Soup drips through and you stab yourself: the spork is the worst utensil

For the first twenty or so years of my life, I can’t recall seeing a spork anywhere except at a KFC. And all their food that you couldn’t eat with your hands was awful. But the napkin was in with the sprork, so you had to take it.

It’s been years since I’ve hiked with a spork. Or even a fork.

Spoon!

I quit using fork at home too, faster to shovel food in with spoon.  Big spoon.

Small grain of truth to that.

“Small grain of truth to that.’

Or: a big portion of truth to that. for me, anyway.

A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down…but a sporkful  of medicine is useless. it’s all lost into your lap. Same thing with dinner, if you’re using a spork.

for my backpacking purposes, the edge of a spoon is capable of slicing through noodles and other foods that I’ve cooked in a pot. No need for a Knoon– a knife, spoon hybrid.

The spork is a good way to prove that positivism is wrong. Imre Lakatos could have added it to his work as an example.

Good Lord. I thought I would get howled down, but apparently not?
We carry Lexan spoons of course, and a Victorinox butter knife for lunch.

Cheers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spork#:~:text=A%20combined%20spoon%2C%20fork%2C%20and,%2C%201908%2C%20to%20Harry%20L.

I support you Samuel W. Francis . Go team spork! Ha ha

I’m in the spoon camp for backpacking.  I’m not sure any of my backpacking meals would be better with a fork or spork.  I’ve been using a Sea to Summit Alpha spoon for probably 15 years.

Team Spoon over here too.

Roger, a Lexan spoon????

How irresponsible of you :)

I’m team double-sided titanium fork/spoon over here. Is it the lightest option? No. Does it do everything I want it to do in a non-irritating way while being reasonably lightweight? Yes.

I used to use a sea to summit anodized spoon but something happened to it

So I reverted to a stainless steel spoon from the Goodwil that I cut some of the handle off of to fit in my pot (not to save weight)

I hate double-sided spoon-forks (foons?). It’s stabbing you with every bite you take using the spoon. And the spoon end still feels bad in my hand if I do eat with the fork.

Roger, a Lexan spoon????
How irresponsible of you :)
Whoever said I was ‘responsible’?

There is an old spotlite review on BPL for the GSI Lexan cutlery, from 2005:
https://backpackinglight.com/gsi_lexan_cutlery_spotlite_review/

Lexan is lighter than metal. My Lexan spoon is suitably large too. And you might like to note the date of the review: 2005, and the cutlery is still going strong. No breakages.

I understand that this Lexan cutlery has been withdrawn because of concerns about BPA leaching out. However, I think that is an over-reaction when it comes to cutlery. (Water bottles may be a different matter.) The amount of BPA which might leach out of a spoon when used for a few meals on the trail per year is going to be down in the undetectable range, so I ignore.

Cheers

Knife and spoon for the last 50 years. Never missed a fork.

Small knife for cutting up the hard cheeses and hard Italian sausages that are my staples on the trail. And for prepping fresh fruit and veggies on resupply days. And for cutting cord, shaving kindling etc etc.

On the culinary front, my spoon handles everything else.

The fork was a modern European invention that wasn’t widespread till the 1600s. While everyone in Asia, Africa and pre-Columbian America somehow managed to limp along without it before we colonised them.

Can’t see any case for carrying one on the trail. And as Roger says – the spork is a Frankenstein hybrid that does nothing well.

Amen. F sporks.

“The fork was a modern European invention that wasn’t widespread till the 1600s. While everyone in Asia, Africa and pre-Columbian America somehow managed to limp along without it before we colonised them.”

I love forks, especially when out to restaurants. I don’t like the idea of tearing my food apart with my fingers, or sharing the same way out of a common dish. Especially since covid, but certainly since we gained the germ theory of disease transmission. Not everything brought into the world by the west is by definition bad. Far from it. In any case, forks–and satellites and cell phones and modern medicine and computers and t shirts with basketball team logos are predominant throughout the world.

The average life span of pre-Columbians was far shorter than today.

in any case I’m highly proficient with chop sticks. I never use them at home. I use a fork instead, or a spoon and a knife. Perhaps these same utensils seem exotic in large parts of Africa and Asia. Perhaps they have their own sort of exotic and strange mythology woven around them, as chop sticks and sharing a common bowl with our fingers have in our own society.

I don’t think anyone is saying forks are bad, and are super useful at home – imagine eating a steak with a spoon?  I mean you might could do it, but it’s less than optimal.   However most of the food we seem to eat on the trail (or maybe it’s just me) are something that is rehydrated and soupy or stew -like that works well with a spoon.  I could see a few cases for a fork, for example if you plan on supplementing your food with trout, which seem like they’d be way easier with a fork than a spoon, but I’m always surprised at the number of sporks I see on the trail, when I’m convinced people would be better served by a spoon.

@jscott – in China and Japan chopsticks are still pretty much universal.

If they want to eat a steak, to take your example, the cook will cut it up into chopstick-friendly pieces before serving.

This is how I operate on the trail = I chop the ingredients into my pot, and eat them with my spoon. You can do this with veggies, dairy, fish and meat – it’s never been a problem for me.

agreed, I never bring a fork with me on the trail! I was just writing about home use. On trail, I bring a single spoon for eating.

My point wasn’t that forks have colonized the world. Just the opposite. I was trying to suggest that peoples throughout Asia and Africa might find forks to be exotic, in the same way we find their utensils “exotic”. (but really, we live in a world culture where all such things are familiar after all.) Cultural diversity is a good thing, in my lights.

I do have a super sharp two ounce knife that folds into a perfect compartment for locking and unlocking my bear can. I’ve never used it for food, but who knows?

I’m always surprised at the number of sporks I see on the trail,

(with obvious acknowledgements)

Cheers

down with sporks . . .

. . . and chopsticks too

Agree, sporks are dumb. 99% of my backpacking food can be eaten with a spoon, and the rest can be eaten with hands (washed, of course!).

Eating meat with your hands is super fun, imo, although I rarely have whole cuts of meat when backpacking. It’s how my grandparents ate their bone-in meats – to get every dang morsel of meat and fat off the bone, whether pork chops, chicken, or the rare steak. That’s what happens when you grow up poor; you don’t waste food by being polite with your cutlery.

In Indonesia, on a jungle trek, the guides gave us all our food wrapped in a banana leaf. Rice, veggies, and a boiled egg. We ate it all with our hands, even the rice. It works fine.

I also prefer a plastic/lexan or wooden spoon. Titanium feels weird in the mouth, plus the bowl part of the titanium spoons is like a baby spoon, so tiny. I often have a soup or stew, and taking wee little bites is annoying. Just a normal sized soup spoon is what is required and I’ve never understood why they don’t sell them in titanium. But I have also heard the metal ones have sharp edges on the handles, so you can cut your hand with them. That is insane!  Injured while backpacking while eating my soup?!

I actually really like chopsticks. But I don’t need those on trail either.