The Lost Art of Cutting Stuff in Your Hand
You mostly see hand cutting in French professional kitchens – careful peeling with a bird’s beak knife (tournét) – or with old-school home cooks like grandmothers and great aunts. I’ve spent years trying to keep this skill alive, especially when I’m making soup.
And it’s led to my completely insane collection of tiny knives. I’ve got a couple dozen in my kitchen right now, with even more tucked away. I know it looks like a problem from the outside, but each one brings me genuine joy. You can have that too.
Tiny knives do careful work on boards, but learning to process your vegetables with hand-cutting skills turns into meditation. It forces you to slow down and think about what you’re doing.
My carrots, potatoes, and cucumbers come out looking beautiful, and I waste way less than I would with a bigger knife. The skill translates to larger knives too – I can hand-cut with a big knife, though I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re trying to show off.
The Knife That Started Everything
Years ago I found a 2.75-inch French paring knife in a box of old knives. Most beautiful, elegant vintage thing with the best feel for hand cutting. The blade still had life left in it, even though it was clearly mid-life. The wood handle was ancient, splintered, probably not the most sanitary thing around. My husband kept trying to throw it away, saying it was time to “retire it.” I refused to let it go.
Eventually we tracked down a maker in Thiers, France who still makes these knives. Now I’ve got both the new version and the 80-year-old one. They’re super thin, well-ground paring knives with a sleek taper in the handle. Perfect for peeling cucumbers over a salad bowl or just general use. I also love the thin grinds and handle on the F. Herder x Bernal Cutlery paring knife. F. Herder is about to hit 300 years in operation. These knives are living history.
What Makes a Paring Knife
The word “paring” comes from the Latin “pare” – to take away or peel. My collection includes knives six inches and smaller, but proper paring knives are the small, narrow-shaped ones that are four inches and under.
Paring knives evolved from a bunch of different knife types – general utility knives, eating knives, small butchery knives, and the obvious trimming and peeling knives for food prep. The “office” knife – a five or six-inch stiff narrow utility knife used to butcher small game in the “office” room where game and produce entered a manor’s kitchen – is a main ancestor of the stiffer forged paring knives we see today. But you can also trace lineage to older personal knives people carried for utility and eating (the great-great-great-grandparents of our table knives) and much smaller, thinner vegetable peeling knives that peelers have mostly replaced. Today you’ll find three main blade shapes: spear point, sheep’s foot, and tournét (bird’s beak), which is related to traditional hook-shaped folding pocket knives.
So here’s what I’m asking: find yourself a small workhorse that fits perfectly in your hand. Start collecting tiny knives – new ones, old carbon ones, stainless ones, ranging from 2.5 to 6 inches. Keep them handy and use them, and they’ll love you back.
