That commis chef laughed at my knife angle, turns out he had a point

Six months ago a 19 year old kid straight out of culinary school told me I was holding my chef's knife at too steep an angle when dicing onions. I've been doing it the same way for 12 years and told him to focus on his own station. Last week I finally tried his way after he kept bugging me about it. My cuts are more consistent and I'm not wasting as much onion. Still not gonna admit it to his face though. Anyone else had a younger cook teach them something basic they should have known?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_aaron21d ago

Bro I think you're reading way too deep into this lol. The kid was right about the angle, cool. But calling it an "ego lesson" and "stubbornness keeping you from improving" feels a little dramatic for one dude chopping onions slightly better. It's not like he was holding his knife backwards or something dangerous. Sometimes people just have their own way of doing stuff and it works fine for years. Not everything has to be some big personal growth moment.

mila_murphy2120d ago

Honestly @the_aaron, same thing happened to me with knife grip and it just clicked after.

jamie77021d ago

The real lesson here is about ego getting in the way of learning, not knife skills. Stubbornness keeps people from improving even when the answer is right in front of them. Sometimes the best teacher is someone who hasn't been doing it wrong for a decade.

-1