post: there is a very thin line between 'lazy' and 'efficient'. I will happily do 'lazy' things if they get me the same result faster / easier. I'm actually bothered far more if I see people doing inefficient things. 🤷‍♂️
 
The entire point of a giant cutting board is to be more lazy (efficient?), so you're not rummaging through the pantry for an amalgamation of mise en place bowls that then need washing. I can prep an etouffee's worth of veggies on one board next to my range and then just use a bench scrape or cleaver to dump all those directly in the pot. Plus you can justify larger knives.
 
SwampDonkey said:
The entire point of a giant cutting board is to be more lazy (efficient?), so you're not rummaging through the pantry for an amalgamation of mise en place bowls that then need washing. I can prep an etouffee's worth of veggies on one board next to my range and then just use a bench scrape or cleaver to dump all those directly in the pot. Plus you can justify larger knives.
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I would rather use a half or quarter sheet for that and keep my cutting board clean. I prefer very large knives, I don't have any gyutos/chef knives in my home collection shorter than 255mm. And I have a lot of gyutos! Big knives work fine with small cutting boards if you don't have a bunch of stuff on them.

I love big boards too and I do use them all of the time at work. They don't really bother me per se. But I always stick to the 1 ingredient on the board at a time rule. Habit since culinary school ingrained into me by mean French bastards. At home I would use larger boards but they have been vetoed by my partner. I usually cook and she cleans and she doesn't like to deal with the big boards.
 
Jovidah said:
That explains your love for pulling out a bunch of different bowls, sheet pans and lack of care for food landing off the board... ;)
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I actually hate having a bunch of mise en place containers spread all around the place and it is one of my biggest pet peeves in culinary classes, controlling mixing bowl proliferation.

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/unpopular-opinions.48161/post-1007872

If I picked what we ate in my house then I would make some kind of curry in a big batch once a week and that is what we would eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Preferably cold standing by the fridge straight out of a reused plastic takeout container.

But our division of household labor is slightly more complicated than I initially let on. While technically it is true that, "I cook and she cleans". It is more like she manages the restaurant and I just work there. And the manager thinks I am a much better cooker than cleaner. And she wants to eat healthy stuff with lots of ingredients from trendy recipe websites. And doesn't really care if there is a mess as long as I do what I am trained to do. So she writes the menu and picks the recipes and buys the groceries. I do what I am trained to do. Execute the menu by deadline.
 
stringer said:
I actually hate having a bunch of mise en place containers spread all around the place and it is one of my biggest pet peeves in culinary classes, controlling mixing bowl proliferation.

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/unpopular-opinions.48161/post-1007872

If I picked what we ate in my house then I would make some kind of curry in a big batch once a week and that is what we would eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Preferably cold standing by the fridge straight out of a reused plastic takeout container.

But our division of household labor is slightly more complicated than I initially let on. While technically it is true that, "I cook and she cleans". It is more like she manages the restaurant and I just work there. And the manager thinks I am a much better cooker than cleaner. And she wants to eat healthy stuff with lots of ingredients from trendy recipe websites. And doesn't really care if there is a mess as long as I do what I am trained to do. So she writes the menu and picks the recipes and buys the groceries. I do what I am trained to do. Execute the menu by deadline.
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Here's a bag of mcnuggets and a box of froot loops. Make it gourmet kthx!
 
Feels like an unpopular opinion. I really like my newer Takeda ~215mm gyuto. Food release is awesome, edge is killer sharp, super nimble in handle and almost has tall chinese cleaver cutting style. Also has 0 issues with wedging. The front 1/3 of the blade has very little of the s grind and feels more of a gentle convex. Super tall too so it can handle large produce.

Aogami super is also a favorite of mine when treated crisply.
 
nhb22 said:
Wow never seen this before…looks like a lot of work…
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Not for the impatient. I haven't tried this yet. Will do first chance I get. I imagine this will be much like tripe. You eat it for the texture, not the taste, and the sauce is what completes the dish.
 
while in China I saw plates full of chicken feet and always was happy when the waiter put them on another table...
I know what geese tongue is like, basically a boring chew.
 
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