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Left-Handed Epiphany
Apr. 28th, 2022 11:05 amYesterday I had a serious lighbulb moment regarding bread knives.
And I feel like an idiot for not coming to this realization sooner!
As you know, I like bread. I've been baking it myself, and then when I went out on tour I've been buying it locally.
Up until I started baking bread myself, I'd never really used a bread knife that often.
Maybe that's why I never thought about this.
Back when we were in Arizona, I started getting the seeds of an inkling of an idea that "Something's not right here" regarding the way I slice bread. There was this super-popular bread bakery just a few miles from our hotel, and I got two loaves of their "signature" bread, one for myself and one for my coworker Yael. Yael does not have a bread knife, so I lent her mine, and when she returned it I used it to slice my own loaf.
When I sliced my loaf of rustic bread, first of all it was almost impossible to get a straight cut.
This is a rather normal thing for left-handed people, so I thought nothing of it.
But I also noticed (and had noticed with previous loaves as well) that when I cut into a bread with a crunchy crust, first of all the edges of each slice look serrated and rough no matter how careful I am; and secondly it is SUCH A HUGE MESS. Crumbs go exploding out across the room. Pieces of the crust snap off in random places, making my slices even more uneven and ragged.
The result is always ragged, uneven "slices" of bread with dangling hunks of crust attached to them, plus a huge radius of crumb explosion that takes a very long time to clean up, especially in a hotel room. It's very frustrating, but I sort of attributed it to the crustiness of the bread plus my left-handedness.
Shortly after slicing my bread we had covid testing, so I went to the lobby and saw Yael in line.
We raved together about how good the bread was, and I said, "But man, what a pain it was to cut! It made a huge mess in my room."
To which she replied, "Really? I didn't have any problems."
I was like, "Crumbs didn't explode all across your whole room?"
She was like, "No, it sliced up just fine, like normal bread. *quizzical look*"
And that's when the seed was planted for me to start thinking, "Something's not right here".
Fast forward to yesterday. I had made my potato bread and was using the lovely slicing guide that Jameson got me.
Wow, I got nice even slices of bread! And yet...
As I looked at the newly sliced loaf, I was STILL seeing those ragged edges on all of the slices.
I was STILL seeing way more crumbs and broken-off bits than I consider to be "normal", even with this soft potato loaf.
"Why?" my brain demanded. "Something's not right here."
As I was starting to fall asleep in bed, I was scrolling through social media.
Because I had posted photos of my loaf to a bread baking group I'm in on facebook, I was seeing more media from that group tonight.
And then...
a post came up from that group, from an elderly woman who was shocked to discover that there are left-handed bread knives, and she had "always wondered why I couldn't get clean edges on my slices of bread, and why there were always so many crumbs. This was the answer!"
OH MY GOD. DUH!!!
Bread knives are serrated...but they are still SINGLE-EDGED BLADES!
This means that like with scissors or XACT-O knives, the side that is sharpened is STILL sharpened for the benefit of RIGHT-HANDERS!!!
That's why when I slice bread with a right-handed bread knife, it's the same result as when a left-handed person cuts paper with right-handed scissors: you end up with a ragged edge.
It's the same damn thing, just a different tool. 38 years on the planet and this never even occurred to me!!
Well, now you KNOW I have to pick up a left-handed bread knife!
Maybe not right this minute, but it's gonna happen!
I cannot BELIEVE I didn't realize this earlier!
And I feel like an idiot for not coming to this realization sooner!
As you know, I like bread. I've been baking it myself, and then when I went out on tour I've been buying it locally.
Up until I started baking bread myself, I'd never really used a bread knife that often.
Maybe that's why I never thought about this.
Back when we were in Arizona, I started getting the seeds of an inkling of an idea that "Something's not right here" regarding the way I slice bread. There was this super-popular bread bakery just a few miles from our hotel, and I got two loaves of their "signature" bread, one for myself and one for my coworker Yael. Yael does not have a bread knife, so I lent her mine, and when she returned it I used it to slice my own loaf.
When I sliced my loaf of rustic bread, first of all it was almost impossible to get a straight cut.
This is a rather normal thing for left-handed people, so I thought nothing of it.
But I also noticed (and had noticed with previous loaves as well) that when I cut into a bread with a crunchy crust, first of all the edges of each slice look serrated and rough no matter how careful I am; and secondly it is SUCH A HUGE MESS. Crumbs go exploding out across the room. Pieces of the crust snap off in random places, making my slices even more uneven and ragged.
The result is always ragged, uneven "slices" of bread with dangling hunks of crust attached to them, plus a huge radius of crumb explosion that takes a very long time to clean up, especially in a hotel room. It's very frustrating, but I sort of attributed it to the crustiness of the bread plus my left-handedness.
Shortly after slicing my bread we had covid testing, so I went to the lobby and saw Yael in line.
We raved together about how good the bread was, and I said, "But man, what a pain it was to cut! It made a huge mess in my room."
To which she replied, "Really? I didn't have any problems."
I was like, "Crumbs didn't explode all across your whole room?"
She was like, "No, it sliced up just fine, like normal bread. *quizzical look*"
And that's when the seed was planted for me to start thinking, "Something's not right here".
Fast forward to yesterday. I had made my potato bread and was using the lovely slicing guide that Jameson got me.
Wow, I got nice even slices of bread! And yet...
As I looked at the newly sliced loaf, I was STILL seeing those ragged edges on all of the slices.
I was STILL seeing way more crumbs and broken-off bits than I consider to be "normal", even with this soft potato loaf.
"Why?" my brain demanded. "Something's not right here."
As I was starting to fall asleep in bed, I was scrolling through social media.
Because I had posted photos of my loaf to a bread baking group I'm in on facebook, I was seeing more media from that group tonight.
And then...
a post came up from that group, from an elderly woman who was shocked to discover that there are left-handed bread knives, and she had "always wondered why I couldn't get clean edges on my slices of bread, and why there were always so many crumbs. This was the answer!"
OH MY GOD. DUH!!!
Bread knives are serrated...but they are still SINGLE-EDGED BLADES!
This means that like with scissors or XACT-O knives, the side that is sharpened is STILL sharpened for the benefit of RIGHT-HANDERS!!!
That's why when I slice bread with a right-handed bread knife, it's the same result as when a left-handed person cuts paper with right-handed scissors: you end up with a ragged edge.
It's the same damn thing, just a different tool. 38 years on the planet and this never even occurred to me!!
Well, now you KNOW I have to pick up a left-handed bread knife!
Maybe not right this minute, but it's gonna happen!
I cannot BELIEVE I didn't realize this earlier!
