Hey, Camp Folks!
While the summer camp experience is all about showing us a primitive and natural perspective of the world, there are some frills that no one really wants to leave behind—even when you plan on roughin’ it! Cutlery—forks, spoons, and knives—is one invention that you really don’t want to go camping without. Unless you’re just really into your chopsticks or you’re constantly opting for finger foods, you probably use a fork, a spoon, or a knife each and every day.
To be fair, primitive people in the Stone Age used eating utensils like spoons and knives pretty much since Day One. It seems we’ve never really been without eating utensils (they just didn’t look quite like the refined silverware we use so often now). What does the history of cutlery look like? Let’s investigate:
Knives
Knives are thought to be the first on the scene, long before civilization started. Sharp stones were likely collected along the way of our Stone Age ancestors’ travels as they would be used to cut meat, vegetables, fruit, and anything else they may have needed to cut.
Spoons
Spoons are thought to have come along soon after if not the same time as the knife. Folks in the early days would find hollowed out pieces of wood or seashells and connect them to wooden sticks to be used as spoons.
Forks
While there was a very early appearance of the knife and spoon, it was hundreds of thousands of years before the fork came along. Ancient Chinese civilization brought chopsticks about 5000 years ago. The fork followed after another thousand years—carved from wood or animal bones back in its beginning. They were initially made rather large as it was originally intended for serving rather than eating.
The Roman Empire’s metallurgy industry transformed eating utensils into pieces of bronze and silver—a great upgrade from the typical materials: wood, bone, and stone. Nowadays, cutlery has mostly remained metal with the same basic design, but the advent of plastic has seen plastic cutlery which experimented with the spoon and fork combination, the spork. With that, enjoy perusing our cutlery options for camping in our Mess Kit options. Take a look by clicking here. As always, thanks for reading!
- John