Rule No. 1: Never try to catch a falling knife.
It was day two of culinary school. My fellow student’s brand–new nine–inch Wüsthof knife fell from the butcher block in front of him. He reacted in a flash, instinctively extending his hand.
A two–inch laceration poured forth a river of red—on his checkered pants, on his white coat, on his cutting board, on the floor. Blood everywhere. Our chef instructor spotted the mishap out of the corner of his practiced eye: “Someone call 911.”
The result was a severed tendon in the student’s thumb and a dozen or so stitches. A botched suturing job robbed him of feeling in his finger, likely forever.
Between fierce cleavers, bubbling–hot oil, slippery floors, and swirling blades, a kitchen can be a dangerous place. And while minor cuts on fingers and hands are commonplace, there are times when the slipups are more reminiscent of a scene in Grey’s Anatomy.
Chris Gesualdi, a chef instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City and an experienced restaurant chef, has seen his share of kitchen calamities: blockbuster falls on greasy floors, 25–pound stand mixers crashing to the ground and smashing heads on the way, unattended blenders whizzing hot soup onto unsuspecting faces, and—right out of some crazed cartoon—chefs’ coats turned into candles by a classic flambé.
But by far the worst accident Gesualdi has witnessed—in a New York City restaurant of significant repute, he adds—involves two unlikely partners: naked flesh and hot oil. “One day, a guy was changing the lightbulb up where the [stove] hoods are, and a guy below him was straining the deep–fat fryer oil,” Gesualdi recalls. “The guy changing the lightbulb was getting down, and he stepped directly into the pot of 350–degree oil. It went all the way up from his foot to his knee.” The injury sent him straight to the hospital—for three months.
A hot–oil burn is among the most excruciating of accidents—second only to sticky hot sugar. When bubbling caramel comes into contact with skin, not only does it cause a burn, but it bonds like a barnacle. The pain is agonizing, and the recovery can be just as painful.
Burn wounds linger, often leaving noticeable scars not unlike those resulting from a knife—or, worse, a band saw. “The band saw is a bone cutter, and it’s almost like cutting wood,” says Stanley Lobel, owner of Manhattan’s historic Lobel’s of New York butcher shop. “I’ve never seen [injuries happen] in our shop because we have certain rules you have to follow, but I’ve heard of fingers and hands getting cut very, very severely.”
Butchers are on the front lines of kitchen trauma, of course, surrounded by six–inch meat cleavers, spinning slicers, and churning meat grinders. “Almost all of the old–time butchers I know have lost a piece of their finger,” reports Dario Cecchini, a world–renowned butcher based in Panzano in Chianti, a suburb of Florence, Italy. Cecchini has been wielding a knife for more than 37 years and considers himself lucky: “It’s actually quite a heroic thing that I’ve gotten as far as I have while still having all ten fingers.”
Bad luck and ill timing aside, there are strategic steps to take to keep kitchen accidents at bay. The most important precaution of them all may actually seem like the most counterintuitive. But Gesualdi, Lobel, and Cecchini concur: A very sharp knife is the first safeguard against cutting yourself.
“When you use a sharp knife, you only have to make one or two cuts, maximum,” says Lobel. “Whereas when you use a dull knife, you’re pushing your knife back and forth for a cut that should have been made once or twice. And there’s an inherent chance of it slipping or jerking out of the particular cut you’re doing.” The butchers’ bottom line: Dull knives make you work, while sharp knives do the work for you.
Make sure you are cutting away from your body and stationary hand at all times, Lobel advises. “In other words, if you’re right–handed, the blade should be facing to your right,” and vice versa for left–handers.
For serious butchers, Cecchini recommends a chain–mail–like glove of intricate metal links, to protect the hand holding the meat. And if ever you’re staring down an entire cow with the end goal of a single filet, splurge on a full chain mail apron that will repel even the biggest slips. While the culinary armor will guard against stray slices, it’s also essential to keep both the butt of the knife and the palm of your hand clean and dry at all times. Animal fat acts like a lubricant, turning a meat cleaver into a one–chop killer.
One of the most popular cuts—a chicken breast halved horizontally for scaloppine—also just happens to be one of the most daunting. It begins with a chicken breast only three quarters of an inch to one inch thick, which then gets sliced in half laterally to form two roughly one–quarter–inch to half–inch cutlets. Add slippery chicken juices and fatty skin to the equation, and you have a potential disaster. But Lobel has crafted a technique that allows you to slice your scaloppina and eat it, too.
First, wrap a clean sponge with foil or waxed paper. Place the sponge atop the chicken breast, and then place your hand on top of the sponge. Using the sponge as a barrier between your hand and the chicken, make one or two long, smooth cuts to halve the breast. Born in the butcher shop, this technique is easy to adopt at home.
Organization and storage also promote a secure kitchen environment. Gesualdi forbids his charges to store anything above eye level: Pulling something (and especially anything hot) down toward you can create a dangerous opportunity for spills, splashes, and burns. And when placing food in sauté pans or deep fryers, always face the items away from your body, to send any splashes in that same direction.
Here’s a no–brainer: Never leave knives in the sink. Soapy water hides sharp blades. Even if you know there are knives lurking in your suds, your sous–chef—or sister—may not. When it comes to working with swirling blenders and vacuumlike meat grinders, trading vanity for safety is a must: Always tie back long hair, if for no other reason than hygiene. And avoid wearing dangling earrings around fast–moving equipment. Much like long hair, baubles become easy prey for appliances operating at swift speeds.
You’ll avoid many accidents with such measures in place. But if the best–laid plans should fail and you’re left with a red river or blistered extremities, take a tip from Kilbourn Gordon III, MD, an emergency physician for nearly three decades and currently the medical director of the Fairfield Urgent Care Center in Fairfield, Connecticut.
In the event of a burn, the fastest way to dull the pain is to run the affected area under cool water for 15 to 20 minutes. This quick fix will soothe burns due to oil, sugar, and hot pans or ovens. Depending on the severity of the burn, follow–up treatment may be needed, with the most extreme cases requiring immediate emergency room attention.
In addition to burns, Dr. Gordon sees a lot of one–centimeter cuts on the left index finger, directly above the nail near the tip of the finger. The culprit? A chef’s knife and some overeager slicing and dicing. To judge whether a cut needs only disinfecting and bandaging at home rather than an ER visit, Dr. Gordon suggests examining whether the skin can be slightly pulled apart. If it separates, stitches are required. One step worse than a laceration is a “skin avulsion of the finger,” which is medical–speak for a missing piece. In that case, if the severed bit can’t be stitched back onto the finger, the ER caregiver will apply coagulating material to stop the bleeding before bandaging the wound.
With all the dangers that lurk around every kitchen corner, it’s a wonder that helmets aren’t mandatory equipment. Ultimately, at home or on the line, it’s about being in control and being hyperaware of your own actions so that human error is minimized. And at the end of the day, Cecchini says, the most important thing is to understand the relationship you share with your blade: “A knife will respect you if you’re good with it, but it will never be your friend.”