No, this isn’t about bicycle forks, but my piece on Rachel Ray got me thinking about other kitchen oddities, or at least thinking about posting something that’s been on my mind for ages.

Why do we have separate “salad” and “dinner” forks? The “salad” fork having shorter, what, spikes?, than a “dinner” fork? What makes a “salad” fork more appropriate for salads than the regular “dinner” fork? I did find this piece on the ‘net but whether it’s definitive is open to debate, since you can take any position you wish and find support for it via Google. For those reading who are getting into this subject, I’ve also found a table setting guide, so you can avoid a serious faux paus at your next meal. This is important stuff to some! To me, it’s more of an annoyance that I have to put away different tableware in different places in the kitchen, when the truth is, unless we have guests over, we just use one fork during a meal, for salad or lasagna, and nobody prefers the shorter “salad” fork.

Spoons. That’s another one. Do we really need the smaller of the two spoons (commonly referred to as a “teaspoon”) or can we make do with just the larger one (the “tablespoon”)?

Come to think of it, why do we have separate forks & spoons? “Sporks” have been in the dictionary since 1909 (Wow, how did we miss the Centennial Spork Celebration?). So now we’ve got just a Spork and a Knife. Pretty sure that’s as far as we can go down this road.