China Wins Again

Today, as a favor to my dad, I sat through a Cutco presentation. Cutco is a knife company, and the knives are marketed by an outfit called Vector. Maybe it’s the same company. I don’t know. They hire college kids to go around selling knife sets to people they know. The daughter of one of my dad’s business contacts asked if she could show this stuff to me. Supposedly, she would get paid whether I bought anything or not.

I hate having things sold to me, unless it’s something I already know is worthwhile. I also hate wasting a salesperson’s time. And there was no way I was going to buy anything. I have so many knives. Two Japanese cleavers. A santoku. A Forschner chef’s knife. A $20 Chinese cleaver which is probably the best kitchen knife I own. A 14″ Forschner scimitar. Two bird’s beak paring knives. Two cheap Henckels chef’s knives I rarely use. A Japanese chicken knife. A Tojiro nakiri. Other knives I can’t remember.

I was asked to bring out a steak knife, my favorite serrated knife, and my favorite straight-edged knife. I brought out the Forschner chef’s knife, a cheap Henckels bread knife, and a Henckels steak knife. The rep brought out a piece of rope–same material as baling twine–and asked me to cut it with my chef’s knife, with only one stroke. The idea was for me to get halfway through and look like a boob, so I could then try the Cutco, which would go through effortlessly. Sadly, this is not what happened. I had given my knife a few licks with a diamond hone in the kitchen, so it slid through the rope like it was a Vienna sausage. The cleaver would have bitten into the cutting board as well.

My other knives didn’t do so well, but then, they’re crappy knives I never sharpen. If meat requiring a sharp steak knife ever makes it to my table, I’ve done something very wrong. I don’t use serrated knives for cooking. A really sharp knife will go right through bread without deforming it; serrations are for people who can’t sharpen anything.

The rep also cut a penny in half with a pair of Cutco kitchen shears. This is impressive, although the shears lacked the notch kitchen shears ordinarily have, which catches and holds chicken bones so the shears will cut them. I would not want to cut chicken without that notch.

A lot of people on the web say nice things about Cutco knives. Perhaps many of these things are true. However, it’s very obvious that a lot of these people are shills. Or at least they look that way. Check out this quotation I found:

Besides that though, Cutco knives are really better than ANYTHING else. My parents have owned their set for over 30 years and they are still sharp!

Yeah, I’m sure that’s an honest comment. This person also claims he used to be a rep, and that he sold 29 sets in 40 tries. No salesman is that good. If he had done that well, he’d still be doing it, wouldn’t he? Maybe not. If you have talent like that, you need to forget knives and move up to something like commercial real estate or private jets.

He’s probably telling the truth about his parents’ knives. They stay sharp, because his parents always use their other knives.

Here’s how sales works, in the real world. Make 50 calls, get 5 responses, make 1 sale. Maybe this guy is the Mozart of sales, so the rules don’t apply to him. But I am skeptical.

The Cutco pitch goes like this. Henckels knives retail for $1500 per set, and they sell for $1000 per set, and our way better knives sell for $749 per set, and we’ll sharpen them free, forever. A quick Google reveals that a 9-piece Henckels Five-Star 18-piece set can be had for $560. That’s not the cheap Henckel line, either. Wusthof Classics–better than Henckels–cost about the same amount.

Henckels and Wusthof have forged blades. Consumer Reports says Cutco blades are stamped. Hmm…

I should also point out that the Cutcos look cheap. The web says they’re 440A stainless, which is the cheap grade of 440. What you really want is 440C. And they’re thin. The handles look like plain old plastic to me.

As I have said before, I am no longer a sucker for expensive knives. I have two Shuns, and I would never buy one again. They chip if you look at them funny. The ergonomics are weak. You absolutely cannot put them in the dishwasher under any circumstances, regardless of what the ads say. And a good price for one Shun santoku is $80. These are not knives. These are toys for people who can’t cook. If you spend a lot of time serving bad pretty food prepared with expensive equipment, Shuns are for you. If you want something you can use, get Forschner.

Don’t let what happened to me happen to you. That’s what I’m saying. I was an idiot. Learn from my example.

My two favorite knives are the Chinese cleaver and my Forschner chef’s knife. The cleaver takes an edge fast, so sharp you can hold a sheet of paper in front of you with one hand and swing the cleaver all the way through it. It minces garlic into tiny particles, with shocking speed. You can make sheets of ripe tomato with it. The back side tenderizes meat. The side knocks the peels off garlic cloves. The Forschner sharpens fast, cuts beautifully, and comes out of the dishwasher looking like new. The Shuns…I’m not sure where they are right now.

Total cost for a Forschner and a cleaver, including shipping? About $45.

I’d use the cleaver all the time, if it were stainless. I hate washing things by hand.

I wished I could have bought something the Cutco girl showed me, just as a kindness, but $749 to relearn a painful lesson…bad idea. These knives may be great for people who can’t use a stone or a hone. I can put a razor edge on a dull knife in under a minute. I don’t need something that has to go back to a factory to get an edge.

I admire anyone who has the guts and determination to go into sales, but this product is not for me.