Let’s face it, we take cutlery for granted. It’s always just, there: on the table, loitering around the plates, pointing at the glasses. Sure, if you’re at a wedding or other fancy event, talk always goes to which is the salad fork and which is the pork fork, or which spoon one should to use to clink one’s glass. But cutlery, or silverware or flatware as it’s also known, is an essential part of our daily eating lives, and so we wanted to investigate it further 

Knives, forks and spoons

The word cutlery comes from the Old French “coutelier,” meaning a knife-maker. In Britain, a “cutler” was someone who makes or sells cutlery. A few regions in Britain became known for making cutlery by the late 16^th century, with some areas specializing in longer swords and others concentrating on knives. Of course, knives have been around for a long, long time. If you define a knife as a sharp implement designed to cut, then we’re talking thousands of years. Early stone knives and arrowheads were used to puncture and cut meat, and still are.

Interesting variations

Knives, forks and spoons are the dominant cutlery of the western world. Each comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, with some specialized versions doing dedicated work. For instance, the fondue fork exists so that small pieces of food can be skewered and dipped in piping hot oil or chocolate without scalding your fingers. Grapefruit spoons are usually uniquely shaped to fit into the folds of the fruit’s membranes, with a serrated top to help sever the flesh. Such hybrids are common, with sporks (fork and spoon), spife (spoon and knife), and sporf (spoon, knive and fork) the best known.

Chopsticks

In East Asia, chopsticks have been the utensil of choice for thousands of years. The tools were first used by the Chinese and spread to neighboring countries including Japan, Vietnam, Korea and more, where they are still used. In fact, the utensils clearly influence the types of foods that are most easily eaten with them, including stickier rice than we typically have in the Western world. Chopsticks are often paired with a flat-bottomed spoon that may be used for sipping broth, but also for eating solid items.

Bread

While it’s not cutlery, per se, bread is used as a vehicle for eating in many parts of the world. Not unlike a sandwich, in which the bread frame provides an easy way to eat the contents inside, bread is used in countries including India and Ethiopia to scoop food and eat it, which makes it an essential utensil, if not, strictly speaking, cutlery.

What’s your favorite piece of cutlery? Let us know in the comments and on Twitter at @luvoinc.