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Thesantoku bōchō(Japanese:三徳包丁, — lit. "three virtues knife" or "three uses knife") orbunka bōchō(文化包丁) is a general-purpose kitchen knife originating in Japan. Its blade is typically between 13 and 20 centimetres (5 and 8 inches) long, and has a flat edge. The santoku has asheep's foot-tipped blade that curves down an angle approaching 60 degrees at the point. The bunka bōchō, however, has a k-tip (aka reverse tanto).[citation needed] The termsantoku may refer to the wide variety of ingredients that the knife can handle: fish, meat, and vegetables, or to the tasks it can perform: chopping, dicing, and slicing, with either interpretation indicating a multi-use, general-purpose kitchen knife. The termbunka, refers to how it is used for the cultural food of Japan. The blade and handle of thesantoku are designed to work in harmony by matching the blade's width and weight to the weight of thetang and the handle.
Thesantoku knife design originated in Japan, where traditionally adeba knife is used to cut fish, agyuto knife is used to cut meat, and anakiri knife is used to cut vegetables. This knife was created in the 1940s to combine the three virtues of each of these traditional knives into one universal generalist knife — thesantoku bōchō.[1]
Santoku blade geometry incorporates the sheep's foot tip. A sheep's foot design essentially draws the spine ('backstrap') down to the front, with very little clearance above the horizontal cutting plane when the blade is resting naturally from heel to forward cutting edge. Providing a more linear cutting edge, thesantoku has limited 'rocking' travel (in comparison to a German/Western-stylechef's knife). Thesantoku may be used in a rocking motion; however, very little cutting edge makes contact with the surface due to the extreme radius of the tip and very little 'tip travel' occurs due to the short cantilever span from contact landing to tip. An example of this limitation can be demonstrated in dicing an onion — a Western knife generally slices downward and then rocks the tip forward to complete a cut; whereas thesantoku relies more on a single downward cut and even landing from heel to tip, thus using less of a rocking motion than Western style cutlery.
Thesantoku design is shorter, thinner, and so lighter, with more hardened steel in the tradition ofSamurai sword steel (to compensate for thinness) than a traditional European chef's knife. Standardsantoku blade length is between 15 and 18 cm (6 and 7 in), in comparison to the typical 20 cm (8 in) European cook's knife. Most classic kitchen knives maintain a blade angle between 40 and 45 degrees (a bilateral 20 to 22½ degree shoulder, from cutting edge).
Japanese knives typically incorporate akataba chisel-edge (sharpened on one side), and maintain a more extreme angle (10 to 15 degree shoulder). A classicsantoku, rather, incorporates the European-style, bilateral cutting edge, but maintain a more extreme 12 to 15 degree shoulder, akin to Japanese cutlery. It is critical to increase the hardness ofsantoku steel so edge retention is maintained and 'rolling' of the thin cutting edge is mitigated. However, harder, thinner steel is more likely to chip, when pushing against a bone for example. German knives use slightly 'softer' steel, but have more material behind their cutting edge. For the average user, a German-style knife is easier to sharpen, but asantoku knife, if used as designed, will hold its edge longer. With few exceptions,santoku knives typically have nobolster, sometimes incorporate 'fluted' sides, also known as aGranton edge, and maintain a more uniform thickness from spine to blade edge.
Some of the knives employsan mai (or 'three layered') laminated steels, including the pattern known assuminagashi (墨流し,lit. 'flowing-ink'). The term refers to the similarity of the pattern formed by the blade's damascened and multi-layer steel alloys to the traditional Japanese art ofsuminagashimarbled paper. Forged laminated stainless steel cladding is employed on higher quality Japanesesantoku knives to improve strength and rust resistance while maintaining a hard edge. Knives possessing these laminated blades are generally much more expensive to match the higher quality.
There are many copies ofsantoku-pattern knives made outside Japan that have substantially different edge designs, different balance, and different steels from the original Japanesesantoku. One trend insantoku copies made of a single alloy is to includefluting or recesses, hollowed out of the side of the blade, similar to those found in meat-carving knives. This fluting creates small air pockets between the blade and the material being sliced in an attempt to improve separation and reduce cutting friction.
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