Well, Buzz & I
are knife forum geeks, so take our comments with a grain of salt.
Ol' Buzz isn't happy if a knife can't treetop hair or fillet a hair into three peices. In the Kitchen section of my favorite knife forum occasionally there'll be a dust-up over German vs Japanese knives, so this is nothing new.
I'm not dusting it up with you. I am acknowledging the Japanese knives are better and I don't care!
I can respect that you like your Wusthofs and Henckles; as a pro chef and long time cook I can tell you there's still room in my roll for a couple Germans.
But- and it's a "big but"
I think Japanese knives do make you a better cook. A sharper knife simply cuts more accurately and does less damage to the food. Soft things don't get squished as easily, crusty things like bread don't make "sawdust."
You seem to have an image of German knives not being able to slice and dice effectively. That has not been my experience. I know you have enough experience to know better.
I only feel the need to treetop a single hair on alternate Wednesdays. The rest of the time, I use my knives to cut up ingredients. Those ingredients then get cooked and eaten. Talk about damaging food! You should see what my teeth do to soft or crusty foods.
Uniformity of your cuts improves when using a terrifyingly sharp precision tool, and those thin accurate slices will cook more evenly.
A knife does not have to be terrifyingly sharp to cut accurately and uniformly. I has to be sharp. My knives are that sharp.
Ditto for that "better pan"- I look like a freakin' wizard making omelletes in my Calphalon pans, but merely mortal using my sister's $5 Wal-Mart pans!
My $5.00 non-stick skillet makes omelets perfectly every time because I know how to use the pan. The pan's job is to deliver heat uniformly and hold the food without sticking. The rest is up to me.
There's no one as zealous (perhaps overzealous) than a convert. I've stuck up for the Germans for quite a while on the forums. Oh, I knew the better Japanese knives left all the Germans for dead, but I considered price a valid point, too. But Tojiro smashes that last excuse, and there are probably other inexpensive Niponese blades that are good. The secret of the Japanese knife is it's unique construction: the hagane & jigane. By folding softer metal around a very hard core an edge with a very acute angle can be created, and that edge will be durable. The much softer Germans simply cannot be made to be as thin and sharp as a Shun or Hattori.
It's not that we can't respect your choice, just understand that when you flatly reject the Japanese knives you're throwing the gauntlet down in front of us knife geeks.
If you promise to be good, I'll bend over and pick up the gauntlet.
All I ask in return is to be left alone in my life of mind-numbing cutlery mediocrity.
Thanks