Over the years our ancestors have brought to life many wonderful tools and inventions. Over time those items have morphed into other, sometimes useful, things. Take for instance the spork, a useless merging of spoon and fork in plastic. These annoying items are handed out a fairs and fast food restaurants to reduce the cost of having 2 separate utensils. Anyone that has ever tried to use this item on anything thicker than pudding knows the frustration that is bound to ensue. Without a flat side to cut you are left grinding and digging at meat to separate it into edible bites, only to have it slide off of the spoon portion and straight into your lap.One would wonder whose brain fart created this culinary piece of torture.
Over the years I have been adding to the silverware sets that belonged to my grandmother and great grandmother. They had the basic sets and to them I have added carving sets, ice tea spoons, individual butter knives and pickle forks. I have my eye on demitasse spoons that will go with the demitasse cups that will never be used. I don’t drink coffee, but why not, I have the cups. Another item that I desire to fill out my silver sets is the ice cream fork, a relation of the plastic spork. This is one utensil that will get used, ice cream, unlike coffee, is a favorite in this household.
Why silver makers found it necessary to cut ice cream with a fork type spoon I will never know. Maybe they realized then it is the only thing a person can eat at a formal setting with this contraption, without flopping food in your lap. At least it is reasonable to assume that ice cream can be cut and eaten with an ice cream spoon. Patents for sporks made in all kinds of materials date back as far as 1874 and the version of the fork/spoon, in silver, is a very collectable item. All one has to do is watch the price spin out of control on ebay as the time limit for bidding expires. Unlike, in my personal opinion, the plastic spork.
Wikipedia has a history of the spork listed and reasons why a person would even want to use this item in its current plastic form. Hard for me to imagine ebay ever offering its plastic counterpart for 15 dollars a piece.