Takamura Chromax Tsuchime Santoku 170mm

The gyuto came to Japan with the beef-eating culture of the Meiji era, and that is where its name comes from. Tojiro says it is used for all kinds of cooking, which is why it is also called the chef's knife.

The santoku is a household knife that combines the good points of the nakiri and the gyuto. Tojiro describes it as all-purpose, from vegetables to meat and fish, double-bevel and built on the same construction as a Western knife.

Choose a gyuto if you want more length and reach. Choose a santoku if you want a shorter all-purpose knife. Tojiro's own size figures: gyuto 150 to 210mm for household use and up to 360mm for professional use, santoku 165 to 170mm for household use.

Match the shape to your stroke. Rock chopping keeps the tip on the board and rolls the curved belly through the food, so a gyuto or a Western chef's knife suits it, and Japanese knives rock fine as long as you rock gently.

Up-and-down chopping, the Chinese style, wants a straight run of edge, so a nakiri, usuba, santoku or bunka suits it better; a curved edge chopped straight down easily leaves pieces joined. Neither shape is better; it depends on how you cut.

A Japanese dictionary explains the name of the santoku (三徳包丁) as coming from the three things it handles: meat, fish and vegetables. The same dictionary entry points from the santoku to the bunka (文化包丁), treating the two as one knife.

One Japanese knife maker guide distinguishes the two by the tip. It says that in the Showa era the bunka was made with its tip cut at an angle, and the santoku came after it by rounding that tip.

Takefu calls Stainless Chromax a composite: one of its V-Gin1, Gin2 or V-Gin3B steels as the core, clad in soft stainless steel. Takefu lists those core steels as semi-stainless (セミステンレス系).

Takefu lists 4.50 to 5.50% chromium for V-Gin1, 7.00 to 8.00% for Gin2 and 6.00 to 7.00% for V-Gin3B, and says V-Gin1 resists corrosion far better than carbon steel. The Japan Stainless Steel Association defines stainless steel as having at least 10.5% chromium. We suggest drying the knife after washing.

The workshop is known by the mark 高村作, read Takamura saku, which means made by Takamura. The workshop's own site introduces Takamura Hamono Seisakujo by that mark.

The site tells how the founder, Isamu, set the workshop up after the Second World War, and speaks of his three sons.