DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
On the contrary, convincing your drummer to go and sit on a cow is sometimes the first step to improving the band. Especially if he's feeling a bit dehydrated ... we can only hope ...
No such thing as a "Cow Sword"
- Thread starter KenHash
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YumYumSauce
Senior Member
DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
A cow king is obviously the bovine equivalent of a drag king. A drag king is, in general, lacking a sword, such that some sort of substitute is obtained from time to time.
My main conclusion is "This looks potentially uncomfortable, depending".
Also, some current sword owners consider selecting a short one to be a bold move. This boldness is probably magnified by the fact of, you know, cows. (e.g. there is no reach-around if you can't even reach.)
Then again, short can be nice. It's a double-edged sword, I guess.
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Untangling meaning is interesting.
I would even more like to see the profile of the first Chef's knives back then and how they evolved?
How were the handles on the traditional Japanese blades?
I would even more like to see the profile of the first Chef's knives back then and how they evolved?
Preach. Wait till people hear that yo handles are more traditional than wa handles
How were the handles on the traditional Japanese blades?
SeattleB
Well-Known Member
@KenHash, thank you for the insight.
It's a bit off-topic, but can you describe the knives typically used in Japan before the advent of the European-style chef knife? Length, shape, handle? I'm not referring to 100 years ago, but in the decades before the Euro-chef knife became popular for blacksmiths to make. Also, I'm referring to higher-end chefs and home cooks.
The reason I ask is that I noted that the concept of the Euro-chef knife was novel because the Japanese didn't eat a lot of beef. However, they still cut a lot of onions and other veggies back then. What did they use?
It's a bit off-topic, but can you describe the knives typically used in Japan before the advent of the European-style chef knife? Length, shape, handle? I'm not referring to 100 years ago, but in the decades before the Euro-chef knife became popular for blacksmiths to make. Also, I'm referring to higher-end chefs and home cooks.
The reason I ask is that I noted that the concept of the Euro-chef knife was novel because the Japanese didn't eat a lot of beef. However, they still cut a lot of onions and other veggies back then. What did they use?
DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
In the period where "catching up with the West" was in fashion, the aim was certainly to make copies as faithful as possible, of the best examples available.
The attraction of westernizing everything came to an end, but adoption of individual items and processes carried on for a long time, especially concerning things "exotically western" for which there was interest. Yamaha hired one of the best American makers of brass musical instruments as a consultant, initially adopting designs and procedures very similar to his to the extent that they could be thought of as copies, then as time went on (of course - this is Yamaha) developing their own designs and expanding their brass instrument line to be one of the biggest sellers in the world. And that wasn't in the 1800s, they first hired him in 1966. (There is certainly a significant niche interest in Japanese society for performing and recording Western classical music.)
DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
This part confuses me, and maybe other people too, because a European-style chef's knife has no greater association with beef (at least in my mind) than it does with potatoes, parsley, or piranhas. If a European in a kitchen asks another European simply "Where's the knife?", he probably means this one.
A European butcher's knife is associated with beef, sure, but that's different. Have basic European knife styles changed so much since the time we're talking about, that the words no longer make sense? Was the first gyuto a copy of a butcher knife rather than a kitchen knife?
Maybe it's always been the Japanese habit to call each knife after its primary use, and it was easier to arbitrarily declare a "dummy" primary use for a Western-style knife (in which case "beef" seems sensible) instead of mangling the language to say "The knife Westerners call all-purpose but frankly we doubt it".
This is what I was trying to get at in my earlier posts.
No mangling would've been required. 万能 (bannô, literally "10,000 capabilities") is the word for "all-purpose" or "general-use" in Japanese....instead of mangling the language to say "The knife Westerners call all-purpose but frankly we doubt it".
DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
It was the "frankly, we doubt it" part that I thought would be so clumsy
Words develop by consensus and in local context, not just by logic. Nobody consults the language police before making up a word, and the person creating a word may consider their invention to be a stopgap or even a joke. But if people start actually using it, it becomes "the word", and that's pretty much it.
We say the number 1 as "wun" from some kind of long-ago joke or exaggeration - it should sound exactly like the end of "alone". But it doesn't because it doesn't, and that's that.
It was the "frankly, we doubt it" part that I thought would be so clumsy
Words develop by consensus and in local context, not just by logic. Nobody consults the language police before making up a word, and the person creating a word may consider their invention to be a stopgap or even a joke. But if people start actually using it, it becomes "the word", and that's pretty much it.
Check up on French. We have the Academie Française, whose members are called "Immortals" and their job is to be the language police.
KenHash
Senior Member
As unexciting as this may sound, the "average" home probably has nothing more than a Santoku or Gyuto, maybe a Nakiri, Petty, if that. Often of not great quality either. Zwilling sets are also popular along with Global and Seki Magoroku (Kai). Many malls here have Zwilling stores. Because of the smaller kitchen areas of most homes it's rare to see anything longer than 180mm. A 210 is about as big as I have seen. With the advent of packaged seafoods in supermarkets, the need to prepare fish from scratch has decreased. But in homes of older people, people who fish either commercial or recreational, you will invariably find yanagibas and debas. In commercial fishing towns you can sometimes come across unique regional knives. Just as in western countries, most people in Japan generally don't care too much about their kitchen knives. The fine handmade Japanese knives, and longer blade length ones, are really used only by the restaurant professionals.
KenHash
Senior Member
It may seem silly unless one takes into account the Japanese perspective in the 1800s when red meat dishes started getting popular in a country where knives were traditionally made specifically for one purpose. Even today there are many knives made for different species of fish. It makes sense that the Chef's Knife became called a Beef Knife.
Personally, I find the term Yo-Bouchou (Western Knife) which is still used, to be very accurate.
I suppose "Big Kitchen Knife" is fine if the only other knife in the kitchen is a Cai Dao.
KenHash
Senior Member
Knives were mostly Nakiri/Usuba and Kurouchi.
A print of Sakai 1754. There are Deba, Usuba, knives for sashimi, tabacco cutting knife.
A pair of knives from period 1680-1710.
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DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
Do French people really refuse to suggest new words for things?
Looks a lot like what's popularly considered "gishiki-bôchô". (Though the definitions of gishiki-bocho have varied with region and time historically too.)
NO ChoP!
Old Head
So Korean kids sing of the santoki; a cute little bunny. Does that make a santoku a bunny sword?
DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
These two are Western religious figures, St. Ki and St. Ku.
Ki is considered the patron saint of rounded tails, Ku of rounded noses. Their feast day is celebrated jointly (VERY jointly) in one of the few saints' commemorations for which smoke other than incense is recommended. (It is not considered a high holy day, but it's 50% of the way there.)
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DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
To put "sword" on the end, you'd need to add "-to", like "bunny swords are called santokitos".
"Santokitos", not coincidentally, sounds like "antojitos" - our clue to the bunny's sudden disappearance.
KenHash
Senior Member
Yes. Knives of this kind are used in ceremonies.
No, they consider the importation of words for things to be subject to common-sense reasonable restrictions.
Though from what I understand, it's actually Canadians who do a better job of that sort of thing, q.v. "fin de semaine" instead of "week-end", "logiciel" instead of "software", "courriel" [courrier electronique] instead of "email", etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arret.jpg
DavidPF
Likes Boring Knives
I do live in the land of the Arrêt sign, though at the other end of the country...
And I have a large pot that's coated with email.
I'm glad that French people, just as Japanese people, are ready to create a new word when necessary.
It's actually that the AF's "job" is to guard the purity and uniqueness of French, so when invasive words arrive (email) they propose something more French (courriel or mel).
I don't own a santoku, but if this were true, I would own several.
Well said, but I'm pretty sure that "courriel" was a proposition of the AF. Fin de semaine is definitely not used in France as "week-end" (yes, we have a dash in the middle, it's OK). "Logiciel" is definitely used in France, more than "software," though everyone will understand the second. Only old people or people with large sticks hidden somewhere inside themselves use "courriel."
I do live in the land of the Arrêt sign, though at the other end of the country...
And I have a large pot that's coated with email.
I'm glad that French people, just as Japanese people, are ready to create a new word when necessary.
We actually absorb words all the time, it's the immortals (and Jacques Chirac, back in the day) who wage war against it. The kids don't care.
KenHash
Senior Member
@Qapla
Would you feel that Vegetable Sword or Dish Sword is the correct translation for 菜刀 (Caidao)?
Would you feel that Vegetable Sword or Dish Sword is the correct translation for 菜刀 (Caidao)?
Jovidah
I'll make you a sponsor offer you can't refuse...
I think google translate is partially to blame here, considering it routinely translates gyuto as beef sword, cow sword, whatever... Whenever I use a google translation of a Japanese website about knives that's what I basically use to identify gyuto at this point.
I don't know enough Chinese to give a proper answer, but I'm aware that 刀 is used for knives of any kind in Chinese, and that they wouldn't call it 菜包丁.
KenHash
Senior Member
Yes, the kanji character 刀 Tou in Japanese beef knife 牛刀 and, Dao in Chinese Vegetable knife 菜刀 Caidao
is used the same way. So a Caidao could easily have ended up being translated into English as "Vegetable Sword". Of course it ended up being "Chinese cleaver" which I admit to having some dispute with since some Caidaos are used like cleavers, I've seen other thin ones used to slice as well as any Yanagiba.
And yes, a kitchen knife is not called a 包丁 anywhere in China today, at least as far as I am aware. Which on one hand puts some doubt into my mind as to it's origins, but on the other hand reminds me that much of what came from China to Japan happened so long ago. For example, in China they simplified many Kanji whereas in Japan they kept most of them as they were maybe 1000 years ago.
A Vegetable Knife became 菜切り包丁 Vegetable Cutting Knife in Japan, now shortened to Nakiri 菜切り。
KenHash
Senior Member
Does it really matter if the Otto engine is called horse machine or whatever in Japanese
LOL.....An Otto Engine is called Otto- Enjin in Japanese.
Undoubtedly it was probably called horse machine back in the 1800s when there were no such machines in Japan.
Because at the same time period an automobile was called a "Horseless Carriage" in the Europe and the United States.
KenHash
Senior Member
I think you are right. Machine translations of Japanese text into English are atrocious. They work pretty well for western latin based languages, but not for Asian languages which rely on Kangi ideograms which may have mutiple readings or meanings.
