The Evolution of Useful Things by Henry Petroski

Author:Henry Petroski
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Technology & Engineering, Product, Industrial Design, Science, Experiments & Projects, General, Engineering, Inventions, Technological Innovations, Engineering (General), Patents, History
ISBN: 9780679740391
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1992-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

This collection of forks shows the variations available in several silver patterns. Top row, left to right: oyster fork-spoon, oyster forks (four styles), berry forks (four styles), terrapin, lettuce and ramekin fork. Middle row: large salad, small salad, child’s, lobster, oyster, oyster-cocktail, fruit, terrapin, lobster, fish, and oyster-cocktail fork. Bottom row: mango, berry, ice-cream, terrapin, lobster, oyster, pastry, salad, fish, pie, dessert, and dinner fork. (photo credit 8.3)

Given the existence of specialized pieces of silverware, the question of what form is for what function may not be an easy one to answer in all cases. Rather than try to do so, many a writer of books on etiquette (as opposed to those on collecting) has suggested that there are indeed more eating and serving utensils than one should care to know about. Emily Post made the point explicitly in the 1920s:

One of the fears expressed time and again in letters from readers is that of making a mistake in selecting the right table implements, or in knowing how to use one that is unfamiliar in shape. In the first place queerly shaped pieces of flat silver, contrived for purposes known only to their designers, have no place on a well appointed table. So if you use one of these implements for a purpose not intended, it cannot be a breach of etiquette, since etiquette is founded on tradition, and has no rules concerning eccentricities. In the second place, the choice of an implement is entirely unimportant—a trifling detail which people of high social position care nothing about.…

The broad statement above, that smart people do not care about which piece of silver to use, has one qualification. They could not use the dinner fork for oysters or a tea spoon for soup, because they instinctively choose an implement suitable for whatever they are about to eat. But whether they happen to choose a medium sized pronged article for fish, that was intended by the manufacturer to be especially helpful for salad or shredded wheat biscuits, makes no difference whatever.

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