Cooking For Engineers

[SirSpice]

I keep reading and hearing about people that use a serrated knife to cut their tomatoes. Supposedly so they won't tear or crush.

Why? Is it really that hard to cut tomatoes with a regular chefs knife. I can understand if someone with a cheap knife set has new no good knife, but I see tv chefs putting down their hundred dollar chef knife and reach for a serrated knife to cut a tomato.

Does anyone have another good reason to use a serrated knife on tomatoes?

[Michael Chu]

The skin on a tomato is sometimes very smooth and just tough enough that is a knife doesn't "bite" into it, then the knife my slip instead of cutting in. I suppose this is a bit of a safety issue, if you're not paying attention. When using a sharp chef's knife, I don't have a problem cutting tomatoes thinly without crushing or tearing, but while I drag the knife over the surface, I make sure I feel the knife edge diggin into the tomato. If you try to press your knife down through the tomato, it's almost guaranteed to slip a little before it bites - using a serrated knife guarantees that it puntures the skin immediately and no one uses a pressing/chopping motion when using a serrated knife.

Alton Brown once claimed that using a bread knife you can slice a tomato as thinly as any other knife - I don't agree with this as I can consistently get translucent thin slices of tomato with my MAC Chef's knife but am unable to do so with my bread knife.

[IndyRob]

Having just finally decided I was worthy of a couple of good knives, and having tried them on tomatoes, I think it's about cost and culture.

Good chef's knives work just as well (or better) on tomatoes as serrated knives. But a $5 serrated knife will beat a $10 chefs knife (or a dull $500 knife) hands down. But here's the rub.... A properly sharpened chef's knife is serrated. It's just very finely serrated.

So I think there are two possible explanations why a TV chef might reach for the serrated blade:

1) The chef has been historically accustomed to dull knives and the serrated knife has never let him down.

-or-

2) The chef is catering to an audience he/she knows is likely to have dull or cheap knives. It's a matter of trying to ensure success.

For my part though, if I'm looking for paper-thin tomato slices, I reach for my cheap plastic mandolin with surgical steel (non-serrated) blades. It takes me longer to rinse it off than it does to reduce an entire tomato to uniform paper-thin slices.

[opqdan]

[SirSpice]

[Guest]

the design purpose of serrations on a knife, is to keep the majority of the sharpened edge, out of contact with the cutting board underneath. That is the only reason serrrated knifes were invented.

Even a VERY soft cutting board, will badly damage a knife's edge.

So your serrated knife has merely not yet lost as much sharpness, as your regular knife.

I've read that in some large-scale meatcutting operations, there's a full-time sharpener who gives a freshly sharpened knife to each operator after TEN MINUTES of meatcutting.

[SirSpice]

[johnny]

For me, the knife doesn't matter. I use "dull" knives all the time and my tomatos are purrfect. Good Luck cooking, people.

[neuralstatic]

not sure about the stone age claim.... though this seems a little late:

In 1919 Syracusan Joseph Burns had a flash of inspiration while using a glass-cutting tool with a scalloped edge-wouldn't this be great for cutting bread? He patented his idea and formed a knife manufacturing company; the serrated knife was born.

-neuralstatic

[youngcook]

Serrated knives are for bread and tough foods, not tomatoes. tomatos are soft and hence no "sharp" knife needed.

[SirSpice]

[youngcook]

Yeah, I have. It is a little messy, but not too much. Tomatoes are fine to me. I am not making it for the Mr. Bush or Sonny Perdue,governor of GA!

[the country in general]

got some tomatoes for Mr. Bush, but not for his eating. More for wearing.