Opinel: The Business of not Improving Things - Critical Findings

I've owned several Opinel #8's. I have one sitting next to my keyboard as I type this. ALL of them, I use simply for cooking and eating.

The one next to me right now, the last time I used it was to slice beef summer sausage, cheese, carrots and cucumbers for my snack.

In my 72 hour bag, I have 3 HDR Rations, a 3 lbs beef summer sausage, some waxed hard cheese, hard rye crackers, a Croatian canteen/mess kit, and an Opinel #8. There is also the plastic poncho, a small ground cloth, some 550 cord and what not, but I ALWAYS have an Opinel #8 specifically for cooking/preparing food.

I am actually looking in to trying out an Opinel folding filet knife this summer, a #15 with a 5.9" blade. It's just under $30.00, I think I can set aside enough to get that by July. I've cleaned fish with a #8 before and it does the job just fine on smaller fish, but I live on the Gulf, and some of the fish I've caught have gotten quite large, that using a #8 might risk injuring myself. So I'll get a longer #15 that has a thinner and slightly more flexible blade.

But if you have never tried using an Opinel for cooking, you don't know what you are missing.

I have even given my mother an Opinel #8 with a leather case, and I told her to use it for slicing her vegetables. I don't know if she has, but I did giver her one.