Bruce Schneier points us to two articles about pointy long kitchen knives being dangerous. Now, as Bruce points out, the call to ban them is ridiculous, but his other comment is more interesting to a minimalist:
I do a lot of cooking, and have all my life. I never use a long knife to stab. I never use the point of a chef’s knife, or the point of any other long knife. I rarely stab at all, and when I do, I’m using a small utility knife or a petty knife.
Okay, then. Why are so many large knives pointy? Carving knives aren’t pointy. Bread knives aren’t pointy. I can rock my chef’s knife just as easily on a rounded end.
True, true. There are probably some situations when a big pointy knife may come in handy, but for the most part, the pointy part just scares me when I’m using a big chef’s knife. My theory: although it is of limited value, the pointy end is an extra feature. And aren’t more features always good? Well, no. Extra features have unintended consequences – everything you add to a design has a cost as well as a potential benefit. My next big kitchen knife will probably be blunt – I had just never thought about it before.