Types of cutlery

Most of the cutlery, if you list all their varieties, is used only at celebrations - and not always home. In everyday life, we use only a small part of the existing cutlery. It seems, the educational program about the purpose of such an “inventory” is not necessary for everyone? Etiquette, rules of good tone and everything that is included in the concept of noble education and refined manners implies a wide knowledge of table setting, the appropriateness of using this or that dish. And to begin the study of this section makes sense just with the cutlery.

Dessert, dining, tea, fruit - surely such words in relation to cutlery you heard. Is there a difference in size? Not only. All this is divided into two types: the main devices and additional. In everyday life, the usual table set is enough for us, but in restaurants we are often served with an extra: dessert, fruit, and also fish equipment, etc.

General classification:

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

But this is far away all kinds of table "inventory": there are still auxiliary (additional). 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 necessary for the delicate shifting of lemon slices. Or, for example, on the table there can be a fork for olives - it is created for the beauty of serving.

And there are a lot of such special devices! Today you rarely meet a spoon in a salad (this is contrary to a good tone), because there are tongs for putting on a salad from common dishes. As there are tongs, for example, and for spaghetti. Of course, very rare housewives keep at home the entire arsenal of cutlery - 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 pate and caviar, to have an elegant knife for cheese - why not? It flatters the modern mistress.

Table tools differ in size, and sometimes at a dinner party a considerable slip for its organizers is considered to be a dimensional discrepancy to the instruments. The hostess just did not know what should be a knife, and how - confectionery tongs, for example. But you can learn this!

Main sizes.

• Meat Knife - 21–24 cm. It is served together with a fork for meat, 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.
• Big soup spoon - 19–21 centimeters. Comes with a fork for meat. It can be used for first courses, and for the same sauce.
• Broth spoon - 16-17 centimeters. It is served in special bouillon cups.
• Spoon for sauce - 18–19 centimeters, more often correlated with fish dishes with sauce.
• Fish fork - 18 centimeters, three-toothed. Serve it with a fish knife.
• Fish knife - 19–21 centimeters. Do not take it for dishes of salmon, eel, herring.
• Dessert Fork and Dessert Spoon - 18–19 centimeters.
• Butter Knife - 17 centimeters.
• Fork for eating cakes - 15 centimeters.
• Coffee spoon - 13–15 centimeters.
• Ice Cream Spoon - 18 centimeters.

What should have a hostess, so that her techniques always looked convincing and not contrary to etiquette? If traditions are important to you, you need to learn to match. For example, special knife for butter - This is not just a knife from the standard table set, it is different. And if the guest cuts a slice of butter and puts it in a pie, he should be able to make it a special knife. And there is, for example, knife-fork - they cut and shift the cheese (hard).

Imagine but There is also a special fork for sprat: fish forks differ not just from other forks, but also from each other. Trident rounded fork is used for mussels and mollusks, it is also used when carrying out cold sea cocktails. Hot fish snacks are consumed with a chill fork.

Minimum set of additional devices:

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

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

If you continue the topic of tea drinking, it is worth mentioning everything necessary for serving the cake. If the tea party ends the dinner party, then all the dishes are removed from the table. In her place put dessert devices. Cake is carried out on a tray or a vase on the leg. The vase can be with or without sides. The dish, as already mentioned, is pre-cut portions. The only exception is a wedding, where newlyweds are cut into a cake in the presence of guests.

Spoon the dessert you need confectionery spatula. Although it belongs to the auxiliary accessories, it is not at all secondary to the festive table. Well, if the shoulder blade is in tune with the rest of the cutlery. It can be combined stylistically with a vase or with cups and saucers. And although cakes with a soft base can be eaten as a dessert spoon or fork, the second option is still more convenient.

The list of accessories for serving is brief, and maybe long - depending on the goals of the owners, what level of techniques they organize. Restaurants should use all etiquette tools. At home, the system is simplified.

Auxiliary accessories for the types of devices.

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

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

Examples of proper serving are numerous themed photos. Observe how professionals are doing the serving, what cutlery design can be, how they look on a common table.

To learn how to properly use cutlery, see the following video.