When the mother of necessity gets hungry, she reaches for a ‘frork’
Roughly speaking, one-third of the world’s population eats with knives, forks and spoons; one-third eats with chopsticks; and one-third eats with their hands. (Some are rougher than others — the food-fight scene in “Animal House,” pieeating contests, Golden Corral.)
Once, I asked a bunch of Houston Astros to name their favorite restaurants on the road. Pitcher Bob Knepper was famous for eating a whole roasted chicken at Medieval Times in Florida. He liked tearing it apart and eating it with his hands.
I’m a hands-on guy, too, but not because I eat like an animal. I usually grab meals on the run, in my car, standing over a sink, in front of the television. I’d like to eat like a normal, civilized person, sitting at a table with other people, using silverware and cloth napkins … it just didn’t turn out that way.
And if I see you eating fried chicken or pizza with a knife and fork, our friendship is over.
Last week, McDonald’s, the mother of necessity of eating with your hands, introduced a utensil called the “frork,” designed for helping you dip
french fries into sauces and spillage from their new line of Signature Crafted Sandwiches.
Here’s how it works — and hang onto your nightshift manager’s paper hat for this. A “frork” is a soft rubber handle with an open space at one end for you to shove in fries. Then you hold onto the frork, keeping your hands free and clean, while you dip the fries in barbecue sauce.
But aren’t your hands already greasy from shoving the fries into the frork? Here’s a better idea, just shove the fries directly into your mouth. If there’s one problem technology doesn’t need to solve, it’s how to eat french fries.
I have seen other strange ways that people eat french fries. The whole dipping fries into ranch sauce is a crime against root vegetables. Salt and ketchup, end of discussion due to ridiculousness. I’ve seen people dip their fries in Frosty ice cream at Wendy’s. Those people need to be put in a home. Weirder, I’ve seen people pick up one fry at a time, squeeze ketchup from a packet on it, and eat it. They eat a whole super-size order of fries this way. Who has time for this? “Jeopardy” is on at 3 p.m., let’s move it.
About the only eating utensil less practical than the “frork” is that little wooden digger you get with ice cream Dixie Cups. Unless the ice cream is melted to the point you can drink it, that wooden spoon breaks into toothpicks first bite. Those pink sample taste spoons at Baskin-Robbins aren’t much sturdier.
McDonald’s knows it may have a dumb idea on its hands. On the package it says that frorks may “solve a problem you never knew you had. Did the world need this? Nope. Does it work? Kind of.”
No it doesn’t. This is almost as dumb as that battery-powered, spaghetti-twirling fork I once saw in the back of a comic book.
Not every fast-food utensil is silly and useless. I’ll put KFC’s “spork” right up there with Christofle sterling silver any day. KFC offers mashed potatoes and mac ’n’ cheese, and only baseball pitchers eat those with their hands.
A spork is exactly what it sounds like, a hybrid spoon and fork — a spoon with sharp daggers at the end to spear fries and tater tots. While most people associate this Swiss Army Knife of eating utensils with KFC, sporks have been around since the 1700s. They originally were called “ice cream forks,” which makes sense. How many spoons have you bent digging into rock-hard frozen Bell Bell Homemade Vanilla? The first patent for a spork was issued in 1874. Sporks are mostly used by fast-food diners, dorm students, soldiers in the field and jail inmates. It’s very hard to convert a spork into a shiv for some “prison yard justice.”
My only problem with sporks, when I’m hosting an elegant dinner party and using my Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica China, on which side of the plate does a plastic spork go — on the left like a fork, or the right like a spoon?
The only eating utensil even more practical than the spork? How about the “splayd,” which is popular in Australian fast-food restaurants. A splayd is a spork with one sharp, knifelike edge. It’s handy to spread Vegemite on toast, before you realize what a horrible decision you’ve just made.