Sharp: The Definitive Introduction to Knives, Sharpening, and Cutting Techniques, with Recipes from Great Chefs

If you like knives, then this is a nice book to add to your library. A good amount of info on construction and sharpening. Of course, you can find much of the information if you do many online searches and watch Youtube videos. However, it is convenient to a single source to reference.

Highly recommend for culinary reference

This is a very good and informative book about cutlery. It’s massive and has tons of photos. My big complaint is that the photos have no captions! Yes, they’re proximate to text, but they’re not self explanatory.

The main principles for sharpening knives are described. Tools and accessories for work.

This is an unusual book. It includes discussion of various aspects of metallurgy, the history of cutlery, and the origins of the current popularity of Japanese knives, as well as some instructions on sharpening knives, a super-brief (i.e., very non-comprehensive) review of some cutting techniques, and a handful of recipes. Although I enjoyed the book overall, I found the coverage of most topics to feel pretty superficial. The history of kitchen cutlery was quite interesting, but I never escaped the sense that I was reading only about the thin slices of history in the few regions of Europe and Japan with which the author had firsthand knowledge. As a result, the book feels more like the history of the knives sold by Bernal Cutlery rather than a comprehensive treatise on kitchen cutlery. The section on sharpening is pretty disappointing. The topic is covered, but very generally and with many fewer graphics than would be helpful. Much more useful and clear instruction on sharpening could be found on the Internet. The book concludes with a section that has several recipes that I suppose highlight certain knife techniques. The inclusion of this section is bizarre to me, as it really doesn’t fit with the rest of the book, nor is there any theme to the recipes selected. One gets the sense that the creators of the recipes are friends or associates of the author, but beyond that, I couldn’t find any rhyme or reason to what was included. Overall, I think this book would probably be most interesting to someone who is just becoming interested with Japanese knives or someone who frequents the author’s knife shop. Those looking for a deeper dive into knifemaking or sharpening will likely be disappointed.

The key insight from the book is how much cutting and food preparation are seen much more as part of cooking in the Japanese kitchen, which explains why Japanese knives developed the way they did. For me personally, especially since I became an entirely plant-based chef, I began to appreciate Japanese knives more and more. This book covers all the basics, but you will come away with a profound understanding why Japanese knives have become so popular.

Great intro to good knives and how to maintain them. Excellent presentation (quality) as well. Not just information about knives, but where they come from, the difference in the metals and the backgrounds of people who make the best.

Good book if you want to know what type of knife to use as a chef. A lot of technical background information. I just want to know how to sharpen stuff. It will tell you if you want to take the time to dig through the rocks to find the gold nuggets.

I bought this book for my husband and he said it was really interesting. He likes the techniques mentioned in the book and we also tried some of the recipes!

Am afraid, I am not into knives. For me it's multi purpose knives, to cut bread, meat and veges that's it. If you are into knives this is a good book. I love the recipes though. At £1.99 this book is a steal.

Etonnant de trouver un auteur américain qui s'intéresse tant à ce qui se produit, avec un bon. tranchant, ailleurs que dans son propre pays. Le couteau pour l'amateur de belle cuisine est traité en détail, avec le pourquoi et me comment de son utilisation et de son entretien. Le livre, en langue anglaise, s'intéresse aussi à quelques couteliers fabricants et à des chefs internationaux et leur relation avec leurs couteaux.

Simple and easy to follow instructions for care and sharpening of quality knives.

I was a little disappointted, I was looking at description of differents knives and how to sharpen them. There was some info on knives but also recipes whic I do not really cook.