What do you prefer to eat with? Sometimes I just want to rip in their with my hands. Take a shrimp/prawn. Am I really going to piss around peeling it with a knife and fork? Aren’t I going to rip that rustic sour dough and dip it in the olive oil? Tiny lamp chops make me lose control. Cut out the middleman and shove it straight in your gob.
I mentioned a few entries ago about the ludicrous guest nights at university when we peeled fruit with the best silver. Now I rail against this.
In contrast J revels in tableware (and my bête noir coasters, but that’s another story) perhaps as a reaction to being brought up in the antithesis of civilisation, Surfers Paradise. Our draws are packed with the utility spoons/knifes and forks in stainless steel. Then we have a mix of silver and plated soup spoons, desert spoons, knives and forks. There’s the fish set. Then there are my grandfather’s monogrammed servers.
Let’s not forget the chopsticks – disposable and plastic. What do you choose to eat with? I suppose it depends on the company you are with at that time.
Two hours out of town at Bendigo in the goldfields we find ourselves eating Yum Cha set with a cheap knife and a spoon. A table of Chinese shovel in their lunch with chopsticks. Not far from us there are piles of chopsticks. But something stops us are we being pretentious. Apart from picking up what we are given at restaurant tables, neither J nor I have any cultural precedent for using chopsticks.
At home, alone, we’ll use chopsticks for Asian dishes. Are we being pretentious? I don’t know.
It just feels right to use them with Asian or Chinese food.
And using the spoon and fork in Bendigo feels odd.
Food fascist
1. If you need steak knifes you’ve no idea how to cook steak.
2. Avoid Laguiole steak knives at all costs. They are overpriced (especially in Australia) and pretentious.
3. I am tempted to carry my own personal soup spoon. They really are designed for the purpose of moving liquid from A to B. Ditto the Chinese ones but it would be pretentious for me to carry around.
4. Hmm…I’m not sure about fish knives/forks anymore.
5. Don’t allow silver and steel to touch in the draw or dishwasher – the silver will tarnish. I always being accused of being a fascist on this and I am with good reason. Bastards!
6. When in Chinatown…
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