So, since I had a gift certificate to Sur La Table, I bought a nice 7" Global Santoku. I test drived it a friend's house and know it comes highly reccomended by a chef friend of a friend, so I'm confident that I will love it. However, while I was looking, I took a gander at the Kyocera ceramic chef's knife that SLT had available. It was light and sat pretty well in my hand. It was even a couple bucks cheaper than the Global. However, since I fear new technology I didn't even think of buying it.

When I got home, however, I did some googling and it seems that people like their ceramics and the old problems, like shatterage and breakage, are not really a problem any more. The only drawback, it seems, is that you can't use ceramics on bone or other hardish things. Since I have a Heckels 8" chef's knife, this shouldn't be a problem and I would use the ceramic pretty much exclusively on vegetables and fish.

So, does anyone care to share their experience with these new-fangled ceramic knives?

Others may have dissenting opinions, but in my view ceramics just aren't worth it. Are they sharp? Yes, but not any sharper than you can get a good steel knife. Will they stay sharp longer than a steel knife? Yes, but only if you are assuming the steel knife is not honed regularly. Are the new ceramics sturdier than previous generation? Yes, but one drop on a tiled floor or careless bang against a pot/counter/sink and your expensive knife has an unfixable chip in the blade or is broken clean in half. I don't see any advantage they have over a well kept traditional chef's knife. If you don't want to do any knife maintenance at all (no honing, no sharpening) they may be a good option, but that's the only positive they have in my view. The light weight is actually a big disadvantage to me; I want some heft to my blades. I would consider one as a paring knife just for kicks, but nothing of the size of a chef's knife.

All in my humble opinion, of course.

They're too darn light. I might make an exception for a utility knife for ripe tomatoes: they glide through more easily than stainless, and are impervious to the acid staining that plagues high-carbon.

However, I adore my ceramic vegetable peeler...it blazes through root vegetable skins easily, and steel peelers are bloody hard to sharpen.

I have a Kyocera ceramic, I think it's 5 1/2", and it works great but I never use it. Because the metal knives are out in a block on the counter, and the ceramic is tucked away in a drawer inside a box so it doesn't get broken or banged.

If I have a lot of onions and/or peppers to cut I'll get it out, because it blazes through those things. The onion just melts away from the knife. But it's kind of like my mandoline. Does it do a better job than the regular knife? Sure. Is it worth the slight extra hassle of retrieval and cleaning? Nah, not really.

Agreed with Dave on ceramic peelers -- huge improvement over metal, a definite buy.

When my spouse got assigned out of the area for a year and needed some kitchen equipment basics, I got her the two smaller Kyocera knives (small paring knife and a 5 inch or so utility knife) because I knew that knife maintenance was not her bailiwick. The knives served her well and almost six years later are still going strong. I made a small two-slot knife block that sits on our kitchen counter next to the large block, and invariably the ceramics are the ones we go to for routine light tasks such as slicing most fruits and vegetables or cutting a sandwich. Yes; one has to be careful about bones and not putting sideways pressure on the blades, but ours have been worth the money. Would I want them as my only knife material? No; they have too many limitations. But as as an adjunct to a few good steel blades they are nice.