Sushi is a Japanese food which is made of rice and either seafood, egg or vegetables. A famous example of sushi is makizushi, which is made from special seaweed called nori and rice. Usually, the key ingredients of Sushi are raw fish (snapper or tuna). Usually, people see sushi knife as a device which is used for cutting all the vegetables and slicing the sushi roll. But, this could be done by any other knife. The Sushi knife is distinguished by any other knife through its sharpening and material.
Conventionally, Sushi knifes are made up of very high class carbon steel. The traditional Japanese katanas are forged by the same high quality carbon steel. The Sushi knifes which are seen in kitchens aren’t made up of such high quality steel, instead use stainless steel. The best quality sushi knife manufacturers use high quality carbon in the steel which is used to forge the sushi knifes.
The other major difference between an average knife and the Sushi knife is their methods of sharpening. The proficient Sushi knife is sharpened through a different style called Katuba. In this method, only one edge of the knife is sharpened instead of sharpening of both edges of the average kitchen knife. If the user (cook) is right handed then they can use knifes whose right edge is sharpened and left sharpened edges can be used by the left-handed cooks. These knives allow more accuracy and cleaner cuts. But, learning to use knives with single edge takes some time to master for anyone beginning to use sushi knifes.
These knifes go much beyond the term Sushi knife as there are many different sort of knifes which can be used for cutting various types of Sushi and many different knifes are made to cut special species of fishes. The major fish (sashimi in Japanese) are tako hiki, fugu hiki and yanagi ba. The fugu hiki knife is specially constructed to fill the fugu (puffer fish).
The yanagi ba knife is used for most fishes and looks very similar to the average pairing knifes. They have thin and long blades which can be used for squids or octopuses. There are also special knifes which are designed for slicing large fishes and their size can exceed 2 metres (six feet). Deba bocho are designed wider than yanagi ba and look similar to an average carving knife. These knifes are used for rough cutting of the fish or for non-sea foods such as beef or chicken. After the meats have been roughly cut, they can be cut into fine slices by the yanagi ba knife (thin blade).
Vegetables are cut by the nakiri bocho or the usuba bocho sushi knife. These knifes have thin blades which ensure finer cutting of the vegetables. Nakiri bocho can be used by beginners as they are sharpened on both sides. The special high quality can cost a lot of money, so for everyday use simple quality knifes can be bought for everyday use. These are available with trusted cutlery sellers.