Mama's Knife
If you can imagine the knife in the picture above with a bunch of copper wire wound around the handle then you can imagine what my Mother's kitchen knife was like! The copper wire was wound onto it to keep the handle together. It was literally falling apart. She loved that knife. She used it for everything from peeling to slicing and for anything you would normally use a paring knife for.
I want a sharp pointed end on my paring knife to dig into things. Her knife had no pointed end--it was rounded and not pointed at all. I really don't know what kind of a knife it was in the beginning-- certainly not a paring knife. It was not like a steak knife nor a dinner knife. But, it ended up being a paring knife!
She would peel her tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, or whatever with paper thin peelings and slice them neat as a pin. She was very defensive about her knife and made sure she had it at her fingertips when she was preparing a meal.
I even bought her a nice paring knife once and tried to get her to use it but she wanted her special knife. It was a dark kind of metal which could not be polished or made to look good. It was just an ugly old thing that needed to be trashed--for sure. Then to make it even uglier she wound that copper wire on the handle to hold it together. Grease would collect on the wire and make it even more unappealing.
I would like to have that knife now just for a memento because she loved it so much. I have no idea what happened to it after she died. Too bad, I never even got a picture of it but it did look much like the one in the picture above!
posted by kyra lafain @ 11/14/2010 12:30:00 PM
2 Comments:
I have a memento of that knife. I was peeling potatoes for her one day, and the knife slipped and cut my finger. I still have a little scar there.
Back in the early 80's my grandmother had an old chef's knife with the handle wrapped in copper wire because it was falling appart, then again both of my grandparents were born literally dirt poor way back in the day and had become very wealthy later in life, so even thou they could easily aford to renovate the whole kitchen they always lived way below their means up to the day when they died. I guess in a way the knife was a daily reminder of were they came from.
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