The revolution brings kitchen knives into the bourgeois household
The development of kitchen knives in the Baroque
The European kitchen knife revoulution Story. We have listed kitchen knives from European knife manufacturers in our knife store at TYPEMYKNIFE.
The more than three hundred and fifty knives reflect the diversity of European knife types, their different designs and traditions.
They vary according to purpose and country of origin. The selection ranges from classic chef’s knives to special knives for filleting, carving or tourning.
What they all have in common is that they have European shapes that are very different from Asian ones, depending on their origin and development.
They have been developed for our local cuisine and the preparation of your dishes and are particularly suitable for this purpose.
In order to get closer to the origin of our knives, we have taken a historical look at the origins of kitchen knives. In this blog, we delve into the development from the Baroque period to the present day.
Until the French Revolution, courtly dining culture developed in Europe.
Many dishes were served at the table at the same time. Small pies, soups or pickles were served as starters.
The main courses were usually large pieces of roast meat, poultry and vegetables. Desserts and cakes were also served.
Fruit, cheese and chocolates to finish. This required all kinds of different cutlery. For fish, crustaceans, mussels, cakes and much more.
To create such intricate dishes, the kitchen also needed its highly developed kitchen tools. The shape of the carving knife has changed very little. Large, heavy blades with a straight back and curved edge.
New inventions include touring knives with beak-shaped blades, knives that were used especially for bread. Larding knives, paring knives, new developments according to need.
Still made of simple carbon steel, they would rub off, rust and impart a metallic flavour. A circumstance that required a great deal of care and constant cleaning of the knives.
But the people wanted to share in the pleasure, as Marie Antoniette said, if they have no bread, let them eat cake.
After the violent expropriation of the nobility, their cooks were literally out on the street. To ensure their survival, many top-class chefs opened the first restaurants in Paris.
Soon you could eat in over 3000 restaurants what was otherwise reserved for the nobility.
Are there typical European kitchen knives?
Today’s knife shapes spread throughout Europe from France.
In Central Europe, the normal chef’s knife was a model with a full-length blade and a raw handle with three rivets.
Or the inserted version. Here the tang, i.e. the pointed extension of the blade, sits in a hardwood handle.
The industrial revolution radically changed European kitchen knives in two ways.
With the development of drop hammers and friction spindle presses, the knife steel could be shaped in such a way that a thickening could be forged onto the end of the blade.
The chef’s knife with bolster was invented. The second revolution came with the development of stainless knife steel in households and professional kitchens
Provenance, the typical French kitchen knife ?
We at TYPEMYKNIFE have been looking for them, the European kitchen knives. We were in the centers of European knifemaking.
We expected to find knife manufacturers in Sheffield, England, or Mora, Sweden.
But these were lost in the battle for market share in the ever-growing European knife market. Today, the major knife manufacturers can be found in Germany, France and Italy.
If you compare the current knife creations of these often centuries-old traditional companies, a local style can be discerned.
The knife shapes of the world are based on the cuisine of the countries and their regions.
Asian kitchen knives are fundamentally different to European ones. But even in Europe there are major differences in the cuisine.
Apart from the regional differences. French cuisine is more varied. The two seas, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, provided people with completely different products than in Germany, which was mainly characterised by rural areas.
In Germany, medieval cuisine was very meat-centred due to the lack of a larger selection of vegetables and fish. After the Hanseatic League, Germany was no longer so extensively connected with other countries, continents or its own colonies.
Italy, on the other hand, had a very special influence on the local cuisine due to its Roman past. The range of dishes and raw materials was diverse. During the Renaissance, Italy was one of the seafaring nations that traded with the New and Old Worlds.
All of this had an influence on the national cuisine and therefore directly on the development of kitchen knives in terms of style, form and function.
We would like to take a closer look at this in another blog post.
You can read about the beginnings of the knife as a weapon and tool in our blog post Development of European kitchen knives
In our shop you will find German, Italian and French knife manufacturers. Here you can follow the different style characteristics and national traditions.
