It's my individual asparagus tongs!

Enjoy the storm. When I lived in South Florida, I loved storms, especially hurricanes. Mother Nature pushing you down and holding you there until your guts acknowledged her power. Before that, growing up and living in New Jersey, a snowstorm brought back the beauty of what had become a barren countryside as winter set its claws. "Fill the bathtub with water!" was my mother's first advice for every type of storm. And gas, with charcoal backup, has always been a cook's best choice.

Back on topic, though. Chopsticks for most Asian foods, except sushi. Of course for sashimi, but they're unecessary for sushi pieces or rolls. I love the white plastic soup spoons with the odd, but correct angle for eating very hot soup. And while not exactly a utensil, if you bring out those fancy, silver lobster claw crackers, I know we're gonna dance!

I used naan bread when I got a curry to go and they didn't include utensils. It was a little messy but worked out just fine!

Martha Scott, thanks for posting the pic of your asparagus tongs. As a kid and into my teens I collected unusual sterling silver pieces at flea markets (and before anyone thinks I was born with a silver spoon... I wasn't, my fav past time was exploring the woods with my dog and making things out of found objects) - and I have some of those! Always thought they were for picking up olives!

I got the hang of chopsticks quickly but rarely use them now as DH can't handle them and I don't want him to feel bad. Snail tongs were harder for me to manage, but no recent opportunities to use them, sadly. Demitasse spoons are used nightly as we usually drink a small cup of coffee after work or dinner - and I use them for custards sometimes. Crab/lobster claw crackers I like, but those little crab forks make my head hurt from effort! I use my fingers if necessary. I eat fried okra with my fingers... : ) Large spoons for soups and stews. I have a lovely set of grapefruit spoons, but can't really eat grapefruit due to laryngopharyngeal reflux (silent reflux). Sometimes use a large spoon and fork together for pasta dishes.

I use the Chinese soup spoons for any and all soups, Asian or otherwise. They are just so efficient.

I use nut crackers to break open lobster shells and nut picks to get at some of the meat in there.

Getting the snow here, too. They say about ten inches in the hill country of MA.

I LOVE the asparagus tongs and will keep an eye out for a set.

eta - not cheap!!

I had some really neat little forks that had a knife edge along 1 side, but I discovered they were nickel silver and stopped using them. They were my fave utensil. Would love to find some in stainless.

There is such a thing as a 'knork', which is the closest I've found...

P.S. A little sleuthing has revealed to me that the term for the forks I had is 'pie fork' or 'cake fork'

Sigh....and that's just what I was wishing for....4 individual asparagus tongs!

In all of India, and probably the rest of South Asia so that's about a fifth of the whole world's population, it is normal and traditional to eat rice, curry and dal meals with your hands, or in most places, with your right hand. Nowadays a lot of people eat that with a spoon, though, especially if not at home. If you're getting naan or chapati with your curry and dal then it is expected that you eat with that. It's messy when you first try but you get better after a couple of meals.

I do the ''ice cream with demitasse spoons" as mentioned by someone above. I did not know what it was called until I looked it up just now.

The only unusual one I can think of is a measuring cup. When I check how well the flavors have melded for the ice cream mix, which is rather yummy but runny at that stage, I tend to grab a small measuring cup rather than the deep spoons (of which all of mine seem to have curved handles). I just don't care for how my hand ends up around ear-abouts for tasting, so the straight handled cup works better. But for watery soups and broths, I use the spoons. Probably because I have to blow on the liquid to cool it prior to tasting, and a spoon serves that purpose better.

Look what I found. Sounds expensive but divide by 12 and it’s less than most single pieces I found. Monogrammed with my daughter’s initials. The only vegetable she likes. Is it a sign?

(sorry Seagrass I promise I’ll stop derailing!)

My asparagus garden will soon be giving me many meals of spring treats. I couldn't find on youtube any instruction videos on how to use asparagus tongs. Will my asparagus taste not as good without the tongs? :-)

dcarch

Well you could use your fingers but then they might taste like sushi.

"foodonastump

Well you could use your fingers but then they might taste like sushi."

More wasabi please!

dcarch

Seagrass, I hope you still have power. Stay warm.

I planted 100 asparagus crowns 2 years ago, another 100 last year. I'm looking forward to lots of asparagus this spring. I've never used tongs to eat it, though, and didn't even know such a thing existed. I also have never seen the need to peel asparagus. I just eat it, sometimes snapping off a fresh stalk in the garden and happily munching away.

FOAS, you definitely need those. (Yeah, that's called enabling, LOL)

Annie

$125 per piece?...only 900?...coin quality....but...not sterling.

Yeah! I am jealous....you buying them?

I don't understand why you want those tongs. Even in the most polite society it's expected that you eat asparagus with your fingers. Lol

I hear ya Linda... but here are the cheapest ones currently on eBay.

I bought some bamboo spoons with a round bowl, similar to a soup spoon. I love to eat oatmeal or ice cream with them. Nobody else cares for them. Just me.

We just got power back after almost 24 hours. Cold in the house!

I never heard of asparagus tongs, either.

I have a "pudding" spoon if that counts. It doesn't match the rest of my flatware, but only pudding can be eaten with it.

"---I never heard of asparagus tongs, either."

That is because no one has a need for one. OTOH, the most difficult food to eat (proper etiquette) is peas.

There should be a special pea eating thing for the dinner table. May be a large diameter straw to suck up the peas? :-)

dcarch

Well by that logic no one has a need for chop sticks. I manage quite fine with them, but offhand can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be easier to eat with other methods.

But DC your comment re sushi had me googling. Trying to limit my reading to legitimate sources, seems that either chop sticks or fingers is acceptable, some higher end places preferring fingers. Some seem to think that non-natives using fingers looks try-hard. I’ll stick with chop sticks, but did learn about dipping into soy sauce fish side down. I also learned what I already well suspected, that my request for extra wasabi and mixing it into a thick paste is a big faux pas. Not sure how to work around that one!

Rob, now I’m off to see what a pudding spoon is and why it can only be used for pudding. :)

Glad to see the post your power was restored. We are north of Boston and concluded with 23" of snow, I'm sick of it. As for a favorite -- perhaps essential -- utensil? I can't cook without chopsticks! Stirring, poking, turning stuff over, whatever -- really feel lost without a pair (the utilitarian kind). As for eating -- not much stops me from eating, LOL!

I'm a dolt is how its a pudding spoon (there's no such thing). Just trying to zhoosh up a nonfancy dessert.

For eating pudding, yogurt, and ice cream soft types of food, a tiny silicone spatula will allow you to scrape off 100% of the leftover. No waste.

dcarch

Rob, I suspect your pudding spoon is what I am calling a "place spoon"....and also use it for cereal and sometimes soup....and ice cream...demitasse for ice cream? You're kidding? Right?And Yeah, stumpy, I already saw all those tongs...

It is a place spoon. For flatware I never owned. I have no idea how it came to be in my possession? Isn't it funny the things we do? Humans.

I eat peas with my round soup spoon!

I use tortilla chips to eat chili with. Scoop it like dip.

I also have two asparagus servers -- not tongs -- both English. There are also serving tongs for asparagus but alas, I do not have a pair.

I came here especially to see if Seagrass had power yet, and she does. Hurray!

Stay warm, everyone.

Annie

Well...I have a yoked asparagus server....it doesn't have a full set of hallmarks but enough to know it's probably not British.
Some silver patterns list a gumbo or a chowder spoon, which seems broader and shallower than a cream soup. I don't have one of each in the same pattern. And one of the silver patterns I have has 6 boullion spoons in addition to the chowder spoons. They look like a creamed soup spoon but smaller. There was one in the drawer when I was a little girl adn I loved eating my soup with it....no idea what happened to it.
And I use an antique mote spoon to get olives out of the bottle. It has a longer handle than an olive spoon and no little barb on the end.
and when I serve a whole wheel of cheese I use a cheese scoop. I have about 5...given my husband's profession, I took to collecting them.
Must find me some asparagus tongs!

I have an olive spoon I bought in the Netherlands that has a long handle like an iced tea spoon. The bowl of the spoon is small and round with perforations in it. It's so handy to get olives and pickled onions out of a jar. Don't know how I ever lived without it.

Never heard of asparagus tongs...they do look cool, and I love asparagus.

Out of my price range, though.

It hasn't STOPPED snowing in the Massachusetts Milltown. That last blizzard is long gone, but it left it's remains to hover here.

Linda -- I have a set of silver that has bouillon and gumbo spoons. When I get back, I'll take a photo and post.

I also have a mote spoon -- but that's not a utensil for eating -- it's for straining tea and poking errant tea leaves back in the pot from the spout. But we're not talking about serving utensils here -- we're talking about odd ones for using to eat with.

I have a bunch of spoons I bought to use as egg spoons that are somewhere between a demitasse and a teaspoon. We like those for ice cream, too. I'm not sure what they're really meant for--perhaps condiment spoons, but the handles are kind of short for that.

My parents repurposed our long-handled silver baby spoons for condiments and those worked very well indeed.

And I have 2 "youth sets"..like 3/4 sided adult settings and the knives are good for serving cracker spreads...bigger than a butter knife but smaller than a table knife.

those sporks are interesting implements of self torture...

Proper name for a "spork" is a runciple spoon. The word always makes me think of the poem The Owl and the Pussy Cat. Yeah, trust a literature teacher to know some odd piece of trivia.

My girls always liked those little cocktail forks for eating things like shrimp cocktail, although Ashley would even use them for mac and cheese.

My Emily loves to eat anything with a tiny fork. I always put a package of tiny cocktail forks in her Christmas stocking. She saves them for when she's eating "cute food".

And I have 2 "youth sets"..like 3/4 sided adult settings and the knives are good for serving cracker spreads...bigger than a butter knife but smaller than a table knife.

Yep, I have those ... and I use them for the same purpose.

Things I like:
- I am country hick and can't eat with chopsticks. Furthermore, I don't even have the good grace to be abashed about it.

- I do have an affinity for my bouillon soup spoons; they're so round and friendly-looking. And soup is a friendly food.

- I have asparagus "rafts" (real name?), which are for stabbing asparagus before grilling it. My husband's big-time into his Big Green Egg Grill, so we have many implements for grilling. Separate topic ... I have a tall, thin pot with a lift-out interior pot, which is for steaming asparagus.

- I have more serving spoons than any one person should own. Perhaps 35-ish? Not fancy things, just serving spoons, slotted spoons, pie servers, meat forks ... but I never run out when I host a pot luck.

- I have pretty cheese servers with "jeweled" handles.

- When I was a kid, I loved those little wooden spoons that came with ice cream, but I haven't seen them in forever.

I agree - asparagus is to be eaten with ones fingers.

Victorian that I am, I adore special utensils for lots of different foods. I have oyster forks, fish knives and forks, fruit knives and forks, ice tea spoons, grapefruit spoons (very useful!), and demitasse spoons. I don't have strawberry forks or ice cream spoons - wish I did!

I do have both cream soup spoons and the larger place spoon which can be used for soup or for dessert.

I have a couple of strawberry forks.....they also work for serving pickles and things like smoked oysters and pickled herring.

Strawberry forks... I am happily intrigued!!

Strawberry forks....high on the list of things one can do without...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-DURGIN-WATTEAU-STERLING-SILVER-STRAWBERRY-FORK-EXCELLENT-CONDITION-M-/202220390119
Not looking....I don't ned any more!!!

I used to love eating w/ the tiny 'fish forks' my mother still has in her kitchen drawer, and our old silver long handled 'baby' spoons as well. Now I have a little set of long handled, tiny bowled spoons from Sweden that are perfect for ice cream, pudding etc.

I am a heathen, I’ve never used anything but a knife and fork for asparagus. I love my new soup spoons. I actually sometimes just serve soup with the intent of using them

https://images.replacements.com/images/images2/flatware/O/P0000072844S0061T2.jpg

Love my kiwi spoons. Love shopping in Germany...they have a utensil for anything edible.