Just to let everyone know, ceramic knives are at Aldi from thurs 25th April, I have not tried one yet but may get one to try for veg etc. Regards Gary.
My biggest fear in life is that when I die my wife sells all my stuff for what I told her I paid for it!!
I bought one a year or two ago. Not hugely impressed - it's nowhere near as sharp as a decent bit of steel that's seen a diamond sharpener. And they're fragile, the tip has gone from ours.
Thanks for the feed back, I wont bother, I only thought of trying one for veg prep as using a steel knife to shred lettuce definately affects the taste? Maybe a teflon coated would be better or wiping the blade with a little veg oil. Can't beat a good quality steel knife that you can sharpen and keep a keen edge with a steel or strop IMOH. Regards Gary.
My biggest fear in life is that when I die my wife sells all my stuff for what I told her I paid for it!!
They'll be fine for lettuce etc. I bought one a while back, I wouldn't rave about it, but it's handy for the odd job or two. I can't. The potato peelers are good, if they've got those.
I'm sure you were just generalising and using lettuce as an example of veg but to add my two pence worth I've been lead to believe that to get the best flavour from a lettuce you should actually just break it up with you hands, I.e. twist it into rough pieces, anyway that's how we do it now and it seems to work, mind you, it's messy with an iceberg!
I think that the idea of doing it 'by hand' is to stop any discoloration caused by using metal on the lettuce which is a problem if you're pre-preparing it well in advance. I guess it's more of an issue commercially than for us guys at home.
I have a Kyocera ceramic knife and that thing is a beast and the edge is pretty good. However I agree with onewheeler. It's no sharper than my steel knives when they're in good shape.
I haven't had any breakage issues but there's some chipping around the tip, and I'm not about to try to fix it on my waterstones.
I also have one of the Kyocera ceramic knives. Its still sharp after 6 years and no sharpening. The missus snapped the to inch off it by cutting into a cauliflower then pushing sideways to push the piece out. Its had a square end on it ever since, but it makes it a great shape for cutting up salad and fruit. So they're definitely brittle. We haven't chipped it and we throw it in the dishwasher all the time.
In general they're pretty good knives if you treat them right