What is this freaky knife for?

Question

It's long and skinny, like a bread knife. It doesn't show well in the photo, but there's a tiny fine serration on the edge of one of those pointy things…? I've asked the 2 chefs I know, and neither one of them even had a guess!

Can you give us an idea of scale? It could be either of two knives depending on how large it is. — FuzzyChef, Jan 10 '23 at 23:58
I added another photo that shows the handle. The knife including the handle is about 13 inches. I can't wait to hear how this bizarre knife could actually be multiple different things depending on exact length and handle shape! I sense some arcane cooking knowledge about to be imparted! — Very Amateur, Jan 11 '23 at 01:00
@VeryAmateur (responding to your deleted "answer"): I'm just good with internet search tools. Anyway, post the other knife as a new question ... but like this one, include a picture of the whole knife as well! — FuzzyChef, Jan 11 '23 at 06:18
A lot of professional chefs are just sour on the whole idea of serrated knives in general, probably because they're much harder to keep sharp. Of course for something like a bread knife there's no need for it to be all that sharp. — Darrel Hoffman, Jan 12 '23 at 14:24
This would be a better question with a more specific title, like "What is this freaky knife for, with 2 points at the tip and a serrated edge?" That would help future readers find it with text searches. I [suggested](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/87868) an edit to change that, but you rejected it for some reason. Mystery titles are not a good thing. — Peter Cordes, Jan 13 '23 at 16:20

score 47 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 11 '23 at 01:35

47

It's a serrated carving knife. In fact, that particular knife is a Kitchen + Home Carving Bread Knife – 8” Sharp Stainless Steel Serrated All Purpose Kitchen Knife available from WalMart for $13USD.

The forked point is for skewering and serving slices of meat after you've carved them (see photo on listing).

If the knife had been much smaller, it could have been a tomato knife. It still could be, if you have really big tomatoes.

answered Jan 11 '23 at 01:35

FuzzyChef

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I have a very similar knife to this. I remember when I bought it it was called "The Edge" so I'm pretty sure that [this](https://jean-patrique.co.uk/products/jml-the-edge-knife) is it (not exactly the same as yours, which has already been linked to). What I will say is that I've had this knife for about 30 years and never needed to sharpen it. I mainly use it for cutting bread rather than meat, but it is _excellent_. – bornfromanegg Jan 11 '23 at 10:15
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I'm giggling madly at "really *big* tomatoes". – JPmiaou Jan 11 '23 at 12:55
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Any idea what the hole near the tip is for? The Walmart page doesn't seem to say. (Although it does mention cutting melons, which would be about the right size for this!) – user3067860 Jan 11 '23 at 18:43
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@user3067860 Generally speaking, a hole in this location would be for hanging the knife on a nail or hook, such as with a traditional cleaver. It's debatable whether this hole would actually be *useful* for that purpose or is merely decorative. – Bloodgain Jan 11 '23 at 19:34
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Sometimes holes are used to help prevent what you're cutting from clinging to the blade. – CitizenRon Jan 11 '23 at 22:55
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I think the hole, per Bloodgain, could be best described as a "bad idea". Either that, or they wanted to make the end of the knife look more like a fish. It *is* a Walmart knife, don't assume that a lot of thought went into the design. – FuzzyChef Jan 12 '23 at 01:13
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The brass band used to have one like this, it was left behind after a street fest. I always called it "the fish knife". Eventually someone else (or the original owner) decided they liked it and it disappeared again. Excellent knife, by the way. – RedSonja Jan 12 '23 at 08:13
Weird that it's called a "bread knife" when it's obviously meant for meat, not for bread. – Stef Jan 12 '23 at 09:12
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@Stef: Why do you say it’s obviously for meat not bread? To me, it looks very practical as a bread knife (I’ve used a similar knife for bread in the past, I forget where), and similar to most breadknives I’m familiar with — long blade, medium width, large-scale serrations. The only differences from standard breadknives are the forked tip (which is just as useful for picking up bread slices as meat) and the complicated pattern of the serrations (which doesn’t seem to have any advantage for bread, but also doesn’t cause any problems). – PLL Jan 12 '23 at 13:23
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[really big tomato](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/01/23/24F8A1AC00000578-0-image-m-42_1422015395617.jpg) – ikegami Jan 12 '23 at 13:53
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"Any knife can be a tomato knife if you believe hard enough in it." – Sean Duggan Jan 12 '23 at 14:48
@FuzzyChef I vote +1 because that very big tomatoes is just flawlessly hilarious. and I mean it does answer the question too 8) **with surgical* precision** (pun **intended**) – William Martens Jan 12 '23 at 15:05
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1 - I don't think it is a **Walmart** knife. It is not available in stores, only online and not sold directly by Walmart. That doesn't mean the product is good or bad, but in this case "Walmart" is just the web site selling it - similar to Amazon. 2 - When I saw the picture in the question, my first thought was "it looks like a fish" because of the hole (eye) and the forked end (mount). Sure enough, the Walmart pictures show fish being cut - perfect! – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Jan 12 '23 at 18:21
The hole can be useful in some kitchens to hang the knife on a hook instead of putting it in a drawer. Due to the shape of the knife, it may not fit into a universal knife block. – metamagikum Jan 13 '23 at 16:19
@SeanDuggan just reminds me of trying to slice tomatoes when every knife in the house is dull... – rtaft Jan 13 '23 at 18:50
It doesn't look much good as a bread knife. It looks like the cutting edge is fairly thick with lots of spikes for tearing flesh (possibly frozen). Using that on bread would result in a pile of crumbs and you'd be unable to cut a thin slice, although it might be ok for some kinds of bread eaten in chunks. – Stuart F Jan 13 '23 at 19:45

score 2 · Answer 2 · 2023-01-14T22:30:07.197

It's a frozen food knife actually. I never understood what the "forky" tip is for. Just google for "frozen food knife" and you will find more examples that look like this.

Quote from https://www.recipetips.com/glossary-term/t--38022/frozen-food-knife.asp:

"Built to cut through hard to semi-hard substances, this utensil is manufactured for specialty tasks. A common cutting blade used for this type of knife is the saw- toothed blade which may be called a saw-and-racker tooth or a coarse saw tooth blade. A saw-toothed blade has tiny but coarse teeth that are closely aligned and formed to cut through materials such as metal surfaces. The saw-and-racker blade contains an alternating blade construction with each set of double toothed blade extensions separated by a curved serrated blade surface. Typically, the Frozen Food Knife blade is made of a rigid steel that can withstand very cold temperatures and the heavier than normal cutting pressure required to cut through ice hard substances, such as frozen foods. Also the back and forth motion required for cutting hardened objects causes non-rigid blades to bend or quiver. Simple tasks such as cutting apart a small carton of frozen peas can be easily accomplished with this knife or harder tasks of cutting larger blocks of frozen vegetables and breads can be undertaken with a knife built to cut frozen foods."

We used to have one like this knife, one side, and normal wavey edge on the other side, sold as 'good to cut frozen foods'. It was almost never used, maybe due to the sharp edges both sides. — Willeke, Jan 14 '23 at 11:58

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 14 '23 at 12:46

I have the same type of knife, and we've always used it to slice/cut bread! It works surpringly well as most "serrated" knifes I've used for bread, are not usually sharp, but these serrations are sharp, which would work well for meat. I've used it for frozen food and it's okay, but I rarely do this.

I always thought that the tips where meant to serve meat, but whenever we cooked a big piece of meat to be sliced afterwards (like carne a la sal), we (my house) use a slicing knife (jamonero knife), the one that you would use to cut jamón. Maybe in other countries they use the serrated sharpy knife!

What is this freaky knife for?

3 Answers3