It’s actually a sound design for the kitchen. Look no further than the Chinese chef knife, which can easily be confused for a butcher’s meat cleaver, but is typically very thin and light weight. Of course knives vary, but the idea is not to hack quarters of meat but instead to process piles of chicken, pork, and vegetables into chunks for stir fry and soups.
An extremely tall blade is a godsend for large vegetables like cabbage and bundles of wild onion, etc. If you want to be blown away, look up old Martin Yan videos (Remember the PBS show “Yan Can Cook”?) I used to love watching Martin Yan break down a chicken in 6 seconds with a chinese cleaver.
As far as the Serbian knife fad, the ultra rustic look is part of the allure. You can always make a fancy one, but there are lots of people who want a knife that looks, shall we say, “most definitely hand made”.
