Hi all, my first post here. At another forum I visit, there were some people wondering if India, with its distinct (and delicious!) cuisine for the past so many centuries, has also developed some distinct types of cutlery. For example, the westerners have knives such as chef's, boning, slicer, parer etc., the Japanese have their own, the Chinese have their cleavers and so on. Being from India, however, I could not think of knives specific to India or its cuisine. To begin with, while I was there, I was never aware of cutlery as a very important part of the kitchen; whatever was sharp enough to cut would do, without much emphasis on its shape/design, ergonomics, steel etc., but that might've been just me... What I have usually seen in Indian (home) kitchens are what I would describe in western terms as 'utility' knives of different sizes, and some serrated ones that don't belong to any named category that I know of. Also, in my grandma's kitchen there used to be an old, wooden-handled carbon steel knife with square tip, presumably similar to what the Japanese use as their 'vegetable' knife. Again, my family is a vegetarian one, so I'm totally unaware of what cutlery might be used for meat. I have been thinking about this for a while even before this question came up, and I am pretty intrigued to know what you think. So any thoughts regarding the specifc (or not so specifc) type of cutlery that was/is used in Indian cooking, vegetarian and non-veg, north or south, would be really interesting to know. Thanks, Anchita
