16 Oct 2014 Fork Art

Kitchenware and kitchen accessories are increasingly becoming arty! Small things like a spoon, spatula or fork used to get ignored while the dinner sets and cups and saucers used to get so much importance in their look and style. More than the spoons, the forks were ignored until the creative folks from several handicraft groups thought of styling them up more! Who would have thought otherwise that a fork can be arty as well!

Wooden Fruit Forks

A research says that wood is one thing on which small things can be very intricately crafted. On visiting several parts of India where crafters work with wood, we came up with new and interesting designs on fork. Though fork was a very much Western thing at first and the Eastern part of the world was more used to eating with hand or chopsticks, but with modern times the usage of fork increased. And hence the handicraft villages that are into wood crafting started to carve arty forks on wood.

Now, do you have any idea that how many different kind of fork exist? Here is an interesting list.

Barbecue fork, Beef fork- These are a type of fork used for picking up meat. This fork is shaped like a regular fork, but it is slightly bigger and the tines are curved outward. The curves are used for piercing the thin sliced beef.

Cheese fork, Chip fork- A two-pronged disposable fork, usually made out of sterile wood, specifically designed for the eating of chips like french fries, fried fish and other takeaway foods.

Handmade Small Wooden Forks

Cocktail fork- A small fork resembling a trident, used for spearing cocktail garnishes such as olives.

Crab fork- A short, sharp and narrow three-pronged or two-pronged fork designed to easily extract meat when consuming cooked crab.

Dessert fork (alternatively, pudding fork/cake fork)- Any of several different special types of forks designed to eat desserts, such as a pastry fork. They usually have only three tines and are smaller than standard dinner forks. The leftmost tine may be widened so as to provide an edge with which to cut (though it is never sharpened). Dinner fork are normal ones.

Hand Crafted Wooden Forks

There are interestingly looking Fish forks. Fondue fork are narrow forks, usually having two tines, long shaft and an insulating handle, typically of wood, for dipping bread into a pot containing sauce. And then there is the more famous Fruit salad fork. A fork used which is used to pick up pieces of fruit such as grapes, strawberries, melon and other varies types of fruit.

With ice creams comes the ice cream so you also get forks named ice cream fork and olive forks and oyster fork and something as interesting as pickle fork. A long handled fork used for extracting pickles from a jar and there are odd ones like pie fork, pitchfork, relish fork and very particular salad forks!

By: Pushpita, a freelance writer on world handicrafts and lifestyle. Pushpita holds a Masters in English literature and is a rich media professional.