Hi, everyone. Cutlery noob here. I've been using plastic cutting boards with my cheap German/Chinese stainless steel knives. But now that I just ordered a few Japanese kitchen knives, I thought I'd also upgrade my cutting board as well. So today I spent a couple of hours reading up on the basics of cutting board for use with Japanese knives.
Here's the board that I've been using for the past few couple of years:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074HQTJX5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It's a durable restaurant-grade NSF 18" x 12" x 1" plastic cutting board. But from what I read on various websites, including KKF, plastic boards isn't the best choice if one's priority is edge retention of many delicate Japanese cutlery. Something about plastic boards being too soft, allowing sharp and hard blades to dig in a little too deep into the cutting board, and when the knife is rolled or twisted, *snap* goes the edge, thus chipping the blade. Something along those lines.
To better accommodate Japanese kitchen knives, some recommended synthetic boards such as Hasegawa. So I read up on this supposedly superior cutting board and what do I find? It's a piece of wood coated in polypropylene, the very same material out of which my plastic cutting board is made of. Yeah...
Then it gets better.
Walnut and maple have been traditionally popular materials for cutting boards. But these woods are considered to be too hard for retaining that delicate sharpness of Japanese kitchen knives. Instead, many websites and Japanese cutlery aficionados recommend much softer wood such as hinoki. Then they go on about the superiority of end-grain boards over edge-grains. Fine, whatever. But when I search for end-grain hinoki cutting boards, there are none to be found anywhere! Just about every hinoki boards are edge-grain. Did I miss something?
If hinoki really is the best choice of wood for cutting boards to use with Japanese cutlery, then why aren't there abundant choices of end-grain hinoki boards for sale?
Here's the board that I've been using for the past few couple of years:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074HQTJX5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It's a durable restaurant-grade NSF 18" x 12" x 1" plastic cutting board. But from what I read on various websites, including KKF, plastic boards isn't the best choice if one's priority is edge retention of many delicate Japanese cutlery. Something about plastic boards being too soft, allowing sharp and hard blades to dig in a little too deep into the cutting board, and when the knife is rolled or twisted, *snap* goes the edge, thus chipping the blade. Something along those lines.
To better accommodate Japanese kitchen knives, some recommended synthetic boards such as Hasegawa. So I read up on this supposedly superior cutting board and what do I find? It's a piece of wood coated in polypropylene, the very same material out of which my plastic cutting board is made of. Yeah...
Then it gets better.
Walnut and maple have been traditionally popular materials for cutting boards. But these woods are considered to be too hard for retaining that delicate sharpness of Japanese kitchen knives. Instead, many websites and Japanese cutlery aficionados recommend much softer wood such as hinoki. Then they go on about the superiority of end-grain boards over edge-grains. Fine, whatever. But when I search for end-grain hinoki cutting boards, there are none to be found anywhere! Just about every hinoki boards are edge-grain. Did I miss something?
If hinoki really is the best choice of wood for cutting boards to use with Japanese cutlery, then why aren't there abundant choices of end-grain hinoki boards for sale?