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During a previous post, I asked myself (a less specific version of) the following question:

“Why are steak knives serrated on the inside, but table knives serrated on the outside?” (given that you hold them in your right hand).

I had thought on the matter myself for some time, but I ended up having to resort to the Quite Interesting forums to get a clear explanation from somebody else.

The idea is this: If the serrations are on the right hand side, and you cut bread, the right hand partition of the bread moves to the right. That is, the serrations have an effect of pushing the bread away.

So, bread knives are serrated on the right so that when you cut the main body of the loaf, which you will be holding in place with your left hand, does not go to the left. The same serration convention was kept for table knives – possibly to ensure the smooth cutting of muffins and other delicacies of the English bakeryscape.

With steak knives, the situation is reversed: you don’t hold the body of the steak in place with your fork, but rather the piece that you’re going to eat. You certainly don’t want to have your steak keep on drifting to the right.