The thread on the use of “the small fork” reminded me that we didn’t have any “small forks” in our everyday flatware when I grew up in Norway. I did a quick image search first on “flatware” and then on “bestikk”*. Most of the flatware results have two sizes of fork, most of the bestikk results do not.
There were two sizes in my parents’ wedding silver, and at some point they supplemented that with really tiny dessert forks, but everyday flatware sets generally had, and apparently still have just one size fork.
What’s the case in other countries? (I considered checking myself via various countries’ Ikea pages, but this is more fun.)
Did you know that in England, everyone only has one spoon ? Yeah. … And if you lose it, you starve to death unless someone in your family wills you their spoon .
In Germany, a standard cutlery set comes with six (or twelve, always a multiple of six) sets of:
Regular fork
Regular knife
Spoon (for eating soup)
Tea spoon
Small fork
(we call them Kuchengabeln (cake forks) and almost exclusively use them to eat cake or desserts, but as I learned in the other thread, the small forks are used as salad forks elsewhere. I’m sure some German people use them alike, but I’ve never seen it.)
What I’m curious about is where the term “flatware” came from, and when. We always called it “silverware” - even when it wasn’t actually silver - or “utensils”.
Morphed from original meaning “flat ware” in the sense of utensils such as dishes, plates, platters, etc., that were flat(tish), as opposed to “hollow ware” signifying cups, bowls, pans, etc.
We do have something called “cake/dessert/pastry forks” here in the US, as well. Generally, they are smaller than salad forks, have three prongs, and often, usually one of the prongs is wider and has kind of a notch on it. That’s the prong you cut into your cake with.
That said, we generally used the salad fork for desserts in my family (my parents came from Poland), and the regular forks were used for salad and main dish, which we typically served together (and I still do), not as separate courses. I never liked salad as its own course – I prefer it as a bit of a “refresher” in between bites of a main dish.
My flatware here in Southern California has both dinner forks and salad forks. The salad forks are shorter and the tines are a hair wider. But the formal silver has those two plus a cake fork. Shorter still, with very wide and ornate tines.
Yes, that’s an exact description of German Kuchengabeln.
I eat salad the same way, not as a separate course, but accompanying the main course. That’s how salad mostly is served in Germany, maybe that’s why it was news to me that people elsewhere eat salad with a special fork. I also like to take big bites of salad, with, say, lettuce, cucumber and carrots all with one pick of the fork, and a regular fork works better for that.
I grew up without them, too (and without hearing the term “flatware”). In North-Middle USA.
When I’m at a hoity-toity restaurant I tolerate extra “flatware”, but at someone’s house when they’re trying to be “chic”, I get annoyed.
.
WHY can’t you eat cake and soup and salad (and… tea?) with regular utensils?
I was invited, with a friend of mine, to a fancy dinner. He showed up in jeans and a worn workshirt, held up the “small fork” and said “I was right! I’ve always said ‘CLASS IS CLUTTER’!”
Luckily, the hostess loved his schtick and laughed. But he had a point…
Hah, that’s funny. When I moved into my first own apartment, I only had a set of silverware with regular forks. The first time my parents visited me for coffee and cake, my mother cried out terrified “Why do you give us regular forks for cake?”. I’m an engineer, so I’m very practical and a bit stingy, and I answered “What’s the difference? You can eat your cake as well with a big fork as with a small one.” She thought that this was an intolerable situation, and gave me a set of cake forks soon afterwards. And don’t think our family is posh, just regular middle class, but some things are just not done in the mind of a German house wife.
? What’s “un-regular” about soup spoons and teaspoons?
Hell, the distinction between those two is so standard that it’s reflected in two standard units of volume measurement in cookery, the tablespoon* and the teaspoon.
AIUI, the original point of having multiple utensils is so you’re not eating different foods with the same implement: e.g., plunging your greasy garlicky main-course fork into your dessert angelfood cake.
In formal service, dessert utensils are brought out separately with the dessert plates, and dessert plates are usually smaller than main-course plates, so the utensils are smaller too.
Yes, the word “table spoon” originally referred to an extra large spoon for serving at table. But if you take an ordinary soup spoon and pour a tablespoon of water into it, that’s the size it is.
UK: Knives, forks, tablespoons, teaspoons. They’ll what you’ll get if you buy a cutlery set from Ikea or wherever.
Steak knives are a common extra - I think most people use them for general sharp cutting uses rather than just for steaks. Most home cutlery drawers have a butter knife or two, though they’re not something you look to purchase especially - they’re just sort of there. I have no clue where or when I bought mine - perhaps I’ve had them since I first lived alone and have just carried them from house to house.
Smaller (dessert?) forks aren’t rare, but uncommon enough that visitors to my flat have commented on them. I got them because they were about £8 extra when buying a really nice set of cutlery that might well outlast me (I know £8 extra makes it sound like the set wasn’t really nice, but it was Villeroy and Boch).
Many non-Asian American households where East/Southeast Asian food is often consumed also keep on hand a fair number of plain bamboo and/or wood chopsticks.
But I don’t know where they come from. I have never seen a white American actually purchasing chopsticks.
I don’t even remember, if I ever knew, where or when I got the chopsticks in my own household.
There were three words I used ‘incorrectly’ in Australia, that people laughed at when I was a teenager. All three I subsequently found in a linguistics textbook as markers for American English. Silverware was one of them.
actually the set i bought a few years ago even included sporks … reminded me of 80s KFC
And even though i meant for them to be used for special events and holidays we use them every day… and some are lost … although i can get them replaced …
No love for espresso spoons? I would consider them almost standard in an Italian household, and I certainly have quite a few. Not many that match, as I seem to have picked up over the years.
