TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2009 • THE KNIVES ARE OUT!
The
retailers Debenhams have uncovered a shocking fact. According to their research
(click here to view the article),
32% of their customers, when buying cutlery, buy only forks, as they now prefer
to eat their food using a fork alone, American style, without a knife.
Bewildered customers (younger ones, we suspect) were totally baffled when presented with a full place setting of cutlery, as they had no idea what the various implements were for. OK, the 28% who didn’t own fish knives and saw no reason for buying them are simply marching in step with the queen. Fish knives are not used at Buckingham Palace (the Queen is said to eat her fish using a pair of forks).
And as the late poet laureate, John Betjeman, teased in his poem, “How To Get On In Society” (a catalogue of “non-U” solecisms, which begins: “Phone for the fish knives, Norman”) fish knives are intrinsically funny. Nobody nowadays really knows what use to make of their dull, notched blades.
It’s more alarming that 19% or respondents didn’t know the difference between a soup spoon and a dessert spoon. But it’s not so hilarious that people now eat with one hand only, using the fork as a sort of shovel – because it shows what a ghastly diet they’re eating. What food can you convey to your mouth without cutting it up? No steak or roasts of any kind – no whole vegetables, and not even an entire lettuce leaf.
Not only do people look infantile when they eat without a knife, they’re eating baby food: mush that has been puréed (not that there’s anything wrong with puréed potatoes, but we don’t want mash every day); pizza that has been pre-cut into small strips; burgers and chips that can be eaten with the fingers; and floppy, small-sized pasta shapes.
In other words, fast food and junk food for the most part. Even a decent pizza needs to be eaten with a knife.
Let’s start a campaign to teach kids how to eat European style (as all sophisticated Americans do anyway) with a knife in the right hand (or vice versa for lefties) and fork in the left. When you next have young people around for a meal, lay the table formally, with a full place setting.
And when you see their dazed, perplexed faces, gently give them a lesson in gastronomic geography. Tell little Johnny and Joanna how to use their cutlery from the outside (for the first course) down to the utensils nearest the plate (for their pudding) – two at a time for the main course, please. Food may not always taste better when it’s eaten properly, but the kind of food you eat properly is almost always nutritionally better – and more fun to eat.