sknork? better patent that

I use chopsticks quite a bit, especially with any noodles & salads.

Chop sticks ROCK , I made a pair in the jungle once ,
Knife fork spoon , all good , unless ,,,,,,
This is just a personal pet peve but I can't stand a flat fork or spoon , by flat I meen that the tip of the tigns or the tip of the spoon is in line with the handle , they SHOULD cruve UP !!!
Again just some of my personal weirdness .

Not "personal weirdness", the flat ones are so hard to use I always find a way to put a bend in them..

I made them, or brought them, in Scouts a lot. Got a lot of flack about it, but never minded.
Taught it as part of my course on wilderness survival.

Somebody linked to an Australian-made doo-flinkey that had the spork on one end and a butter knife blade on the other. I forget what they call the beast.

But you'd need a pair of them to cut a grilled chop. Then what? -- eating, one for each hand?

Fork/spoon/knife better than chopsticks, or the other way around, overall? Not quite. The real determiner is the food-holder; chopsticks work with rice bowls, which you can lift to your lips and shovel with the sticks. Sticks don't mesh so well with flat plates -- try picking a flat plate up and holding it that way; you'll look like a white Ubangi. A flat plate is where the European three-item combo shines.

The rounded-off shape of the table knife is said to have been invented by Cardinal Richelieu after a dinner he didn't enjoy very much. The Cardinal was of a fastidious disposition, and his dinner guest finished his meal by using his table knife's point to pick his teeth, quite putting the Cardinal off his digestion. The next day he had a servant busy grinding all the points off his tableware.

There is a time and a place for all eating utensils. Including fingers.

There's nothing wrong with ingesting a bit of grot from under you nails. It'll make you live longer. ;)

I hate plastic utensils. They shit me to tears.

Our Friend The Google.

Searching on the terms "spork knife Australian" got me to the Splayd.

i'd vote chopsticks as all-around most useful.

i like 'em cuz they're used one-handed and held only in one position/direction (think of the twisting and rotation of the wrist involved with the use of a fork, not to mention grip/position changes for different actions like stabbing and scooping).

can be used to pick up items of various shapes and sizes, a) without piercing them and b) using variable amounts of pressure.

shape and size make them useful for cooking and prying (eating shellfish).

i dunno. who needs a knife? just pick up that whole steak and bite the damn thing. eat soup like a chinese person - use chopsticks to pick out the large chunks, then tip the bowl back and slurp.

And rather tangentially, there's this conversation on American, Australian, and European styles of using the knife and fork. Longish, but a fun read. Splayds occur at the very bottom of the column. In plastic.

Now the fella who tries eating a baked potato in Breakingnews' twofisted way with butter and sour cream on it is gonna suffer, given the way baked potatoes hold their heat. Maybe Breaking doesn't hold with sauces, I dunno.

The chopstick wielders basically have to have their food brought to them already cut in bite-size pieces from the kitchen. A Chinese ambassador harrumphed about this a few hundred years ago: "What barbarians! They bring their swords to the table."

you can pick half a chicken up with a good set of chopsticks. Why can't you just take a bite out of it?

My understanding is that it is acceptable use of chopsticks to pick up a two bite piece at the table. Not recommended for sushi or sashimi.

While I was one quarter joking about the conch eating with one chopstick, it is sold to you with two, and there's no way you are going to eat that in two bites.

I'd eat a halved chicken with my hands before eating it with chopsticks. I suppose I'd eat stewed chicken off the bone with chopsticks, but anything that requires tearing away from the bone is too challenging with chopsticks.

Except eating conch out of the shell...

the link about the cultural differences is pretty interesting. I never knew that there was a cultural prohibition about using the side of the fork to cut.

I do know that I was taught it was polite either way: that is, when using a knife and fork simultaneously, it was all right to convey the food to the mouth with your fork in the less-dominant hand; OR to put the knife down, switch the fork to the dominant hand, and then eat.

But when I do use my fork that way (in my non-dominant hand) it's always meat or other spearable items. I would never use the back of my fork for mashed potatoes and peas--THAT would really look uncouth. To me. Like you were born in a barn.

Why would that look uncouth? I don't see the point there. Over here it's considered basic manners to turn your fork over for stuff like that.

Would you just shovel mash and peas into your mouth???

I noticed a huge table etiquette difference when I was in the states. The shovel method took a lot of getting used to and my *habits* raised some eyebrows.