List of eating utensils facts for kids
Imagine eating your favorite meal! How do you get the food from your plate to your mouth? That's where eating utensils come in handy! These are tools people use to help them eat. While some cultures use their hands, many others have created special tools. In places like Europe and North America, people often use cutlery like knives and forks. In many parts of Asia, chopsticks are very common. And Spoons are used almost everywhere!
Contents
History of Eating Tools
For a long time, people mostly used their hands to eat. In some cultures, like in Ethiopia and India, people still often eat with their hands or use bread to scoop up food.
In places like Japan and China, people often hold their bowls close to their mouths. They mostly use chopsticks and a spoon.
Western cultures, like those in Europe and America, started to develop many different kinds of eating tools. This is why you might see many cutlery items on a fancy dinner table, each with its own name and job! As our eating habits change, these tools keep changing too, especially in Western countries.
Types of Eating Utensils
Here are some of the most common eating tools you might know:
- Spoon – Used for scooping up liquids or soft foods. There are many different kinds of spoons!
- Fork – A tool with prongs, used to pick up solid food.
- Knife – Used for cutting food.
- Chopsticks – Two small sticks used together to pick up food, popular in East and Southeast Asia.
- Skewer – A thin rod used to hold pieces of food together, often for grilling.
- Tongs – Tools with two arms, used for gripping and lifting food.
- Toothpick – A small stick for removing food stuck between teeth.
- Cocktail stick – A small stick, often used for appetizers.
- Drinking straw – A tube for sipping drinks.
- Cutlery – This is a general term for a set of Western eating tools, usually including a knife, fork, and spoon.
- Sujeo – A set of Korean eating tools, which includes a spoon and chopsticks.
- Food pusher – A tool with a flat blade, used to help push food onto a spoon or fork.
Special Utensils for Specific Foods
Some utensils are made just for eating or preparing certain foods:
- Butter knife – A knife with a dull edge, used for spreading butter.
- Cake fork – A small fork, often with one wider tine for cutting cake.
- Soup spoon – A larger spoon, perfect for soup.
- Crab cracker – A tool to crack open crab shells.
- Crab fork – A thin fork to get meat out of crab legs.
- Fish knife – A special knife for eating fish.
- Fondue fork – A long fork for dipping food into fondue.
- Grapefruit knife – A knife with a curved, serrated blade for cutting grapefruit sections.
- Grapefruit spoon – A spoon with a serrated edge for scooping grapefruit.
- Lobster pick – A thin tool to get meat out of lobster.
- Snail tongs and forks – Special tools for eating snails.
- Nutcracker – A tool to crack open nuts.
- Ice cream scoop – A tool for scooping ice cream.
- Tongs for:
- Sugar – Small tongs for picking up sugar cubes.
- Asparagus – Tongs designed for serving asparagus.
- Honey dipper – A tool with grooves for drizzling honey.
- Meat claws – Tools shaped like claws, used to shred cooked meats.
Combination Utensils: Two-in-One Tools!
Sometimes, people try to make eating even easier by combining two or more utensils into one! These are called combination utensils.
- Chopfork – This tool has a fork on one end and chopsticks or tongs on the other.
- Chork – These are pointed tongs that can be used like chopsticks or as a fork. Another type of chork is a fork that can split in half to become two chopsticks!
- Forkchops – These are like chopsticks, but they have a small fork and knife on the non-eating ends.
- Spoon and Chopstick Hybrid – Tongs that can be used like chopsticks or as a spoon.
- Knife and Chopstick Hybrid – Tongs that can be used like chopsticks or as a knife.
- Knork – A knife with a single fork-like point on the end of the blade.
- Pastry fork – A fork where one of the prongs has a sharpened edge for cutting pastry.
- Spifork – A tool that combines a spoon, knife, and fork.
- Spoon straw – A drinking straw with a scoop on the end, great for slushies and milkshakes.
- Sporf – A utensil with a spoon on one end, a fork on the other, and sharpened edges on the fork tines.
- Spork – A very common combination tool that is both a spoon and a fork.
- Splayd – A tool that combines a spoon, fork, and knife.
- Spife – A tool that combines a spoon and a knife.
- FRED – This tool, used by the Australian army, is a can opener, bottle opener, and spoon all in one!
Disposable Utensils
Have you ever bought a single-serving ice cream or a snack pack of tuna salad? Sometimes, these come with a utensil that you use once and then throw away. These are called disposable utensils. They are often made of wood or plastic.
See also
- Tableware
- Drinkware
- Edible tableware
- Eating utensil etiquette
- List of food preparation utensils
- List of serving utensils
- Combination eating utensils
