What is this double-serrated knife good for?

Question

I was recently given an unused knife from an elderly relative who downsized her home. It is stainless steel with a sort of "double serrated" edge.

Out of curiosity I gave it a try and it more "shredded" than cut my meat and almost destroyed my plastic cutting board. It is also a pain in the proverbial to clean because food particles cling to the tiny spikes and it catches on the cloth and towel.

I don't really need it - my kitchen is fully equipped for my needs - but before I delegate it to "garden duty" (makes a good impromptu saw), I'm asking for your input:
Am I missing something here? Does it have a special use or advantage I just don't see?

Answer 1

You are not missing anything, that is a cheap serrated "no sharpening" knife from a set. The only possible advantage to it would be when cutting soft tomatoes, where having a bit of serration helps. For that I use a bread knife anyway, so I'd say you have no use for that knife at all in the kitchen.

Answer 2

We have two (a coincidentially matching pair) of these at home. They have a few uses:

• Ours are similar proportions to steak knives, and they work very well for that (or pizza).

• I sometimes call them "cheese sandwich knives", because they cut both bread and cheese (and tomatoes if that's your thing). This means they're good for taking on picnics or for eating picnic-like food in the garden.

• Otherwise they're last resort knives if the preferred ones are in the wash. They've got a good bite for tough skins, but they're not really stiff enough for hard things (so you wouldn't use them for butternut squash - yours may be stiffer, it's certainly chunkier).

• As a student (when we got ours) they were handy -- there's no point having decent knives in a shared house.

You may not put your good knives through the dishwasher (if you have one) but don't worry about it for these (which are stainless in every case I've seen). Some of these knives are complete junk -- blunt as sold and can't be sharpened -- but I would expect a Fiskars to be one of the better examples of the type.

Answer 3

Edges like that are also common on specialty knives for cutting (sawing up) frozen foods - and that is another possible good use for this example.

Answer 4

You have a wonderful knife there. It is a bread knife. It is only used on the hard crusts of artisan breads. It will cut easily cut through with a clean cut and then it cuts the softer inside cleanly. Just use a sawing motion with hardly any downward pressure. You will be amazed.