Know Your Cutlery Before You Eat.

Have you ever been in a situation where you are in a fancy restaurant and got confused by the wide range of silverware? If not then make sure you never get by knowing what silverware is used for what. Among the various cultures some use hands or knife and forks (Western Culture) or chopsticks (Eastern Culture). In the Western culture many utensils are used for dining each with different name and use. With modernization, evolution is seen in the eating habits of people, mostly in the West.

Dinner knife: It is used to cut and push food. It also serves as a replacement for salad knife if latter is not available.

Dinner fork: It is used for the main course.
Dinner Spoon: It is used for the main course. If it is not included in the place setting then teaspoon is used in its place.

Steak knife: It can be used in place of dinner knife or in addition to it. It can be serrated or non-serrated depending on specific steak cuts.

Steak Fork: It is used to eat the steak.

Fish knife: It is used when fish is served for dinner. The tip of fish knife aids in separating layers of fish and lift bones.

Fish fork: It is used for holding and serving fish.

Dessert knife
Dessert knife can be used for dessert, fresh or candied fruit. It can be used to cut cakes and pastries. It goes together with the dessert spoon.

Dessert fork: It is used for eating cake, pies and pastries. It is more or less similar to salad fork.

Dessert spoon: It is used for eating sweet dishes and puddings.
Sundae spoon: Long spoons to reach the bottom of sundae glass and eat liquid or semi-liquid food like ice-cream toppings, floats, jelly, etc.

Fruit knife: It has a pointed tip. The blade can be serrated or slightly curved. It is meant to cut and peel fruits.

Fruit spoon: Fruit spoon has an elongated bowl and a pointed tip that aids in cutting fruit and eating fruits like grapes, oranges and melons.

Butter knife

Butter knife has a rounded point so that it does not scrape the bread while spreading butter. Dinner knife is equally acceptable if butter knife is not available.

Teaspoon: It is meant for stirring coffee, tea, soups and eating.

Tablespoon: A tablespoon is bigger than a teaspoon and is used for serving food from serving bowls.

Place spoon: It is an all-purpose spoon bigger than a teaspoon but smaller than a tablespoon.

Soup spoon: A large rounded spoon used for eating soup. An oval spoon is used in case soup contains meat, vegetables, bread crumbs etc.

Forks with two tines: The two-tined fork is used cut meat.

Salad fork: Used for eating salad, in salad fork outer tines are notched, wider and longer than inner tines.

Sea food fork: Sea food fork is ideal for eating crustaceans. Also called crab fork, lobster fork, it serves two purposes. The double-pronged slim end is used to pick sea food while the curved scraper is used to scoop out the meat.

Clean Plates Never Lie. -Dan Barber