Knife fork and spoon

[breakingnews]

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.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

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."