I did my stint as a vegetarian for quite some time, and ended up with a gnarly case of Epstein-Barr from shared utensils in a communal kitchen situation when I was living in an Ashram in Venice Beach, California for several months. It kicked my butt so hard, that I'm dealing with the consequences of that to this day. This is why my playa name for Burning Man is "Kitchen Nazi" (again, my apologies to those who would take offense to the latter part of my desert handle, but it is what it is, and it's quite accurate if you read on...)
I was hired on to be one of the chefs for Sacred Spaces during Burning Man of 2013, and for someone who is an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) as well as somewhat anti-social in spite of my loving everyone... I realized that it was going to be impossible for me to navigate around the culinary mess in any other way except to keep it clean. And I mean, CLEAN.
It fell to me to make sure that everyone had fresh table ware once the dining elements had been addressed because there was no way I could assist with the cooking. Those kids were nuts. I've run restaurants, and owned one too. The health code violations were going to fall on my shoulders if we were checked. As it turns out, we were. And often. Because we (and by "we" I mean me) came up with some rather stellar ideas for cleanliness in the midst of 68K of the unwashed masses where water was rare, and had to be trucked in. Look at that woman, would you have argued with her?
Aside from hand washing stations, I implemented a three part cleansing system for dishes and utensils, keeping in mind how sick I'd become once upon a time. The process wasn't too far from what you might see in a bar: wash, rinse, dip in cleansing solution (suitable for humans) and go.
Our camp was one of the largest on site, with over 300 people on the Boardwalk. So, yeah. It was a nightmare. On the other hand, I'm proud to announce that no one became ill. Bonus points for me, but I was rabid about the cleanliness. Hence, the name. I barked orders and had a monocle. Honestly, I wasn't well received. They didn't ask me back, but I do know that the ritual of "how to keep the silverware clean" is still working.
You know what would have been cool? Chopsticks. Wooden chopsticks in paper are biodegradable and useful. But not everyone knows how to use them. Which brings us full circle back to French Toast and Bacons.
Because it's never too late to have a happy childhood, I tend to eat my foods with my fingers and... you got it, chopsticks. This morning was all about me flinging my bacon around with the chopsticks. My dog was quite happy with the result, The Big Guy, not so much. We got into one of our stellar conversations, this time about the history of silverware. Forks, knives, etc.
I'm a bonafide Noitall, so I regaled The Big Guy with my superior knowledge and stated that chopsticks are the oldest and most useful of all utensils. That mankind should always have eaten with chopsticks, and probably used twigs before carving them. They were, indeed, very old.
The Big Guy put his fork down in the midst of maple syrup and French Toast while picking a piece of flung bacon off his shoulder and calmly stated the blasphemy contradicting my supreme knowledge of flatware. He said, "Nah. Spoons were first. In fact, seashells and leaves were probably used longer than bread." He turned around and showed me the thing on the wall that I've become blind to. A very large, hand carved and painted spoon as an example.
He tends to be very wise and smart about these things, so I blinked my horror at his obvious brain power and used the oracle later on to determine how incorrect he --cough-- I might be.
From the gourmetgiftbasket.com section of The History of Utensils I found this:
Hands down, spoons take the cake as the oldest eating utensil, next to fingers, of course. Spoons date back to the Paleolithic period before the woolly rhinoceroses went extinct. In other words, theyโve been around for a while. Itโs thought that the spoon most likely originated in southern Europe.
It went on to state that chopsticks weren't really as old as spoons, you see. I should have known better. I'm married to a "Messerschmidt" and thus I've become one by paper. The name literally means "knife smith". His people have been making flatware for centuries! However, it turns out that the Egyptians were the first to use forks, but not necessarily for eating. Mostly for food prep. It was the Italians who made forks popular!
As you can imagine, my brain was verging on mutiny for not knowing any of this, and so I felt it was my responsibility to share with anyone who might want to know what the fork was going on. Now that you know, hit that "subscribe" button up there, and stick around for more forking ideas and bacon flinging.
Thank you, so much, for reading and I always welcome your comments!
Take a look at @Labyrinths when you have a moment, and join our community if you're interested. We just started it, so there's not much going on yet, but if you're ever in the need for a noitall bacon flinging psychic, you can find me online at Brigid's Aether
