A spoon is a utensil consisting of a shallow bowl, oval or round, at the end of a handle. A type of cutlery, especially as part of a place setting, it is used primarily for transferring food to the mouth. Spoons are also used in food preparation to measure, mix, stir and toss ingredients and for serving food. Present day spoons are made from metal, wood, porcelain or plastic. There are a wide variety of spoons that are made of a variety of materials and by different cultures for many different uses and foods.
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to hold them to cut with a knife or to lift them to the mouth.
Table setting or place setting refers to the way to set a table with tableware—such as eating utensils and for serving and eating. The arrangement for a single diner is called a place setting. It is also the layout in which the utensils and ornaments are positioned. The practice of dictating the precise arrangement of tableware has varied across cultures and historical periods.
Various customary etiquette practices exist regarding the placement and use of eating utensils in social settings. These practices vary from culture to culture. Fork etiquette, for example, differs in Europe, the United States, and Southeast Asia, and continues to change. In East Asian cultures, a variety of etiquette practices govern the use of chopsticks.
Tableware items are the dishware and utensils used for setting a table, serving food, and dining. The term includes cutlery, glassware, serving dishes, serving utensils, and other items used for practical as well as decorative purposes. The quality, nature, variety and number of objects varies according to culture, religion, number of diners, cuisine and occasion. For example, Middle Eastern, Indian or Polynesian food culture and cuisine sometimes limits tableware to serving dishes, using bread or leaves as individual plates, and not infrequently without use of cutlery. Special occasions are usually reflected in higher quality tableware.
A tea party is a social gathering event held in the afternoon. For centuries, many societies have cherished drinking tea with a company at noon. Tea parties are considered for formal business meetings, social celebrations or just as an afternoon refreshment.
A plate is a broad, mainly flat vessel on which food can be served. A plate can also be used for ceremonial or decorative purposes. Most plates are circular, but they may be any shape, or made of any water-resistant material. Generally plates are raised round the edges, either by a curving up, or a wider lip or raised portion. Vessels with no lip, especially if they have a more rounded profile, are likely to be considered as bowls or dishes, as are very large vessels with a plate shape. Plates are dishware, and tableware. Plates in wood, pottery and metal go back into antiquity in many cultures.
A full-course dinner is a meal with multiple courses, almost invariably eaten in the evening or afternoon. Most Western-world multicourse meals follow a standard sequence, influenced by traditional French haute cuisine. It commonly begins with an appetizer, followed by the main course, the salad course, and eventually the dessert, but the exact sequence varies widely. Full-course dinners are generally very formal as well as very expensive, and can have as few as 3 or as many as 21 courses. Some major styles include service à la russe and service à la française.
A tea set or tea service is a collection of matching teaware and related utensils used in the preparation and serving of tea. The traditional components of a tea set may vary between societies and cultures.
Table manners are the rules of etiquette used while eating, which may also include the use of utensils. Different cultures observe different rules for table manners. Each family or group sets its own standards for how strictly these rules are to be followed.
A caddy spoon is a spoon used for measuring out tea in the form of dried tea leaves. Traditionally made of silver, they became very popular at the end of the 18th century, when this relatively inexpensive utensil can be found in practically any middle class household. Tea was sometimes stored in elaborate boxes or containers called tea caddies, and these spoons were made to be used with such containers. The caddy spoons went out of fashion in the early 20th century.
A ladle is a large, deep spoon, often used in the preparation and serving of soup, stew, or other foods.
A finger bowl is a bowl of water that dinner guests use for rinsing their fingers. In a formal meal, the finger bowl is brought to the table at the time of the dessert course of the meal, and guests set it aside for use after the last course, just before leaving the table. In less formal service, the finger bowl may be presented after any course that involves finger food and may even be presented after more than one such course in a single meal.
A cheese knife is a type of kitchen knife specialized for the cutting of cheese. Different cheeses require different knives, according primarily to hardness. There are also a number of other kitchen tools designed for cutting or slicing cheese, especially the harder types. These include the cheese cutter, cheese slicer, cheese plane, cheese scoop for soft cheese and others, collectively known as cheese servers.
A lobster pick or lobster fork is a long, narrow food utensil used to extract meat from joints, legs, claws, and other small parts of a lobster. Lobster picks are usually made of stainless steel and weigh as much as an average teaspoon. They have a long, textured cylindrical handle, ending in a crescent-shaped moderately sharp pick, or else a small two-tined fork. A three-tined version has a longer central tine with two shorter side tines with hooks on them. The other end may have a spoon for scooping out meat from inside the lobster. The lobster pick can also be used with other seafood, such as crab and crawfish.
A toasting fork is a long-handled fork used to brown and toast food such as bread, cheese, and apples by holding the pronged end in front of an open fire or other heat source. It can also be used to toast marshmallows, broil hot dogs, and heat hot dog buns over campfires.
The sugar tongs are small serving utensils used at the table to transfer sugar pieces from the sugar bowl to the tea cups. The tongs appeared at the end of the 17th century, and were very popular by 1800, with half of the British households owning them. The decline of the formal tea party led to the disappearance of the sugar tongs, in the 21st century they are considered an oddity at the table in their original role, but had acquired a new meaning: the tongs now represent Englishness. Also, these tongs still can be used to serve small candy, string beans, slices of cucumber, celery sticks.
The fish knife together with fish fork represent a set of utensils specialized for eating fish. Fish knife is a strange-looking, purposedly blunt implement.
The fish fork, sometimes along with the fish knife, is an eating utensil specialized for fish meals. Like most highly specialized utensils, the fork dates back to Victorian era. With a length of about 7.5 inches, its distinctive features often include a wide left tine or a deep notch that can be fit over the bones. To avoid the metallic taste that comes from metal in the fork reacting with the acid in lemons, which are commonly served with fish, the fork was traditionally, until the arrival of stainless steel in the 1920s, made of silver.
