Who wants to shred and splinter their way to a meal anyway? However, daily food prep can blunt a sharp blade, so a knife sharpener can be an essential tool in regular chef knife maintenance.

How do you make sure you have a sharp knife, though, short of constantly buying new ones? You just need a sharpener or a honing steel (we’ll explain the differences below). While it’s entirely ...

Sharpening is the practice of aggressively polishing a knife to reform its edge. You'll only need to do this for very dull knives. In the process, bits of metal are actually shaved away.