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Recommended Resources |
All About CutleryIsn’t it time you know all about cutlery, those cutting tools, for example knives, razors, and scissors used for manufacturing, business, and household purposes? Cutlery refers to any hand utensil used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food. The term can have the more precise meaning of knives and other cutting instruments in the United States, where eating utensils are more usually known as flat- or tableware. The knife, fork and spoon are the major items of cutlery in the western world. Cutlery gets its name from the word used for someone trained in making knives, a cutler. Sharp edged rocks, shells and flint were used to make cutlery in prehistoric times. Later on copper and bronze, and in the nineteenth century, pewter and electroplated nickel silver was used, until the discovery of steel alloys, from which most cutlery is made today. Plastic flatware is made to be disposable and is used in most fast-food restaurants. Many countries, such as England, are now renowned for their superior cutlery. The Making Of CutleryEarly steel manufacturing methods involved hammering charcoal into red-hot iron bars. In the 18th century Benjamin Huntsman built new types of furnaces in Sheffield, England, for making highly refined steel in clay vessels called crucibles. His process greatly improved the availability and quality of steel used in cutlery manufacture. Today, cutlery steel consists of iron to which from 0.35 to 1 percent carbon has been added. The town of Sheffield still holds on to a practical monopoly of the regular cutlery trade in Great Britain, and remains the chief center of the industry for the whole world.
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Cutlery and Accessories
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