There it is, way at the back of the cupboard. What is that thing? We see it only when we're hauling out all the special-occasion tableware for the holidays.
We've already got the carving set out, and the gravy boat and ladle. The sugar tongs, olive forks and butter picks are scattered around us. Along with that dish over there, which is for cranberry jelly -- or anyway, we think it is.
But then there's that thing in the back, that big shallow spoon with scary-looking tines writhing out of one edge. It's been in the family forever and nobody knows exactly what it's for.
Such strange items are cherished heirlooms now, but even if we don't know their functions -- and plenty of times, the experts can't figure them out either -- they aren't just oddities from the past. They're perfectly adapted to specific uses, certainly better than the utensils we improvise with today. In their time, they were totally practical.
Most date from one 70-year period, the golden era of formal dining, when swell hosts couldn't wait to show off exotic foods like, oh, celery or asparagus, and felt the need for special equipment to do so. Starting in the 1850s, silver and china firms in the United States and Europe catered to a craze for highly specialized tableware. By 1900, 140 kinds of utensils might be available in a given silver pattern -- 140 kinds of knives, forks, spoons, tongs and spatulas of various sizes and shapes, plus nut picks, lobster claw crackers and other oddments. And that doesn't count the dishware that went with them.
"It had a lot to do with marketing," observes Jessica Smith, curator of American art at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. But the demand was genuine.
And these things are undeniably cool to have. As Smith says, "One of [railroad heiress] Arabella Huntington's favorite things to give was a tea set designed by Tiffany. I wouldn't have minded being a guest at a wedding where she was giving those away."
Once upon a time, celery was a luxury because, like endive, it had to be mounded with dirt as it grew to keep it from being bitter. So, a utensil called a celery vase was invented for displaying a head of celery at the table as if it were a bouquet of flowers. Diners would pluck off stalks one at a time and dip them in a salt container at the base of the vase, congratulating themselves on living pretty high.
