Mini Camping Cleaver

[Charles R. Stevens]

In our world of factory produced food our food stream is highly susceptible to contaminination. A fresh egg from ones bardyard is almost salmonella free wile one would think twice about risking a raw one from a modern egg battery. Vegitaboes get contaminated from the use of poltry litter and feed lot manure or the run off from such facilities. Again a cow raised in grass from the pasture down the street and the chicken from the barn yard are not likely to be worse sir ecolie or salmanila wile their factory produced counterparts are. Add to that the value of food going threw restraunts and the perpensity of humans to get careless at work and we have a chance for desaster. 

 

This said, then makes your kitchen knife and a comertial kitchen knife differ animals

[JustAnotherViking]

I would imagine any chef paying for a hand forged knife, especially the ones referred to earlier (with the rasp finish) would be unlikely to source ingredients from factory like places. 

The change in food production is however a valid point I had not considered. 

In the UK the majority (if not all these days) of eggs carry the lion stamp, inducting the hens are salmonella vaccinated, and are even considered safe with a runny yolk for pregnant women. 

Different rules and regs for food production by the sound of it. 

[Charles R. Stevens]

USDA grade A beef is feed loathed in a high grain diet for at least 90 days. Cattle sicken and often die at 69 days with out antibiotics being added to the feed, chickens raised in batteries suffer trackial damage from dry manure dust and are given antibiotics to prevent them fro getting ill. Eggs that are washed can draw fecal bacteria threw the membrain and the natural lubricant that dries to help keep in moister is washed off. 

We just had a recall on lettuce for ecolie bacteria, we have had listeria and salmanila contaminated vegetables as well. 

 

[JustAnotherViking]

That sounds terrible. Can't remember the last time I washed a veg.

In most cases (with meat/eggs at least), the heat from cooking should kill any bacteria, and considering that soap and water is fine for preventing the spread of infection from ourselves, I would still stand by my thoughts on proper cleaning and handling of a textured/rough finished kitchen implement is fine, coupled with suitable food hygiene procedures to prevent cross contamination.

Can we rely on a commercial kitchen following best practice at all times? probably not. can you hold yourself accountable in your own kitchen? absolutely.

[HammerMonkey]

I agree with the statements above. Food borne illness is a serious risk in our world today. One must take care to be safer. But relying on a shiney knife alone to keep you safe is like wearing a very expensive helmet when skydiving with a hello kitty backpack for a parachute...

Again, I submit the example of a cutting board (of wood, bamboo, plastic, or other typical materials used). Unless they are only a one use, disposable item, I’d like to see how they compare to a rough finish knife for the potential of trapping harmful bacteria. I look at my cutting boards (that do not get a tiny fraction of the use one might get in a commercial setting), I see hundreds of tiny cuts that could hold literally billions of bacteria. Of course I scrub my cutting boards and knives with a stiff brush, and I use bleach after cutting poultry or other meat. I don’t see the health department banning their use, but they probably do have something to say about use and cleaning. 

I just believe that a knife with a rough finish would be much easier to clean/sanitize than a soft and/or permeable surface of a cutting board.

I understand health department rules, but they are practically overzealous. That is to say they have to be stringent, out of an abundance of caution, and because if there were little or no standards, some commercial food handlers would not practice any kind of safety or food borne illness prevention at all.

[Charles R. Stevens]

It is a a matter of scale and human nature. 5 peaple sick or 50. On the human nature side. One only needs to watch an episode or two of kitchen desasters to see how complacent to down right nasty peaple can be. 

My own kitchen isn’t going to pass a health inspection, lol. But then again it doesn’t face economy do scale of a comertial kitchen. 

[ThomasPowers]

My Uncle retired from a career as a Meat Inspector in Commercial Food Plants; he was nearly a vegetarian; but in his house all cooked meet was tested with a thermometer and cross contamination was stringently avoided.   (I remember talking with him when I was in college in the late 70's and being warned from time to time to avoid certain brands of certain foods as he had had to shut them down for poor practices.)

Most of the time I have had food poisoning it's been from commercial kitchens, (where I had wished they had followed the picky rules!) 

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

As to cutting boards, wood wins out as they naturally kill the bacteria, plastic ones keep them alive. When I worked in a restaurant we washed the boards every night with soaps and steaming hot water.  

[Tommytaptap]

And for that matter, how many people clean their food cutting implements before using them as well as after? Well I do with the mini cleaver! It has a clean polished blade which extends the whole length of it and is roughly 3/4" deep-and that's enough for me for what I am cutting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lyuv]

MastaStan, I realy like your work. I"m a big fan of forged finish and use it alot. However, my blades usualy show the hammer marks on top of some scale and rather smooth blackening. Nothing like the extensive pitted coroded look (in a good way) of your cleaver.

Any info on how you got this finish?