Importance of a Sharp Knife

I'm in the process of finishing up my tomatoes and I realized how important it is to have a nice sharp knife when canning, especially tomatoes. I'm sure we all know what happens when you try to cut a tomato with a dull knife, you end up just squishing it. Another thing I realized is that a knife with a sharp tip is a MUST. I went to grab for one of the small paring knives I own, thinking it would be good for the task. But when I went to use it, I realized it had a blunt tip. That just doesn't work when you're trying to core a tomato. You need that sharp tip to poke into the flesh.

Equally as important is a knife sharpener. Eventually, as your hacking your way through pounds and pounds of produce, your knife is going to go dull, and your back to squishing tomatoes. Time to sharpen the knife. My dad always had this knife sharpener with the two sticks that stuck up and he would go back and forth at an angle. I never thought I would be able to figure that out. Turns out, I didn't need to. The only knife sharpener we have in the house is the one above that Dan bought to sharpen his fillet knife. I think Rappala makes it (fish, tomatoes, they both need sharp knives, right?). It's really easy to use. If you can see in each notch is a pair of those sharpening things (stones?). One side is coarse, the other fine. I gently run the knife through the coarse side several times, then through the fine side. Easy as pie (except pie isn't that easy).

What I'm trying to say with this long post is: sharp knives are important. (But you all knew that already)