Traditional kitchen knives of India

[Dakki]

Everyone (or so I assume) is familiar with the various Euro and Chinese kitchen knives, and India has produced an amazingly inventive array of steel weapons throughout history, and notoriously had easily the best steels available right up to the Industrial Revolution, but I've never heard of an Indian kitchen knife as such.

So what was used?

Are these still largely used or have they been replaced with Euro-type knives? Or Chinese?

Are there knives associated with certain regions or cuisines?

[Hassouni]

I've seen a lot of videos of Indian mothers and aunties cooking, and a lot seem to use the small knife/hold everything against the thumb approach...

[Jenni]

^^

Yes, small crappy knives are common in many kitchens. People seem to manage with what they have. Paring knives are commonly used for many tasks. Non vegetarian kitchens may in addition have a cleaver, and these are also great for cracking coconuts in two as well, or for chopping pieces off large pumpkins and yams, etc. Bigger shops now have a wider range of fancy Western knives of many sizes but certainly where I am a lot of people still just buy cheap small knives from the market.

Hopefully someone who grew up with some of the traditional kitchen tools will be able to add more, but I know that there are some special knives in India where the blade is fixed to a sort of block or even some kind of stool and the person using it moves whatever is being cut against the blade. In Bengal this is called boti/bonti, some very minimal information is here. I believe a very similar tool is used elsewhere in India too but somehow I cannot find in my notes (was discussing kitchen tools with someone the other day) what the Hindi name for it is. These kinds of utensils require some skill and practice to use but it's very cool to see someone with experience cut stuff up! I think they are dying out as more people move to ordinary knives.

Edited October 31, 2011 by Jenni (log)