A cut above

Good knife skills are crucial in the kitchen

SKILLS. Peter Hertzmann is something of a knife expert, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t cut himself. “I had the opportunity to go to an old-time butcher in Toronto to learn about butchering,” he says, “and by the end of the week, I had eight nicks on one hand and seven on the other.” Back in his Boy Scout days, his troop leader was a surgical resident — which came in handy, says Hertzmann, referencing a scar still visible on his hand.

Still, Hertzmann, author of “Knife Skills Illustrated: A User’s Manual” (Norton, $30), knows how to make people better and safer choppers than they were before. “The most common thing is you see people holding their index finger on top of the knife,” he says, describing the incorrect knife grip. In his book and classes, the Californian cook teaches a more secure technique, one that leaves less room for wobble.

Beyond just what’s happening at the handle, Hertzmann passes on basic information about knives, such as how to buy them, how to sharpen them and how to store them (hint: maybe not in a tip-squashing wooden block).

After the information usually comes practical uses, and that means tears — the kind that come from chopping lots of onions, not going samurai on your pinky finger. Hertzmann calls onions, zucchini and carrots “the big three,” and he teaches how to slice, dice and julienne them correctly. “The goal is really not for someone to learn a specific technique but to learn a new muscle memory,” he says.

Though Hertzmann himself owns many, many knives — “I’ve gotten a lot of free knives that are still in their packages in the back of the pantry,” he says — he thinks the basic chef needs only two, a 10-inch chef’s knife and a paring knife. He doesn’t recommend knife sets, pointing out that the grip that works on one knife may not be best for another. And, for anyone moving past the two basic knives, he recommends “a slicer or carving knife, for slicing meat on bone, good for cutting things that are dense. And a bread knife,” he says.

And, while Hertzmann doesn’t dismiss the $30 Victorinox you can buy on Amazon.com, he stresses the importance of trying out a knife to see if it feels comfortable before purchasing it. “You have to test-drive a knife the same way you test-drive a car,” he says. “I’ve seen people go into Williams-Sonoma with a carrot, and they’ll let you do it.”