So, SB and I aren’t big souvenir collectors. We tend to enjoy writing travel diaries (like this one!) and taking pictures over buying items that will remind us of a place. That is, unless we find EXACTLY the right item.
So, we have our souvenir from our trip to Spain. It’s a sentoku knife of made of Damascus steel. (A sentoku knife is a Japanese chef’s knife — almost the same as a normal chef’s knife, but with a slightly different shape that we’re geeky enough to prefer.) We bought it on our trip to Toledo on Saturday.
You might want to click the picture to really see the wavy patterns in the steel.
Damascus steel cooking knife from Toledo
Toledo is THE place for Damascus steel. Toledo is filled with shops selling all variety of Toledo steel: fancy tableware, hunting knives, full plate armor, decorative artwork, you name it. And let’s not forget swords — replica swords from all nationalities and time periods. In fact, many of the ornamental swords for our armed forces come from there.
And for the more media-minded, movie prop reproductions like these from The Lord of the Rings.
Reproduction helmet and gauntlet of Sauron
But the cool thing about a chef’s knife is that Terran and I cook like crazy people. We’ve been whining about the lack of a good cooking knife in our apartment since we got here. This is something that is special to the area, pretty, and we’ll use it constantly, even when we get home. That’s an exciting kind of souvenir, something that kind remind you of a cool place that you will use almost every day.
Now, that’s very cool. I want to fill my house with souvenirs like that – things that I use and are cool, not just cool things.
To ask a dumb question, so how would that feel different and be better?
Damascus steel is high-quality steel, but I don’t think it’s better than what you’d get in any other high-end cooking knife. It just looks cool. It’s the dark steel layered with the light steel to get the wavy look. You can see it better if you click through on the picture.
As for the sentoku vs. western chef’s knife, the sentoku is a bit lighter. It tends to have the scallops on the side that theoretically keep sliced things from sticking to the knife (sometimes it works). Though the scalloping is not required for a sentoku, and I think you can get it on a regular chef’s knife. And it’s just shaped in a way that you might or might like the feel of when you’re cutting. I do. I’m not sure Terran cares. You might not even notice :).