Cleavers

No, not referring to Beaver Cleaver , but the choosing between a knife and a cleaver for slicing/chopping. I have a wide range of cutting instruments and have usually used chef's knife for most work, but lately I have been reaching for the cleaver, as it tends to give more uniform slices of anything of significant thickness. (I have 7 knives I use from cleaver through boning knife plus a whole drawer of others I couldn't resist trying, but maybe 7 or so in usual use).

Any cleaver fans out there?

I have an "oriental cleaver", or so says the blade. It is less hefty than a butcher's cleaver. My local kitchen supply shop has recently hired a very good knife sharpener and he said the name is industry talk for a vegetable cleaver. I use it for root vegetables and also for thick cuts of meat. It cuts well but a narrower blade is easier to maneuver.

I use a cleaver 95% of the time, a #4 carbon steel, beveled on one side. So versatile.

[Robin Garr]

I have an ancient made-in-China cleaver that I bought at a hole-in-the-wall shop in NYC's Chinatown either in the early '90s or possibly earlier. Like Bill, I use my chef's knife for just about everything, but it's still good to keep the cleaver sharp and pull it out for that rare job that only a cleaver will do.

I own three Chinese cleavers that I bought decades ago in Boston's Chinatown. One of them is a heavy-duty cleaver meant for chopping through bone. The others two are general-purpose. I use the general-purpose cleavers almost exclusively for slicing, chopping, de-boning, etc. I don't own a proper chef's knife and I don't miss it.

-Paul W.

I have a Messermeister Elite cleaver, a brute of a thing I use for butternut squash and hard items to cut. I do not use it often because I have many good knives and keep them in good condition. My last time to use it was for a Delicata squash; none of my other knives would cut. I'm serious when I say that the skin on the squash had turned to wood. It was gifted to me, and I do not know how long the person had it or if it was regifted to me. After a few dangerous moments with the cleaver, I finally got the thing cut up and proceeded to cook. Guess what? That skin was still as hard as wood after cooking. I had to toss the thing out. I've never seen a Delicata Squash like that in all the years I have bought them.
My chef's knives are the most used, along with the ceramic ones I use on tomatos and other soft fruits.

I also have a hacksaw that I use specifically for cutting racks of spareribs crosswise into thirds. This is the chopstick-friendly bite size that Chinese recipes universally call for. Asian groceries usually sell spareribs pre-cut this way, and I suppose one could ask a butcher to do that with a rack of conventional spareribs.

-Paul W.