Just my opinion on Mercer knives

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oldrustycars

Senior Cook
Joined
Mar 7, 2009
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Location
Naperville, Illinois
Americas Test Kitchen rated a Mercer bread knife as a best buy. They typically do a good job and will consider price. I bought one, my girlfriend is an incredible baker and it gets used often. When I wanted a breaking knife for trimming briskets for the smoker I bought another Mercer. I decided to get another Mercer chef's knife to fill in the order (Webstaurant.com has good prices, but have a good list since shipping is a bit high, IMHO) they have all been excellent knives. I run the breaking knife and chef's knife across a whetstone every couple weeks. Will put them up against my Zwilling Pro knife ($150 from Sur La Table) any day of the week. Webstaurant.com and Katom.com sell Mercer. Just me two cents.
 
Those style knives just feel weird to me.

I run across them every once in a while at the thrifts. Not sure if I have one, might have to look and see. I think I might have a carbon steel one.

Knowing what it is used for may make a difference.
 
If I'm thinking of what you're thinking, a breaking knife is more commonly called a butcher knife. The latter is the term I've always seen,. anyway.
 
I had an unpleasant interaction with webstaurant some years ago and now refuse to deal with them.
 
I got a Dexter, even cheaper. But I think it's fair to say that ALMOST any bread knife will be fine so long as it's long-bladed. I see several with offset handles--those I'm pretty sure are intended specifically for countermen, whose work surfaces are at table height, while home use involved 36" high counters.
 
I had a very thin long serrated bread knife that I wanted to replace. I bought a mercer bread knife. At first I hated how heavy it was, and that it was thick. My old one was thin and lightweight. I got used to the mercer knife, it is sharp and does a great job slicing loaves of bread. I'm so used to it now I love it and wouldn't want my old knife back anymore.
 
I had never seen the spelling "cimeter" before, so I looked it up:

I disagree with the wikipedia article. A scimitar has always referred to a medieval sword. A cimeter has always referred to a butcher knife. Obviously people have been substituting the term scimitar for the butcher knife for a long time but it is still incorrect. There are those that favor a fluid language and those that prefer some discipline in the language. I believe personally that different items should have different names. One can choose either path I suppose.
 
On first sight of 'cimeter' I immediately considered it a corrupt pronunciation of 'scimitar,' which comes to us through the English, a folk famous for (appropriately in this case) butchering foreign languages. After all, the English are responsible for turning Firenze into Florence, Livorno in Leghorn and Tagliaferro into Tolliver. And Americans aren't much better. The Oxford English Dictionary--the Big Guy of lexicography--tells us two things. 1, as of 1928 (my edition), 'cimeter' is not listed. (Anyone with a later edition, please chime in; also google images has a 19th Cy English engraving 'labeled 'cim-e-ter.) 2, OED says 'Scimitar' is of possibly Turkish origin and the word has been found in half a dozen languages (mostly around the Med) in a variety of spellings, some so close to 'cimeter' as to represent a mere distinction without a difference. What so many are calling a cimeter has always been known to me as a butcher knife. I was surprised to see cimeter, but--as Google images and other sources show--it's very common, and I have not seen any butcher knife called a scimitar. So in sum, I think we have two varieties of the same word, like whisky and whiskey (despite heated denial by malt fanciers), but each version seems to have landed on its specific item: scimitar for sword, cimeter for butcher knife. I suspect that scimitar-for-butcher-knife is not actually incorrect but is a) unpopular and b) likely to be misunderstood.
 
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Not to mention Copenhagen for København and Elsinore for Helsingør. Hamlet's Castle is in Helsingør, three quarters of an hour north of København by commuter train. I've been there.
 
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