The Ryback folding santuko knife

Here's the scenario--you're going to someone's house where you're likely to be pressed into service in the kitchen, and you know they don't have a decent knife in the house, but you don't want to be so presumptuous or it's otherwise inconvenient to carry a knife roll. Or maybe you're going away for a weekend where you'll be cooking and you want to travel light. Of course one can always make do with what's there, but maybe there's an alternative--a folding kitchen knife.


I proposed this query to my friends on the eGullet food forum, and we came up with various ideas, but there seem to be three real, full-sized, multi-purpose folding kitchen knives out there, all in the style of the Japanese santuko, a knife of relatively modern design, the name of which means "three virtues"--slicing, dicing, and mincing--as opposed to the more specialized traditional japanese knives like the usuba for slicing vegetables or the long yanagi sashimi slicing knife.


There are some inherent design limitations in a folding kitchen knife. To be practical, the blade will be about 4-5 inches at most, and to fold properly, the handle has to be longer than the blade and the end of the handle has to come about level to the edge of the blade, meaning it must be used at the edge of the cutting board or with a small cutting board, or the end of the handle will hit the board before the knife completes its arc. The long handle also creates a balance problem, since the handle is usually shorter than the blade, and one normally wants the balance point to be around the spot where the heel of the blade meets the handle.

The knives we came up with on eGullet were the A.G. Russell Hocho, the Ryback Folder, and the beautiful Maruyoshi folding santuko. There was one very avid user of the Russell Hocho which is the least expensive of the three at around $65 and is the longest in production, but based on the photos, I liked the design of the other two. One poster bought the Maruyoshi, which has a nice wooden handle and beautiful handmade damascus blade, but it was the most expensive at about $250 from Japan Woodworker in California, and seems more to suit people who like to hold the knife with a pinch grip rather than my preferred hammer grip, which I think is better suited to a knife with a short blade.

I settled on the Ryback folder for about $100 shipped from Germany to the U.S., because I liked the fit and finish based on the photos, and the real article lives up to the photos. It also comes with a handy padded cordura pouch.


The frame lock mechanism, above, is very sturdy, but beware that there is a detente before the knife is fully open, and it is necessary to open the knife fully for the lock to be engaged.


The blade is 1-7/8 inches wide, which is wider than my Wusthof santuko shown above, and 4.5 inches long with about 4-3/8 inches of usable cutting edge. Full length from handle to tip is about 10-3/4 inches.


Out of the box the edge is comparable to the factory edge of a decent German knife, but I've come to like a finer edge, so I've made it sharper using my Japanese whetstones.



I've been using the Ryback for everything for a few days, and I've gotten used to the balance, but I still prefer my fixed blade knives given the choice. Watch the video above, though, and think about the last time you made a meal in a vacation condo with whatever dull steak knife they had in the drawer. Wouldn't this have been better? The blade holds a fine edge very nicely, and it's a real, functional kitchen knife that works like a chef's knife or a santuko.

What Knives are the Best?

A friend recently asked for knife recommendations. Weigh in! You can leave your comment on what your favorite is at the end of this post.

This is what I use almost exclusively, the Mercer Santoku. The little impressions in the blade side keep meat from sticking to the knife when slicing. I picked it up at Chez Cherie when I took a cutting class (Blog Post Here). The other little thing I picked up at this class, which has been very valuable, is this little sharpener. A swipe before cutting keeps my knife sharp.

My brother has posted several great posts about his sharpening techniques.
Check them out here (Knife Post Link)

How sharp do knives need to be?

Since last week's post about Japanese knife sharpening techniques, I've been thinking about how sharp knives need to be, and tonight it all clicked. Sharp knives, aside from being safer and more efficient to use than dull knives, make food more attractive and contribute to the texture of the final product. But how sharp is sharp enough?

I remember with my old sharpening technique, a friend who sometimes worked as a professional cook was watching me cleanly slice a ripe tomato with my chef's knife, and said, "that's a sharp knife!" and it seemed so at the time.

When I started using a Japanese waterstone instead of the oilstone, I realized that I could dice a ripe tomato neatly, stacking two or three slices, cutting them first like french fries, and then dicing them crosswise. I could dice a tomato before, but not as quickly, cleanly, and effortlessly.

Tonight I was making leftovers. I had some tomato sauce from chicken cacciatore I'd made last week, and some grilled leg of lamb, so I thought I'd cut up the lamb and make a ragout to serve over pasta. I also had some very ripe tomatoes from the farmer's market to add to the pot. Tomatoes should be peeled before going into a sauce, or the peels become like little slips of paper, and the usual way to this is by blanching them briefly in boiling water, but for two or three tomatoes, it adds a lot of extra time to boil a pot of water. With my newly refined sharpening technique, I thought I'd see if I could peel them with a knife, and I did it with very little waste using the Henckels Four-Star 8" chef's knife that I've had for around 20 years, and it took less time to peel three tomatoes than it would have taken to boil two quarts of water. Then I could take these peeled ripe tomatoes, which are even softer than unpeeled ripe tomatoes, and dice them quickly, cleanly and effortlessly.

I used to think my knives were sharp enough, but now I'm doing things that with my old technique just wouldn't have crossed my mind.

Learning to Cut

I acquired a skill last night that just may change my life. I learned to properly hold a chef’s knife. It may not sound like an Earth shaking experience, but as a person who has only once ever had to get stitches, and that for a particularly fierce battle with a particularly hard bagel, it is a giant step forward in my culinary existence. Yesterday evening I took my first cooking class, “Cooking Basics/Knife Skills” at Chez Cherie.

As lovers of good food, the members of our family can cook. Growing up, cooking was something like a competitive sport with Father of Food and Son of Food striving for more interesting and better dishes with little Daughter of Food trying to reach over their shoulders for scraps of food and knowledge. Where was Mom of Food at the time? Making the basics, French toast and grilled cheese, and as she does even today, acting as sous chef to Father of Food. The entire "of Food" Family would be proud of me today. I can slice an onion into the smallest of bits without my hands smelling afterward and easily create a chiffinade from fresh basil. Before yesterday I did not even know what a chiffinade was (a cut that looks like tiny ribbons, to save you the Google search); now I do and for that, I thank Cherie.

Cherie Mercer Twohy is the force behind Chez Cherie. She teaches her courses with several skilled assistants. In this course, she lectured for a bit then the students were split into several smaller groups to practice what she preached. I was in a group with Chris who helped me understand knife basics and hand positioning. We sliced and chopped veggies which were whisked away into a developing stir-fry that we ate as a reward for our work. It was all topped off with a dessert that Cherie made for us, a delicious tequila lime pie complete with much talk of lime zest. I came away from the night with a new knife, a sharpener, and confidence in my slice.

Now, to make your family proud, I will give you one tip of the many Cherie gave this night. After chopping an onion, rinse your hands with water and then rub them on something made of Stainless Steel. The steel makes a chemical reaction with the onion juice, eliminating the smell. This works for garlic and shrimp, too. Learn more for yourself. Chez Cherie is located at 1401 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada, CA 91011.

Take a look at the Family of Food Map link on the Sidebar. We will try and map all of the places we talk about in the blog to make it easy for you to get the good food you’ve been looking for.