Forks: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

[Carrot Top]

Update! Update! More on this vital subject in this latest news from Stanford

[Rebecca263]

Carrot Top, I have one phrase for your posts in this thread... Nutty Sugar High!

[Carrot Top]

No, no, Rebecca. It is only something to do inbetween *searching* for where the children have hidden their Halloween candy from me, knowing that I will eat it.

It is unfortunate that they will not leave the house for then I could search their rooms.

[Carrot Top]

Mademoiselle ?

While your ancestry is rather difficult to gauge, hovering as you do somewhere at the nexus of eighteenth-century French salons, the world of Becky Sharp and the realm of Catherine the Great, still...

What, pray tell, is a bannock doing, passing through your elegant lips? 

Methinks that a rather lowly item, surely consumed without the use of cutlery of any sort...

Unless, of course, your reference is to Bannocks of a different category altogether and you reveal yourself to be an unsavory friend of the New World and, shudder, cannibalism?

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Pontormo,

It was a mere yet so telling! slip of the tongue, my use of the word "bannock". Many years ago I had a consort who loved to sing as he ate. We dined upon blini and caviar (of course at that time caviar was *not* de rigeur for our classes. It was a mere lowly dab of food yet at that time rising in cost and popularity by each day that passed). Nevertheless we enjoyed it while slumming as we hid together in our rented garret. He would throw a bit of blini through the air towards my eagerly open mouth, singing:

You say a blini, I say a bannock

You say le caviar, I say le fish roe

Blini! Bannock!

Caviar! Fish roe!

Let's call the whole thing offfffff.

Jean-Baptiste (Marie and I used to guffaw behind closed doors at that man - "Baptiste" indeed!!! with his roving eye and insatiable hunger for fish eggs) had started making a bundle in the French caviar business, which never existed before his public relations campaigns, so indeed the rented garret was neccesary - a cheap yet desirable economy so that more and more caviar could be afforded. *We* watch our sous, too, in manners of love and food!

I daresay you have heard the tune in these modern times sung with the words "tomato" and "potato" in place of the lovely tastes we ate. Ah! How low we have fallen, my dear Jacobo.

My ancestry is vague, as so many of these things are. Now, and then. Suffice it to say that I was merely a twinkling in my fathers eye when my conception occurred on an unlaid! table. No forks. No spoons. No fish plates. You might deduce from this that I was born "on the wrong side of the tablecloth", my charming correspondent, and indeed you would be entirely correct! But the tablecloth was fine linen, so society naturally decided to ignore this small confusion of desire and birthright!!! We name ourselves to best suit our complicated lives (as you so well know, Carrucci.)

Time to break fast! Let me raise my glass of lager to you, Pontormo/Carrucci! Please forgive the idea of beer for breakfast but yes indeedy those brute English did endow me with some strange ideas!!!!

To the regime!

Katerina

Edited November 7, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Adam Balic]

I actually get pissed off even when thinking of the American way of switching the fork and knife around. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS?  

Except of course if you are eating a spaghetti squash. Then you must do whatever possible to delay the experience of putting the food in your mouth.

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If you think about it the switching thing is basically using the fork as a spoon and reflects the way the object was introduced into the North America. What is the "correct" form of usage has changed many times over the last few hundred years, somewhere I have notes on this and will look up the specific facts of the Switching thing.

What is interesting is the use of a spoon for long pasta I see in the USA and in some cases Australia. I have yet to see a spoon used to eat pasta in Italy, so I wonder were this habit comes from? Etiquette manuals maybe.

I just mash everything up and use a straw BTW.

[Megan Blocker]

I just mash everything up and use a straw BTW.

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Etiquette a l'hopital, eh?

I think spoons with pasta are definitely an etiquette thing...it somehow makes twirling the pasta easier and more anchored. Less sauce and whipping spaghetti toward your neighbor. I don't do this at home, though...and I can't remember the last time I did it in a restaurant, either. But I think the (very good) Italian place around the corner provides one...

And your point about the history if switching is definitely the same one made in the Gourmet article!!!

[Pontormo]

Jean-Baptiste (Marie and I used to guffaw behind closed doors at that man - "Baptiste" indeed!!! with his roving eye and insatiable hunger for fish eggs) had started making a bundle in the French caviar business, which never existed before his public relations campaigns, so indeed the rented garret was neccesary - a cheap yet desirable economy so that more and more caviar could be afforded.

My ancestry is vague, as so many of these things are. Now, and then. Suffice it to say that I was merely a twinkling in my fathers eye when my conception occurred on an unlaid! table. No forks. No spoons.

To the regime!

Katerina

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UnLAID table ? No forking? No spooning?

There is something tres, how you say, feeshy, here, indeed.

I roe the day our correspawndance began!

Now, where did I put those eggs?

Pontormo

Edited November 7, 2005 by Pontormo (log)

[Carrot Top]

Don't forget the spoon, Pontormo!

Nothing has the delicate taste of egg on fine silver!

K

Ah. So neglectful of my manners - do allow me to apologize for that short man in 1796. So rude, really! Poor Nappy did not have the common sense God gave a goose. It was his sweet-talk that fooled us all to our final regrets.

Edited November 7, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Adam Balic]

I actually get pissed off even when thinking of the American way of switching the fork and knife around. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS?  

Except of course if you are eating a spaghetti squash. Then you must do whatever possible to delay the experience of putting the food in your mouth.

←

If you think about it the switching thing is basically using the fork as a spoon and reflects the way the object was introduced into the North America. What is the "correct" form of usage has changed many times over the last few hundred years, somewhere I have notes on this and will look up the specific facts of the Switching thing.

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From Margaret Visser's excellent "The Rituals of Dinner", it would seem that during the 19th century most of Europe (or a least those that used Forks), followed what would be now considered the American model (knife put down, fork switched), only the English did not swap hands. Fork switchers (the French) considered this English fashion to be vulgar, but in the end the English fashion dominated. One consequence of the English fashion of fork useage is that the fork cannot be used as a spoon, without the movement being very awkward, so food is placed on the back rounded side of the fork.

The theory goes that as the fork was introduced into N. America quite late, they remained attached to the spoon and the use of a fork as a spoon. Furthermore, many American etiquette manuals have made a point of saying that this, now American model, is more refined as it is less practical and so therefore makes eating more intellectual processs then a simple necessity.

[Carrot Top]

Furthermore, many American etiquette manuals have made a point of saying that this, now American model, is more refined as it is less practical and so therefore makes eating more intellectual processs then a simple necessity.

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Why yes. I do believe this is quite apparent in The House of Pancakes.

[Carrot Top]

Sorry. Got confused. Still am confused. I am speaking of course, of that restaurant that represents the Best We Have To Offer that gleams from every highway exit. But it is named The International House of Pancakes.

Are they American? Are they International? Are they the bastion of our interest in food as intellectual process? I must look up the word "refinement" in the dictionary. Yes. I am confused.

[Carrot Top]

Mira ici for The World's Largest Knife and Fork.

(Clickey on "Grosstes Estbesteck der Welt".)

Lotsa good essen and trinkin goin' on.

[Megan Blocker]

Mira ici for The World's Largest Knife and Fork.

(Clickey on "Grosstes Estbesteck der Welt".)

Lotsa good essen and trinkin goin' on.

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And, on this end, lachen und weinen. Oh, man, that is awesome.

Edited November 7, 2005 by Megan Blocker (log)

[M.X.Hassett]

Mira ici for The World's Largest Knife and Fork.

(Clickey on "Grosstes Estbesteck der Welt".)

Lotsa good essen and trinkin goin' on.

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60 kilos. This post maybe belongs in the what to feed a sumo thread. What forks do sumos use when dining in your home.(yes I know they use chopsticks)

[andiesenji]

Mira ici for The World's Largest Knife and Fork.

(Clickey on "Grosstes Estbesteck der Welt".)

Lotsa good essen and trinkin goin' on.

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60 kilos. This post maybe belongs in the what to feed a sumo thread. What forks do sumos use when dining in your home.(yes I know they use chopsticks)

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Often they use their fingers. I met a sumo wrestler from Hawaii a few years back, while he was visiting in SoCalif and he went through an entire platter of ribs in a fraction of the time it took me to get half-way through one pork chop. I don't recall him using any utensils but he did use reams of napkins. That restaurant served "broasted" potatoes and for him they were simply finger food and he consumed at least 4 servings. I should add that he was extremely charming and the servers (all young ladies) were competing to bring him "seconds" - - -

Edited November 7, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[M.X.Hassett]

Getting of topic but I also know a popular sumo dish is a type of stew. With which I gather forks, fingers, or chopsticks would not work. Unless you eat the solids and drink the rest.

[Chris Amirault]

Furthermore, many American etiquette manuals have made a point of saying that this, now American model, is more refined as it is less practical and so therefore makes eating more intellectual processs then a simple necessity.

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Why yes. I do believe this is quite apparent in The House of Pancakes.

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I think that Adam was making an interesting point that this classist comment ignores. The deliberateness of the American model encourages a more self-aware approach to the use of the utensils. Quite an interesting twist on the usual pragmatic approach to consumption that characterizes American eating.

It seems to me that an entire thread devoted to the consideration of etiquette regarding forks presumes a level of interest in customs, gesture, and culture that this smug reference to IHOP dismisses.

[Carrot Top]

Dear me. Maybe I should have added a non-classist gesture in the form of or maybe or perhaps to my post.

Of course the ultimate non-smug gesture would have been but I don't do that much. Sorry.

Indeed if we *are* speaking culture, seems to me that IHOP deserves a mention.

Let us get down to some real smuggery here, shall we?

Edited November 8, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

Au revoir to discussions of forks and googlings of interest in forks. Apologies to anyone that I have offended.

K

[srhcb]

Au revoir to discussions of forks and googlings of interest in forks. Apologies to anyone that I have offended.

K

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I ain't offended.

Just confused.

SB (and still left-handed)

[Carrot Top]

It seems to me that an entire thread devoted to the consideration of etiquette regarding forks presumes a level of interest in customs, gesture, and culture that this smug reference to IHOP dismisses.

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In response to your post just above this one, SB, I will show you the reasons for my post you quoted and are confused about. My post was in answer to the quote above that was directed at me.

It would seem to me, that my posts on this thread did show a presumed level of interest in customs, gestures, and culture.

It was fun to write of history in a manner which I hoped would be enjoyed by whomever happened upon it. And it was fun, though time-consuming, to google for things of interest to add to the thread.

It would seem from the post above that my entire intent during this thread was mis-read - at least by the forum host that is writing above. The humor was not caught by him. Hopefully it was caught by most people reading.

Though I may be a little nutty - and although this nuttiness is something I accentuate for the reason of entertaining others, finally - if it is felt that I am "smug" - well, that is a rather strong word and not a friendly one. Therefore my retreat. I'm not out to prove anything here.

Hopefully we will hear more about this idea of Americans and forks and their "self-aware" approach - this idea indeed could be expanded upon for some time it is to be imagined.

Edited November 8, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Pontormo]

I am sure I speak for many, Carrot Top, when I remove my hat with my right hand, and holding it respectfully to my chest, extend my left arm outward. My right leg thrusts forward, and left leg bends as I bow.

Thank you for the fun spirit that your persona brought to this thread. It in fact inspired my call for eGullet members to assume the identities of others, including current chefs, when I invited them to compose a menu for Prince Charles and Camilla. Fiction is entertaining and teaches us something, especially when it is historical. I for one never heard of a bannock nor Bannocks before.

And I wish to thank Megan for starting a fun thread on forks and for reminding me that Gourmet has gotten rather interesting and varied.

And thank you too, for the reference to Visser, Adam. I love it when bibliography informs our discussion of topics.

I also enjoy threads of a historical nature, such as this reminder that cutlery is rather new.

Pontormo

Edited November 8, 2005 by Pontormo (log)

[Milagai]

Since the "spork" is so ubiquitous in US kindergartens, will they

develop a grown up version as these tots grow ?

Milagai

[Megan Blocker]

Since the "spork" is so ubiquitous in US kindergartens, will they

develop a grown up version as these tots grow ?

Milagai

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It was pretty ubiquitous in my day, as well, and so far - not many sporks available in day-to-day adult life. Plenty on airplanes, though.

[Milagai]

Since the "spork" is so ubiquitous in US kindergartens, will they

develop a grown up version as these tots grow ?

Milagai

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It was pretty ubiquitous in my day, as well, and so far - not many sporks available in day-to-day adult life. Plenty on airplanes, though.

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eh. too bad! it's a useful little doohickey and if it came

in other-than-plastic, i might get some for all of us

milagai