I rarely have a need for a cleaver. Once a year when I roast a turkey one would come in handy for chopping through the joints, but I’m eventually able to get through with a heavy knife. It would be a lot easier with a cleaver though. When I make fish tacos it’s no problem to slice thr fish with a chef’s knife, but it would be a lot quicker with a cleaver. I know people use them to crush garlic or peppercorns. I just whack the garlick with a jar or glass, and I have a nifty little bowl with ridges inside and a wooden pestle for spices. But I have a knife block for my Henckels knives, and there’s a slot for a cleaver. I’ll get one even though I’ll only use it a few times a year.
Do you use a cleaver? Aside from chopping through joints or perhaps crushing garlic, what do you use it for?
I use mine for sweet potatoes and hard squash. It’s a bit of overkill, sure, but a lot quicker and more satisfying than pressing real hard with a chef’s knife and ending up with a pink ouchy line across my palm for my efforts.
Mmmm…what else? Shaving beeswax for making medicinal salve, but that’s probably a niche market thing.
I don’t use it much, honestly. But I’m glad I have it. It’s one of those tools that isn’t absolutely required, but when you want it, everything else is a piss-poor substitute. Like a spaetzle maker or an olive pitter.
Cutting through joints? Ha! I don’t cook, but when my wife or mother in law makes Chinese-style chicken or duck, they use a big old heavy cleaver to slam right through bone. Getting around the bone is a problem to be handled by the one eating, not the one cooking.
Mine is almost exclusively used to process garlic, big flat blade does a good job with the initial smashing. After the husk is removed, the blade can be used to mince the garlic (another knife woluld also work but why get another one dirty?) and the face is used to scrape it up and transport to the cook area.
Which is to say that I am not aware of any disposal of dead bodies at or near my vicinity, nor do I believe I would be at liberty to talk about such activity if it existed.
I worked in commercial kitchens for several years, including one offering dry-aged steak and exotic fowl. I think we might have had a cleaver but I don’t recall anyone actually using it, even on the prep side; trimming, seperating, and deboning were all done with standard kit knives (paring/utility, deboning/filleting, and cook’s knives), and most cooks carried their own kits. I do all of my mashing with the broad face of a cook’s knife, and can’t imagine why someone would prefer a cleaver for fine chopping or trimming. Most cleavers I see today are stainless steel and have way too fine of an edge for proper hard chopping.
No, I don’t own or use a cleaver; though I’d like to have one. For those tasks where one might use a cleaver, I use a good-sized bowie knife. Chops through flesh, bone, and joint capsules with ease. It’s also peculiarly satisfying.
Mine is my great-grandmothers. Heavy bitch (um, the cleaver. Maybe the great-grandmother, too.) with a fairly scary looking splotchy black blade. Just like a maul for splitting wood, it’s the weight of the tool that does the hard part, all I have to do is lift it high enough to get it started. I agree that most cleavers I see today don’t look suited for the over the shoulder WHACK that mine is capable of. Y’know, when the spice jars start skittering out of the holder above the counter? Good times.
On the first episode of the second season of Dexter on Showtime, Dexter loses control of a subject and tries to use a cleaver on him. Just thought you’d like to know.
