I've never had any formal culinary education. I took my first class today and it was in Japanese technique for whole fish breakdown. Realize that I have very, very little experience with the western method, so I have little basis for comparison, but I was impressed how easy and fast the Japanese method is using the purpose built deba. I'll be purchasing a deba now, and probably start buying whole fish much more often.

I didn't take pictures, since I was working hard at catching details about hand placement and movement. I'll take a few next time I get a fish (provided anyone cares to see).

Next week is another class on vegetables. I'm intrigued that we are using the yanagiba, rather than the usuba, but it would be good for marital harmony to only acquire one additional knife, rather than two (the deba, I have a yanagiba).

Anyone else here use traditional Japanese cooking knives? I'm going off the deep end here on a huge washoku kick. Fortunately, my wife is supportive... for now.