Japanese cleavers — why the belly?

[oval99]

After getting my Sugimoto 4030 cleaver I realized how much upsweep the knife has on both the heel and the tip. In fact, there’s less of a sweet/flat spot on it than my Takamura Hana, which has a more aggressive sweep than some other gyutos.

I’ve always used my previous cleaver (CCK) for push cuts and some chopping and the nearly flat profile was perfect for this. And considering it’s cumbersome to rock chop with a cleaver, I don’t understand why many Japanese cleavers have this profile, which could lead to some accordioning if the cook doesn’t literally hit the sweet spot when they push cut. Only Moritaka seems to have a dead-flat profile.

Any ideas why this is?

 

[Matus]

I think it comes with the cutting style. Two people I know in person who use cleavers (one of them has a Moritaka, accidentally) say that flat cutting edge is harder to use, because you are much more prone to dig either the tip or the heel in the cutting board. The gentle curve eliminates that and requires gentle 'rocking' motion when push cutting. It is similar when cutting with a nakiri - few are super flat for the same reason.

 

[daveb]

[QUOTE="Matus, post: 624619, member: 2568"(one of them has a Moritaka, accidentally).... [/QUOTE]

The only way to own a Moritaka

The rest is spot on in my experience. I did not like a CCK - a lot - because of the flatness. It only took a minute to get used to the gentle roll required with a Suien cleaver.

 

[HRC_64]

slight curves allow for neutral/natural wrist action,
(ie when slight pushing/pulling vs downchopping)
overly flat profiles IMHO can be harder on the wrist

Some of this can be personal/ergonomics and whether the blade
is a relatively highly curved of mildly curved shape
depends a bit on a mix of technique and ergonomics.

its defnitely possible to have regional variations that
make sense or don't depending on various ways
of working with the knife

 

[chinacats]

My guess is because the Japanese don't use cleavers... don't want dead flat either but i prefer just a slight rise at tip and heel.

 

[Noodle Soup]

I own both straight and slightly curved edge cleavers. Which I use depends on what I'm cutting . The curved edge ones work better for chopping meat and fish in to a rough grind, the straight edges work better for slicing work. In general I would say a slight curve in the edge is the most popular in China but you can find both so there may be some personal preferences involved.

 

[refcast]

The heavier knife is often more cumbersome to do slices with, compared to a lighter knife. Slices normally penetrate into food easier than a straight down push cut. So with the heavier sugimoto, I'd probably be doing a lot of chopping-type movements. The curve helps to allow the cut to occur more easily. The motion is not rock chopping as it is kind of arm and wrist-flicking to raise and angle the knife tip up and then back down, with the brute weight of the knife.

A flat profile doesn't work so well with this technique, but does work well when the knife is light enough to do more delicate pull and push slices, like with the CCK.

If we were to apply a flat profile to the Sugimoto, because of the weight, when the knife stops with each 'slam-cut' (becuase, it's pretty heavy), it stops abruptly. My wrist would have to tighten to react to that, and I would fatigue pretty quickly. The curve helps to dissipate that and give my wrist more time to absorb the impact, so long as I let the knife move along the curve of it's edge.

 

[jaybett]

It can be jarring to use a cleaver with a dead flat edge. A gentle curve takes care of the issue.

Jay

 

[Jville]

There are some japanese cleavers with more flat spots. I havent come across any quite as flat as moritaka, but my fujiyama and heji cleaver both have long flats gently curving up at heel and tip.

 

[XooMG]

Could try a Taiwanese 肉桂刀 rouguidao and embrace the belly.

 

[Matus]

That one looks sweet!