A new exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt traces the evolution of cutlery and presents a truly cutting-edge collection.

 

By Diane Mehta

Etiquette maven Emily Post said you shouldn’t obsess over your fork, but a just-opened flatware exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt suggests otherwise. Curators Sarah Coffin and Ellen Lupton, along with guest curator and food historian Darra Goldstein, have assembled 650 knives, forks, spoons and other utensils in a show that covers Western eating culture between 1500 and 2005. Titled “Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table,” the collection traces culinary evolution from gruel to vichyssoise, and explains why we no longer eat with our hands.

The first thing you may notice: As food became more inventive, so did utensils. Until the early 18th century, spoons had a simple arched handle—a good implement for slurping deep bowls of soup. But with the introduction of purees in France in the late 17th century, new culinary styles had developed: Bowls were shallower and broader, and no longer round but oval. Spoons became curved so the end hooked over the edge of the soup dish. Soon every delicacy or new food got its own utensil: pierced pickle spoons, grape scissors, macaroni forks, marrow scoops, ice-cream saws and scimitar-shaped fish knives.

Why all the fuss? Mostly because of germs. Utensils separate your food from your own dirty hands, but more important, from other people’s dirty hands. Moneyed Europeans didn’t have to worry; until the early 18th century they generally traveled with their own flatware, which often used collapsible, hinged or screw-off parts—and were kept in swank sharkskin cases. Fancy flatware set people apart much like Manolo Blahniks do today.

Many of these rare pieces, and other highlights in tableware design, are represented in the exhibit. You may never again have a chance to see a coral-handled, silver-plated German spoon-and-fork set from the early 1600s. Design buffs can admire Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann’s gorgeously sleek, minimally decorated 1903 “Flat Model” silver dessert fork and knife. Label junkies and fans of all things bling can gawk at the luxurious silver on loan from jewelry icon Tiffany, French flatware brand Christofle and American antique-silver specialist James Robinson. Less highfalutin are Boris Bally’s whimsical plates made of recycled traffic signs and the New Mexico prison department’s plastic utensils—designed to break if used as weapons.

The exhibit is well timed. Chefs are increasingly consumed with discovering ways to spice up meals, and showcasing odd silverware is one method of grabbing attention. At Mas, for example, chef Galen Zamarra commissioned  steak knives with mother-of-pearl handles. And at Chicago’s Alinea, Grant Achatz takes pride in his unusual set of Martin Kastner–designed tableware, which includes a self-supporting, swaying vertical skewer for small bites, and a bowl that makes use of a long pin to blend hot and cold ingredients.

Future implements—concept creations on display—include one tool with a hollow handle and push button to release a sauce stored inside, and a “serrator” that combines spoon, fork and knife.

To add more real-world context to the show, several New York celebrity chefs will participate in a lecture series over the next few months. On July 26, chef Geoffrey Zakarian (Town, Country), designer Adam D. Tihany, and restaurateurs Phil Suarez (Spice Market) and Hakan Swahn (Aquavit) will ponder “the role of design and the nature of collaboration in preparing memorable dining experiences.” Tom Colicchio and Josh DeChellis, among others, will discuss dining in New York on September 14.

If seeing all this cool flatware makes you want to scrap the knives and forks you keep at home, you’re in luck: The museum store sells funky, futuristic, colorful and no-nonsense silverware by some of the biggest names in design.