Tonight’s dessert was a hundred yen crepes. The name is funny. I can’t believe it was hand-wrapped…I don’t know if I want something like this to be handmade.
A knife shop in my neighborhood puts “handmade” stickers on their knives, but what in the world is handmade? On TV, they show knives made by local blacksmiths who can’t provide good products consistently, but our blacksmith in Sakai, Osaka, makes good knives that are so much in demand that even if he beats them with a belt hammer, the delivery date is delayed and he is in trouble. If you use a machine but support it with your hands, is it still handmade? Is it not handmade but finger-made if you use a jig to hold it down and press the button on the machine by hand?
Once upon a time, when my father was in good health, he asked me, “Is this knife handmade? “Is this knife handmade?I still remember answering, “No, there is no knife made by hand! Even now, some customers who bring in their knives to be sharpened at our store ask us, “Do you sharpen by hand or by machine? Do you sharpen by hand or by machine? But I don’t think it’s the machine’s fault because kitchen knives are made by machine.
It is not the fault of the machine. It is the fault of the craftsman who cannot use the machine well.
