Fruit – How to clean utensils (e.g., knives) used to cut longkongs

Okay, I'm going to partially answer the initial question / title, as the pairing really isn't what knife for what food, but what knife for what type of cutting. And I say partially answer, as there are a lot of types of knives ... I'm only going to list the more common knives, as the japanese have a whole lot of specialty knives.

This is only the tip of the iceburg. I'm making this answer community wiki, if people want to add knives, or details of anything I listed. (although, if you want to organize it by use (eg, chopping/slicing/paring/etc, it might be better to move that to a separate answer, or this is going to get way too long)

• Chef's knife -- has a large-ish blade (generally 8" or longer, ~2" high near the bolster), with a convex curve that's more dramatic near the tip. Its characteristic use is to keep the tip on the cutting board, and rock the handle down (preferably using the weight of the blade) to slice through things.

• Paring knife -- a smaller knife (~3-4" long), used for paring. (cutting in the hand; peeling, stuff that doesn't require a cutting board). The blade may be concave (bird's beak), straight (sheep's foot) or convex (spear point).

• Slicer -- a long (~10" or longer), straight, thin knife, used for slicing large items (eg, meats)

• Bread knife -- a long (~8"+) serrated knife, used for slicing bread.

• Boning / Fillet knife -- a thin, flexible blade, used for cutting between joints and stripping meat from carcasses.

• Meat cleaver -- a thick, wide (often 4"+ tall) knife, used for hacking through bones or frozen items.

• Vegetable cleaver / Chinese cleaver : a sharp, thin, smaller cleaver, used for delicate work that should never be used for cutting through bones.

• Santoku -- cleaver-like in a design, but has a slight convex blade and closer in scale to a small chef's knife (5 to 7" long, about 1.5" tall). Good for general use.

• Utility knife / tomato knife -- mid-sized (~5-6" long), serated knife. Good for when you need a small serated knife, such as um ... tomatoes. And works pretty well for cutting medium firm cheeses.

• Cheese knives -- um ... see this answer on cheese cutting

• Steak knives -- mid-sized knives to be used at the dinner table, that are either very, very sharp, or serated.

• Table / dinner knife -- the basic sort of knife as part of a table setting

• Butter knife -- a short, dull knife, possibly offset, used for spreading butter or things of a similar consistency.

And not knives, but related:

• Kitchen shears -- look like your general run-of-the-mill scissors, although the good ones come apart so they can be cleaned easily.

• Poultry shears -- heavier duty, often spring loaded ... look more like pruning sheers (that you'd just for trimming down a rose bush). They have a notch in one of the blades near the pivot point so that you can cut through a bone without it slipping. Ideal for cutting the backbone out of a chicken.

• Bench knife / scraper -- a wide, dull piece of metal with a handle along one edge. It's used for dividing dough, scraping down your work surface (bench), but can also be used to scoop up stuff to transfer to another location (eg, dump in a pot)

• Pizza cutter -- a circular blade attached to some sort of a handle (which might be more like a shroud). Can be used for lots more than just pizza, though. Great for cutting thin, but large objects. (eg, cutting breadsticks, trimming filo, puff pastry or other rolled out dough, etc.)

• Vegetable peeler -- a handle with a swiveling sort of blade on it, but where the cutting edge is along a slit in the middle. You have standard peelers, and 'Y' peelers. Normally smooth blades, but may be serrated. Good for peeling the skin off items, cutting vegetables into ribbons, or shaving chocolate.

• Mandoline -- a blade fixed on a planar surface. Used to make thin slices of a consistent thickness by moving the food against the blade.

I've preserved cut fruit for at least 6 hours before using just lemon juice. Lemon juice inhibits the oxidation of the fruit which prevents browning as well of a loss of crispness.

One lemon should be enough juice for a 1.5 quart bowl of cut fruit. Simply squeeze it over the fruit and toss gently to prevent bruising.

Since you'll be working with apples, kiwis, and bananas I think your best bet will be to keep them separate. The lemon juice will benefit both the apples and bananas, but might only be marginally effective if unnecessary for kiwi -- since kiwi brings plenty of its own citric acid to the table.

The fruit should be stored in the refrigerator to additionally inhibit oxidation. In my experience covering it with plastic wrap with a few holes poked in it works great. Aluminum foil should be fine as well. I find that the covering is primarily to protect your fruit from picking up other odors from within your fridge, and the holes permit the fruit to "breathe" releasing the buildup of ethylene gas that will occur if it is completely sealed.

If lemon juice is undesired you can use other citrus juices including: lime juice, orange juice, and pineapple juice. Obviously they will all bring their own flavors. If this flavoring is altogether undesired, then you should consider getting a commercial product called Fruit-Fresh. It's basically a powdered citric-acid, and kosher to boot.