Knife fork and spoon

[Undertoad]

It's a little amazing: as much as we are innovators, nobody has improved on the basic tools of eating. They're damn near perfect.

Sure, people have futzed around with the handles, and the sizes, and the materials and the blade sharpness and the number of tines - rudely suggesting that 3 gets it done better than 4. But it always comes back to the basics, because there's nothing better.

Some people around here like to eat with chopsticks when they're eating something culture-appropriate, but deep down inside they know that the basic three would get the job done better.

We can agree that while some foods have been made finger-appropriate over the years, eating with your hands is basically a sick practice. Unless you go through some sort of surgeon-like pre-meal cleansing. And maybe even wear latex gloves after that.

But then there's the opposite practice, of imagining that your butter knife needs to be separate, that you need two different spoons, etc. Maybe a salad fork makes sense. After that, let's just agree that a little of your jelly in my butter isn't going to end the world.

The finger foods are decadent, and maybe fun, but the best meals seem to be those that require all three of the tools.

All hail knife fork and spoon.