Objects of Absurd Specificity
In defence of loving them anyway
We’ve all seen on some tables things we are surprised exist: asparagus servers, a spoon for olives so the brine stays behind, a saucer. If you get into it, the list of these pieces can easily become extensive. I’ve inherited some and started collecting some. But it’s on my mother’s table that I’ve seen most of them and every time I love it. My brain is just wired that way, I suppose, drawn to these strange little objects.
Open my kitchen drawer and you’ll find a cheese knife, which we don’t really see anymore, and what a shame. If you’ve never used one, the clever part is the tip of the knife: you cut the cheese, then lift a piece with the tip to serve it. The cake knife does the same, cut and serve in one go. I own a couple, because, if you’ve been reading JOSI for a while, you know that I love a goûter or a big buffet of desserts and one cake knife is never enough. Then there’s a saucier, a gift I’ve received, a small dish made just for holding a sauce. So elegant to have one on the table for a gravy. These pieces are here to stay in my drawer and I’m contemplating getting more.
None of this is new, of course. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on this, and it turns out the British started it: once electroplating made silver affordable in the 1840s, the Victorian table filled up with specific tools for specific foods. Spoons for berries, forks for sardines, scissors for grapes (eating them with your fingers was apparently rude). But it was the Americans of the Gilded Age who truly lost their minds. A flat little server made to lift a single slice of tomato. A long, narrow spoon for scooping marrow from the bone. A pierced server invented just for crisps (surprise!). It got so out of hand that the American government eventually stepped in and pushed the silver makers to cut down the number of different pieces in a set. There was, at one point in the US, an official effort to make the dinner table more sensible. I find that both hilarious and completely understandable.
The French, for the record, mostly watched all this with a raised eyebrow. They made the most beautiful table silver in the world and somehow resisted making four hundred kinds of it. Fewer pieces, better ones.
Some of it was pure invention. But some of it, and this is the part I love, made real sense. Caviar spoons were carved from mother-of-pearl because silver reacts with the eggs and turns them metallic. Salad servers came in horn because vinegar corrodes silver. The French screwed a silver handle onto the leg of lamb to carve it at the table, the manche à gigot, which is either ridiculous or brilliant depending on how you feel about carving in front of your guests. I vote brilliant even though I probably wouldn’t dare carving publicly.
Back to my own, modest collection. I have a list of items I’d like to buy, none of them necessary, so they’ll pop up when the timing is right. I love these objects, even though sometimes they seem absurd and definitely not essential. But at some point someone thought about a meal a little longer than necessary, looked at a jug of gravy carefully enough to create a beautiful little object just to hold it. I find that touching more than absurd. We still do it, by the way. We just do it in plastic now, with our avocado slicers and strawberry hullers. The instinct never went anywhere. It only lost its beauty.
So here is my small case, and you can take it or leave it: own one absurd object. Not fifty-five. One. A table with asparagus servers on it, or grape scissors, or a mother-of-pearl spoon, says someone here cared past the point of reason. And caring past the point of reason is, more or less, my definition of hosting.
And if you need some inspiration, here’s the list. A few I’ve found, all in silver, because that’s where this all began.
The List
The one that started this whole dive
Christofle swan saucier. For gravy, obviously.
The one to start with
A pair of vintage grape scissors, because eating them with your fingers is, apparently, still rude.
The one with a design pedigree
Scarpa horn and silver salad servers, 1979. Horn because vinegar and silver don’t get along.
The one nobody knew they needed
Silver knife rests, shaped like little pineapples. A set of six.
The one on my list
A pair of antique silver asparagus servers. Puiforcat made a sterling pair I think about more than I’ll admit, a good vintage pair does the same job for a fraction.
The one that makes the case
A sugar shaker shaped like a clown.
So tell me: what is the most absurd utensil in your kitchen? I would love to know I’m not alone in this.
Thank you for being here and stay cosy until next time, Jx
If you like this please drop a ❤️ , share it with a friend, leave a comment, or subscribe! For more JOSI, you can follow us on IG.