Knives on the Dining Table

I try to cook with a certain peculiar philosophy:

"No Knives at the Dining Table".

From the words of the world renowned "Iron Chef" Masaharu Morimoto, Japanese chefs believe that their soul goes into the knives they own as they start to use them.

However, in the opposite vein of thought - what does one make of the presence of dining knives on the table?

More often than not in Asian cuisine, one might find it hard pressed to find knives on the traditional dining table.

Dining table knives, while a quintessential part of Western cuisine, was never really something found in Asia because of how we portion our dishes. Be it in communal or individually plated dishes, food is often served in portions which are able to be eaten by chopsticks or spoons. The romanticist in me likes to believe that in part, this comes from in the ideology of purposeful cooking and presentation. To ask a guest to use a knife and apportion his food, or further have to "prepare" it so that it can be eaten, would only reflect poorly on the cook for the lack of thought for the experience of the diner.

Conversely, as a diner, self control is a key attribute in dining etiquette, where focus is placed in enjoying every aspect of each food item laid out in front of us. In this day and age where food is aplenty and we are not worried about the reliability of food sources for our next meal, and each meal is consistent in timing and expectation, then there is not a need to gorge ourselves over with large servings, or to eat in large chunks, where efficiency and nutrition take precedence over flavour.

To do so would be to undermine the efforts of the chef, and not placing effort to appreciate behind the concept and thought that comes with preparing the food. There is something to be enjoyed in understanding how a dish is built from scratch, including the ideation, and the components that make up your dish.

Someday, I aspire to be a cook who is not only well attuned to culture and tradition of my food styles, but as well connected to the ground, the earth and the environment around us which supplies and provides us the food. This includes the people, the farmers, the weather, and trying to make things as zero waste as possible. But, before all that, the first people that we need to be attuned towards, are the people who is eating our food.

And one part of that, is to allow guests to dine without having the need to reach for a knife.