Sets of tools (knives, chisels, pots & pans etc.) generally tend to be a mixed blessing. Cheaper unit pricing from multiple purchases are defrayed by intrinsic redundancy.
If you're lucky, maybe HALF of your set will be useful, rapidly becoming favourites. The other half will languish relatively or in a worse case scenario entirely unused in their ludicrously commodious designer display. Worse, the useless items on permanent display serve as a permanent reminder of your profligacy, wastefulness & ill-considered impulsiveness.
Knives tend to be an intensely personal tool. What works for one might just as justifiably be considered rubbish by another. Just as nobody could ever advise me what type of person to choose as a life-partner, I could never trust another's advise with cutlery. I can't even trust myself!
Here's a case in point. Seduced by multiple glowing reviews, provocative marketing & a century or more of heritage, I chose what I considered to be a triumph of design from the supposed creators & makers of what must be the world's most expensive serrated bread knife:
https://www.guede-messerstore24.de/guede-brotmesser-balbach-da7431-32/a-527/Whilst this is well & truly "out of my league", I should've heeded the red flags that were beginning to appear. Euro 4600 (about AU $7500) for what is to all intents & purposes a "disposable" & otherwise pretty ordinary general purpose bread & other soft produce slicer. Any purchaser, sufficiently foolish but with eyes wide open deserves to be ripped off. Such was my reaction to such blatantly exorbitant, ludicrous extravagance.
Yet here was another fine example of the Solingen cutler's art, resplendent in all its glory:
https://www.guede-messerstore24.de/kochmesser-the-knife-damast-guede/a-7926/Those curves! The gorgeous damascene patinated interplay of light, dark & reflectivity. That subtly curvaceous midriff swelling almost begging for a lustful grasp from fevered, sweaty palms! A mere snip at less than half the price of the "original" Brotmesser. Yet another red flag, however. Any knifemaker sufficiently arrogant to name their product "THE Knife", (die Messer) should immediately arouse suspicion. But there were glowing reviews, extolling the virtues of it's "radical" redesign of this rather basic tool (a chef's knife). From no less than a "master-chef" (whatever the eff that's supposed to be!). More convincing than a "master builder" or "master plumber" perhaps, but in reality I suspect s/he to be closer akin, if you can forgive the double-entendre, to a "master-baiter".
In a masterful stroke of marketing, there was yet another "poor man's" version. A snip at a mere fraction of the original's price, yet offering most if not all of that seductive form-
factor, including a "free" leather sheath:
https://www.guede-messerstore24.de/kochmesser-the-knife-guede-olive-lederscheide/a-8447/The clincher was a retailer's half-price offer (a "gentlemen's outfitter" high-end clothing & "accessories" retailer) no less. This should've been the third & final red flag that sent me running for the hills screaming noooooo, bank balance intact. In my ignorance, impulsiveness & stupidity I nevertheless forked out what was for me an insanely extravagant AU $250 including postage for this veritable panacea for all my woes that would not only reinforce, rejuvenate & reinvigorate my domestic culinary skills, but perhaps, as the TV advertorials are frequently wont to claim, actually "change my life".
The reality, as always, is more prosaic. "The Knife" is pretty useless. It's way too heavy (all that steel, of course). Should've forseen that one. Worse, the weight is carried way too far forward, making for a ludicrously disproportionate front-heavy "balance" that requires a tiring death-grip to counterpoint. The handle is tiny, made from a poorly selected, knotty piece of rubbish firewood-grade olivewood.
It has one of the "laziest" grinds I've ever experienced! Way too convex, thick & wedge-sectioned, meaning that cutting all but the softest vegs are a chore, & in the hardest (pumpkin & the like) nigh on impossible to force such a pronounced wedge through resilient hard flesh. The bearded heel of the blade, just as in a medieval axe, supposedly "lightens" the back end, but it simultaneously places one's fingers in harm's way, effectively rendering the back 1/3 of the blade unusable! Plus it's also impossible to use a sharpening "steel".
After several hours (I do mean several) attempting a hollow grind on the blade, I at least have a semblance of workable form for the front 2/3 of the cutting edge and bolstering. But the pronounced weight-forward bias & small handle section are rather insurmountable issues that will permanently & irremediably refrain from lifting this abortion from the realm of uselessness.
What a waste! What a disappointment. What an unbelievably poor design emanating from such a renowned toolmaker. What was I thinking? What an idiot! Maybe it's going to be useful for no other reason than as a permanent reminder of just how easily a fool & his or her hard-earned readies can be separated by canny but deceptive marketing.
In some ways it's reminiscent of my reaction to some of the worst product from yet another well renowned but unnamed Teutonic toolmaker. Caveat emptor, one & all. All that glisters etc. etc.
I can hear the sly sniggers, chortles, snickers & guffaws of schadenfreude from afar! OK. I admit it: I'm the tool!
