Types of Cutlery

Most cutlery, if you list all their varieties, is used only at celebrations - and not always at home. In everyday life, we use only a small part of the existing cutlery. It seems that not everyone needs an educational program about the purpose of such an “inventory”? Etiquette, good manners and everything that is included in the concept of noble upbringing and exquisite manners, involves extensive knowledge of table setting, the appropriateness of using this or that dish. And it makes sense to start studying this section just from cutlery.

Dessert, cutlery, tea, fruit - for sure you have heard such words regarding cutlery. Is there a difference in size? Not only. All this is divided into two types: basic devices and additional ones. In everyday life, an ordinary table set is enough for us, but in restaurants we are often served an additional one: dessert, fruit, as well as fish dishes, etc.

General classification:

• table set - needed for the use of first and second courses, the most familiar combination for us;
• snack set - serves to manipulate cold dishes, as well as snacks;
• fish kit - It is used for operating hot fish dishes;
• dessert set - needed for sampling desserts (pies, puddings, mousses, caramelized fruits, etc.).

But this is far from all types of dining "inventory": there are still auxiliary (additional) ones. For example, you can serve a lemon fork to the table if its use is implied. This is a fork with two sharp teeth, and it is needed for delicately shifting lemon slices.Or, for example, a fork for olives may be on the table - it was created for the beauty of their presentation.

And there are a lot of such special devices! Today you rarely meet a spoon in a salad (this is contrary to good taste), because there are tongs for laying salad from a common dish. As there are tongs, for example, for spaghetti. Of course, very rare housewives keep the whole arsenal of cutlery at home - it is almost impossible. In addition, lobsters and snails are rarely eaten in the home kitchen. But to have beautiful pastry tongs, to get a spatula for paste and caviar, to have an elegant knife for cheese - why not? This flatters the modern housewife.

The size of the cutlery is different, and sometimes at a dinner party, a considerable blunder for its organizers is a dimensional mismatch with the devices. The hostess simply did not know what the knife should be, and what kind of tongs for confectionery, for example. But you can learn this!

The main dimensions.

• Meat knife - 21-24 cm. It is served together with a meat fork, it is served with wide plates.
• Meat fork - 19-21 cm. Suitable for hot snacks, and also for spaghetti in a deep plate. If the dish is served in soup pots, you also need such a fork.
• Large soup spoon - 19-21 cm. Comes with a fork for meat. It can be used for first courses, and for the same sauce.
• Bouillon spoon - 16-17 centimeters. Serve it in special broth cups.
• Sauce spoon - 18–19 centimeters, more often correlated with fish dishes with sauce.
• Fish fork - 18 centimeters, trident. They serve it with a fish knife.
• Fish knife - 19-21 cm. Do not take it for dishes of salmon, eel, herring.
• Dessert fork and dessert spoon - 18-19 centimeters.
• Butter knife - 17 centimeters.
• Pastry fork - 15 centimeters.
• Coffee spoon - 13-15 centimeters.
• Ice Cream Spoon - 18 centimeters.

What should the hostess have, so that her receptions always look convincing and do not contradict etiquette? If tradition is important to you, you need to learn to match. For instance, special butter knife - This is not just a knife from a standard table set, it is different. And if a guest cuts a slice of butter and puts it into a pie, he should have the opportunity to do this with a special knife. And there is, for example, knife-fork - they cut and transfer the cheese (hard).

Imagine but There is also a special fork for sprats: fish forks differ not only from other forks, but also from each other. A rounded trident fork is used for mussels and mollusks, it is also used for making cold sea cocktails. Hot chillies are served with a chill fork.

Minimum set of additional devices:

• pasta tongs - this will allow you to serve pasta in a beautiful general dish, with tongs, it is perfectly distributed portionwise, and everything looks aesthetically pleasing;
• salad tongs - an alternative to special spoons, both can be present on the table;
• forks and knives for meat (for steak) - appropriate in size, beautiful, durable, with a perfect metallic sheen (or, conversely, aristocratic dull, if that suggests color and texture);
• dessert - absolutely different products are needed for the cake and for ice cream (many different devices were invented for dessert - for example, not only a spoon is served for tea, but also tongs for sugar cubes);
• snack forks - the guest should not eat snacks and main dishes with the same fork;
• fruit set - and this characteristic is not scanty, for example, there are even scissors for grapes that help to carefully cut it from a branch.

If you don’t know where to start, start with a dessert set. When you find useful devices, invite your friends to a tea party - this will be akin to an exam for self-examination. By the way, make sure that you know how to eat a cake. Serve it to the table you need already cut into wedges. You need to eat on your own plate starting with a pointed piece.

If we continue the theme of tea drinking, it is worth mentioning everything necessary for serving a cake. If the tea party finishes the dinner party, then all the dishes are previously removed from the table. In its place are dessert devices. The cake is served on a tray or a vase on a leg. A vase can be with or without sides. The dish, as already mentioned, is pre-cut portionwise. The only exception is the wedding, where the newlyweds cut a cake in the presence of guests.

Put dessert on plates pastry shovel. Although it refers to auxiliary accessories, it is not at all secondary on the festive table. It is good if the scapula is consonant with other cutlery. It can be combined stylistically with a vase or with cups and saucers. And although cakes with a soft base can be eaten with either a dessert spoon or a fork, the second option is still more convenient.

The list of accessories for serving can be short, or maybe long - depending on what goals the hosts pursue, what level of receptions they organize. Restaurants should use all appliances considered to be etiquette. At home, the system is simplified.

Auxiliary accessories by type of instrument.

• Spoons. In addition to the main spoons, you can stock up with a spoon-spoon for sauces, a spoon-scoop for granulated sugar. This also includes a spatula for caviar, a spoon for ice cream.
• Forks. Serving a special fork for a herring with two teeth, as well as a salad three-tootted fork, will be spectacular. You can stock up on a cocotte fork for julienne - it is very elegant.
• Knives. In addition to the basic ones, you can expand the arsenal of devices with a knife for butter, cheese and for fruit berries.
• Forceps. In addition to the tongs already mentioned above, you can get tongs for ice, asparagus beans and for lobsters.

Of course, many begin to learn table etiquette from plates. If you are sure that you already have different types of them, check to see if this is a plate-sausage dish, egg plate, rosette, and ginger bowl. Perhaps there is still work to do.

Examples of proper serving are numerous thematic photos. Watch how experts cope with serving, what design cutlery can be, how they look on a common table.

See how to use cutlery properly in the next video.