Infomercials, as you and I both know, are designed to make you buy things you will probably never use. As Calvin said, “Hey Mom, I saw a bunch of products on TV that I didn’t know existed, but I desperately need!” Wisdom (or a bad experience) makes us extremely skeptical of the products advertised via infomercial – but, occasionally, it’s possible to hit on a good offer.
Such, for me, was the Ronco Six Star 25-Piece Cutlery Set, sold for around $40.00 (plus S&H;, but that’s a given). This set has been part of my household for several years, so long that I had forgotten the name of the set. While looking up the name, I came across some interesting things – but more on that later. Let me warn you: If you have gone through life with a dull kitchen knife, then you have been building up bad habits you will quickly learn to regret when you get a good sharp blade buried in your hand.
Call it a rule of intact thumbs: Never hold an item with one hand and cut it with the other when the blade you’re using is pointed at your tender, inviting flesh. This is especially true if the food is soft, like fruit, bread, or cheese. With a dull knife, you have to shove the blade through the thing you’re cutting – with a sharp knife, the blade often glides on through with very little persuasion, and sinks itself in the nearest available surface. My family members each had their own initiation to the world of decent knives, slicing open palms, fingers, and the backs of our knuckles – and I advise you to wise up before you wind up adding a little unexpected protein to your meal.
Second warning: I’m a little leery of bringing these into a house with young children. While a knife in general is dangerous for a child to grab, these knives can do damage more quickly than the average kitchen knife and with far less pressure, and you might find yourself interrupting dinner preparations to rush a toddler to the emergency room. But judge for yourself whether your family is capable of keeping these, well, out of the reach of children.
Now for the review. First, it looks for all the world like Ronco.com no longer offers the knife set. I hunted down another site that did (KoolatronOnline.com), but as I was researching I found that searching for “Six Star” on Ronco’s website opens up a huge array of knives not in any obvious way accessible from the main page (even under the Six Star Knives category, which has only about six entries). I used their feedback form to tell them this, so it’s possible that by the time you read this the problem will have vanished, but if not, just search for “Six Star” and scroll down the page until you find the 25-piece set (not the 20-piece set, unless you don’t want the scissors or the garnishing knife or… actually, I’m not sure which other knives are missing from that set).
The offer has been upgraded since the time I purchased them; now it’s two for the price of one. The price of one set is still about $40.00, and if you ignore shipping then the price of each individual knife is less than $2.00, so the per-piece investment is slight. The site sells the knives individually, and I don’t know what to make of that, since the knives I looked at were going for about as much as the entire set. If you really wanted just a couple knives, you could buy the whole set and peddle the extras to your neighbors, maybe for more than you paid for them. The price for each individual knife at least lets Ronco claim that you’d normally spend $800 for the set, but I don’t know what to make of that claim either, since it’s normal for infomercials to try to convince you that they’re selling their products at insanely low prices. But, whatever the case, your investment is $40.00 plus shipping, for which you get 23 knives (including 8 steak knives), plus a carving fork and a pair of scissors – an excellent buy if you’re looking to outfit your kitchen as cheaply as possible.
Now, I do think it’s worthwhile to pay a little more than $2.00 to get a good general-purpose knife. I recently read E_Harmon’s article How to Choose Sharp Knives for Your Kitchen, where she recommends a chef’s knife for $90, a serrated knife for $40 and a paring knife for $25. This is a good idea if you have $150 dollars to spend on three knives, especially since you’d expect good-quality knives to stick around for a decade or more. But then, I fully expect my Ronco blades to stick around at least that long, and I’d gladly buy a replacement set if I ever needed to do so.
In stark contrast to some of the complaints I’ve just read, I have never seen the slightest hint of rust or corrosion on the blades, I’ve never had them get noticeably dull, and I have never felt the handles so much as loosen. Assuming the negative reviews are about the same product, I’m baffled as to the source of their complaint. However, after a bit of research I discovered a tip: Never put your knives through the dishwasher. Now, we don’t have a dishwasher, so it’s never been an issue, and on top of that, I read some reviews from people who had no trouble using dishwashers on their Ronco blades. But apparently all that heat and strong detergent is bad for even expensive knives, and can corrode their finish and do other nasty things. It says right in the instructions not to use a dishwasher, and I wonder what percentage of the complaints comes from people who ignored that advice.
As for customer service: I’ve never needed any, so I have no complaints there. I suspect that the level of service across the phone, for either ordering or complaints, is often not connected to the quality of the company, since much of it gets outsourced, sometimes to people who don’t speak English natively (or with anything like a native accent). From reading reviews, and just considering the possibilities, I expect that the “lifetime replacement” guarantee is more like “Send us three bucks and we’ll send you a new knife; call it shipping“; I actually don’t mind this, seeing as (a) the knives are worth it and (b) the individual knives on the site are much more expensive (whether or not that’s realistic pricing).
At any rate, these knives have been in daily use in my household for well over three years now, and they’re one of the most satisfying purchases I’ve ever made. Despite occasional misuse (letting them sit in water or in the sink for a few days), they’ve never rusted, dulled, broken, or anything, and they’re still the knives we turn to first for most jobs. We never ordered the wooden block, but keep them loose in a drawer, which may have made a difference. Here are the knives I use most often:
Bread Knife: The rounded serrations are good for bread, but they’re perfect for slicing tomatoes and other soft fruit. This is probably my favorite knife.
Cheese Knife: Usually for cheese, often as a general knife.
Chef’s Knife: General use.
Paring Knife: Slicing peaches and other fruit. Very useful, and easier to control on the small jobs.
Fillet Knife: Slicing meat, either raw or cooked – good for trying to make a roast fit the pan you’re cooking it in, or getting a thin section to cook faster for a family member who’s leaving before the meat would normally get done.
I like the idea behind a lot of the other knives, and I like having them available even if we don’t use them much. I want to use the garnish knife but I haven’t yet made the time to get fancy with my fruits. (When I get a chance, I’m gonna try to make some centerpieces à la Play with Your Food by Joost Elffers.)
So if you’re in need of a sharp, versatile set of knives but not able to shell out $90 for a quality chef’s knife, try Ronco’s Six Star Cutlery Set – just be careful when you start to use them, or you might not be able to give them a literal thumb’s up.
