Cutlery drawer survey — ObjectsBlog

Most of my cutlery comes from secondhand stores in Brussels and Eindhoven. I like to have a variety of shapes and metals but keep things within a certain range of normalcy so if there are a bunch of people over you can just grab a handful out of the drawer at random and not end up with unpleasant combinations. Of course there are a few exceptions.

Spoons

Silver spoon, thin overall with a gently curved handle and head

This silver spoon is my go-to. The handle is fairly slender but thick enough that it feels good in your hand. The head is a nice versatile shape and size.

Big soup spoon, we can tell it's aluminum by its matte gray color

This big aluminum spoon basically takes the form of a heavy old French soup spoon but is lightweight in a way that changes how you use it. The edges are surprisingly good for scooping grapefruit. It’s so convincing in its normalcy that every few months it ends up in the dishwasher and turns an ugly grey.

Spoon with a round head, little chunks of metal stick out the sides as though oozing

A less normal aluminum spoon that a shop instructor gave to my housemate when we were in school from a series they cast. Nice and rustic, good for thin soup.

The most normal spoon you could imagine, concave handle pressed from a flat sheet of steel

Quite a basic spoon but with a bit more generosity in form than average. Everything is nicely rounded and it’s thick enough that the edges don’t dig into your fingers.

Typically modern spoon, the flat handle widens then bends, the egg-shaped head is pressed out of it

This spoon is from a set designed by Carl Aubock (I believe Carl the 2nd, to be specific) that I randomly found nearly-complete at a thrift store. These pieces are a bit macho and ridiculous but definitely have presence on the plate. I think I would have appreciated these more a few years ago.

Spork (interstitial)

Big spork with a carabiner hole in the handle

This spork is the only piece purchased new here. They come in an incredibly cheap pack of 3 or 4 from Ikea and have an uneven-but-polished finish I haven’t really seen elsewhere, probably because it has a connotation of said incredible cheapness. Nice wide handle you can really grab in your fist. Unfussy choice for dals and stews.

Forks

This fork is from Lufthansa, designed by Wolf Karnagel. Is it round like this to make it less tempting as a hijacking weapon?

Fork with an even more circular head and a narrower handle, squared-off at the end

A similar shape, less refined but more elemental. I think I prefer this one. I have to assume this is a response to the Lufthansa fork, but don’t recognize the logo. It’s worth noting that while this shape works just as well for most meals, it’s a disaster for spaghetti.

Elegant small silver fork, everything fluidly contoured

Swissair went above and beyond with this one. Real silverware on the DC-7 high over the Alps, a compelling image. It’s Seinfeldianly small for a dinner fork, with a fluid form. I probably use this fork the most.

Longer silver fork a bit like the one before but less refined overall

There’s something about this longer silver fork that’s similar to the Swissair one but all the details are diminished in comparison. This thin, concave handle isn’t as nice as the double-convex one above and the tines are awkwardly cut.

Older-looking small silver fork, the rounded handle end has a heart-shaped flourish

A small, traditional silver fork from England. A friend brought it with a dish from their mom’s house and forgot it here. There are two very similar ones in the drawer but pick this one up and you feel the difference in how it balances in your hand. As much as I like this fork I’ll make sure she gets it back at some point.

Big flat handle widens into the fork tines

The other end of the spectrum, the fork from the Aubock set. At first, the little bend at the extremity of the handle struck me as superfluous but it definitely makes this flat thing easier to pick up off the table.

Normal stainless steel fork, agreeably curved all over

I got fed up with the eclectic character of the drawer contents at some point and bought a few of the most generic forks I could find to average things out a bit.

Knives

Knife with a pill-shaped blade and handle, straight edges, the handle has cutouts, one shaped like a rectangle and one shaped like a pill as well

This cheap Japanese knife had a red plastic grip that fell apart, leaving for the handle the roughly finished core with mounting holes. Is this where the idea for Virgil Abloh’s Alessi set came from?

Knife with a thicker handle and a thinner blade but wide throughout, all straight lines except for a curve in the blade

Here’s the knife from the Aubock set. They weren’t out at the thrift store when I found the forks and spoons so I kept going back hoping they would show up, bothering employees to ask if there was another box of knives in the back somewhere and asking friends to check if they went. They showed up a week later. Nice and heavy.

Fluidly-shaped knife that looks as though its handle is inflated

This knife, made in East Germany, is very light despite its ergonomic bulk. I think this is because the handle is hollow.

Narrow knife with a blade that ends at the handle like a chef's knife. On the handle is marked A.B.L. 1950

I found this knife from the Belgian army years ago and it’s one of my favourites. Though the overall impression is different from the East German knife above, it shares the scooped transition from rounded handle to flat blade that I associate with the work of Big-Game. It’s marked 1950 in a lettering style that feels a few years more modern than that.

I couldn’t find anything online about these knives but was pleasantly surprised to find several more, years later. They’re faintly etched with later dates on the blade alongside what I think is the Laguiole logo.

Knife with a rounded but almost triangular blade

The Karnagel Lufthansa knife. Is the blade angled like that to optimize for limited elbow room eating off an airplane tray table? Spreads butter super well.

Knife stamped from a thin sheet of steel, wide blade and nasty corners on the end of the handle

This knife is stamped from a thin sheet, and they didn’t even bother rounding off the handle end corners. Not refined or luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but cleverly economical.