The first sentence you wield a professional - quality kitchen tongue , a realization dawn on you : all other blades are imposters , completely and utterly miss in culinary sensitivity and cutting prowess .
Bob Kramerknows something about that . In college , in addition to contain chemistry classes by day , he made a bread and butter work as a James Cook in various restaurants . He began to acknowledge that none of the other staffer knew how to properlysharpen their knives , the most important creature of their slyness . It was a lightbulb second : Kramer devote up his prior career plans to start making knives . Today , he ’s one of only 122 superior bladesmiths certified in the American Bladesmith Society , and the only one who specializes in kitchen tongue .
Anthony Bourdain go to visit Kramer in Olympia , Washington , for an episode of his seriesRaw Craft . In the installment , Bourdain says of the bladesmith : “ Bob Kramer is clear out of his judgement . This process is so hard and so long , it ’s insane to work this hard to improve something as utilitarian as a tongue , you ’d think . But at the conclusion of the day , what comes out is so singular and so beautiful , all I can say is that I want that variety of crazy . ”
That cognitive operation involves forge his own steel , hammer and pound up the red - hot metal into a slight and thinner blade , etching plan on it , and eventually sharpening the blade so finely that it can reduce through a piece of theme with almost zero effort .
In the cartridge clip above , Kramer thaw down an actualmeteorite — essentially an ironspacerock — to make a tongue that Bourdain then uses to hack crimson onion and herb for dinner party . The beautiful craftsmanship makes Kramer ’s knife some of the most impressive out there — tools that Bourdain calls a “ status symbol ” among collectors and chefs for their sharpness , resiliency , and potency .
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A variation of this chronicle was published in 2015 ; it has been updated for 2024 .
