It’s probably clear to everyone that spoons are the ultimate eating utensil, their power only amplified when paired with the ultimate eating vessel, the bowl.
However, time and time again I find myself paired with an uninformed soul whom I must enlighten. Sorry good friend, we can no longer dine together. Your barbaric cutlery has ruined my appetite.
Barbaric indeed, for both the fork and knife were not originally designed for eating, but rather, for hunting and preparing food. True, in prehistoric times hunting, preparing, and eating were all performed by the same individual in a short span of time. It was only natural to use the most versatile tools for all three jobs.
As people with more time on their hands ate food that other people prepared for them, they started wondering why on earth were they still eating with utensils that could double as shivs? Was it trust issues?
And thus, the modern spoon was born in the early first century. Finally, a utensil designed for exactly that: utensiling. With a spoon, people were now able to do all sorts of things they couldn’t before. Scooping every single last morsel of food into their mouth and drinking soup at a moderate pace was now in the realm of reason for all. Indeed, the spoon brought many the joy and satisfaction of consistent food intake in a world filled with mistrust and violence instigated by forks and knives.
With the new wave of spoon innovation came in a new separation between food preparation and consumption. No longer should a consumer of fine dining be asked to cut his own steak, no! Food began to be prepared consciously geared towards the effectiveness of the spoon, as such, so new foods and styles began to surface. Soups, small bites, risottos, sauces, one can only assume that the invention of the spoon revolutionized fine dining bringing it to what it is today.
But what about the spork, people say? As the failed chimera in the utensil world, the spork had its spotlight on the rise of school lunch budgeting, where the divisive conflict of which utensil is truly essential for student lunches was resolved with a failure of a compromise. Today, the spork is held more as a nostalgic remnant of days passed, an homage to a confused time in the world of dining, more as a symbol than a useful tool.
So the next time you’re given a steak plated with a fork and knife, kindly send the steak back and ask to have it cut into spoon sized morsels. If they are appalled at your simple demands, leave, you do not want to be associated with such barbaric restaurateur.
But steal their forks though, they make great combs.
