Spoons and forks

We had a cellar, and the stairs down to it, off the kitchen, had shelves, and that was the larder. But the cellars were excellent for keeping things cool.

My paternal granny had a big old pre-war fridge that lived in the back of a storage area behind the kitchen. It made a lot of strange rumbling noises but we learned to ignore them. It had a freezing compartment in which ice cream was occasionally made for a treat, to be eaten with fresh berries from the garden. Maternal granny had a meat safe and a marble slab.

My granny's pantry was under the stairs, with mesh at the window, marble slab and other shelves. She didn't get a fridge until about the 60s, and even then grumbled that she didn't really need one!

My nana's mangle was in the back kitchen. When my brother first noticed it, aged about 5, he thought it was a brilliant invention..we'd been living in E Africa where everything dried quickly in the sunshine with minimum of wringing!
p.s. at the back of the back kitchen was a walk in pantry with a big marble shelf and a mesh fronted, wall mounted cupboard!

Greatnan At one time I used to collect knife rests – small stands, often made of silver, for resting your used knife on until the next course was served. I would guess, therefore, that having more than one table knife at any one meal was not always common in the UK.

Oh, you've just reminded me of my granny's wash-house, Annobel!
She kept the dolly-tub and the mangle in there - did a weekly wash every Monday! I don't remember her ever getting a proper washing machine.

nina, both my grannies had huge 'kitchens' and minute sculleries behind in which cooking and washing up took place. On granny has a wash-house but by the time I knew her, it was used as a general storage place or bikes etc. The other one had a range of out-houses one of which was known as the pram house and another was - maybe had been - the coach house! There was a place for storing the apples from all her many trees.

Perhaps a dessert fork is not essential. I think we have to be grateful if our grandchildren can use their cutlery properly. A lot of young families eat with their fingers in front of the television and are unable to use cutlery in the right way.
I read a while back that young school children are having to be taught how to hold cutlery when eating school meals!

The house my nan lived in until I was about 10 had gas light. A front parlour and dining room either side of the hall. At the end of the hall was the kitchen, which was the room she spent the most time in. This is where the TV was and had nothing resembling a "kitchen" in it the sink and cooker etc being in the scullery.

And the "loo" being in the back garden

We have a "utility room" which opens off our back door so is the first room we enter and where all the boots and coats are left. My DGD has christened it "the mud room" and it has stuck because it was so descriptive!

My nana called her kitchen the back kitchen! There was no front kitchen..just the parlour for 'best'..whenever that was.. and the back room where every day living happened!

I think I might try asking for clean cutlery - might end up with a knife in my chest!

Greatnan it happens all the time here knife and fork wrong way round and keeping your cutlery from one course to the next. In one Auberge we had to use the same plate for starter, main and cheese, luckily got a clean plate for the dessert, phew

As to the reference to irons, I haven't been in the forces but believe it started with my grandad who was in the army. I have just heard it all my life. I thought everyone said it.

I remember the call at RAF Padgate (square-bashing hell) "Outside with your mug and irons" - before being marched to the mess... eating irons were occasionally also referred to as "gobbling rods"... very occasionally.

I have got over my slight attack of the grumps, having had a wonderful two hour walk over the ski slopes in sunshine, with a view of Lake Geneva, sparkling in the distance, and the snow-capped peaks of the Mont Blanc Range in the other direction!
I am usually all in favour of trivia, banter, light-heartedness,, etc but I think I might be a tad over-sensitive because I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and I hate the idea that anyone is judging anyone else because they use the 'wrong' word.
All the terraced houses in Salford had a parlour, kitchen and scullery. Even quite large families would hardly ever use the parlour. Cooking was done on a range in the kitchen and the family ate and relaxed there as well. The scullery had the sink - a shallow brown 'slop-stone' with a white enamel bowl in it.
I am reading Bill Bryson's 'At home' in which he traces the development of the home from its first roots. It is fascinating. The rooms in some big houses are mind-boggling - cheese room, preserve room, bread room, ice room, boot room, tackle room, ironing room, laundry, gun room.........
I have a kitchen, dining room, living room and bedroom - well actually, they are all the same room! I do have a separate double bedroom but I prefer to sleep on my settee so I can watch TV or surf when I can't sleep.

I have never noticed anyone eating with their fork in their right hand in France, and certainly place settings in restaurants are always conventional. Perhaps it is a regional thing. I do find it odd that you are often expected to keep your dirty knife and fork from from your starter to use in your main meal. I used to put them tidily on my plate, as you would in England, but the waiter would often remove them and dump them on the table quite grumpily. I now know that you use your bread to clean them!

That's right, Elegran! I'd forgotten.

Not just the RAF. Eating irons in the army too.

Trivia is sometimes just that, and a little light relief. I do spend quite a bit of time sorting through requests for aid from less economically developed countries, it can make you heart ache.

Ah! Could be - my father also said it, and he was in the RAF during the war.

My father also called them eating irons, is it something to do with the RAF?

DH calls cutlery eating irons as well, burgundy. I'd never heard that before I met him. He's Welsh.

BurgundyGran My mother was left-handed – couldn't do a thing with her right hand and even ate left-handed. My ex and my son-in-law are both left-handed, but eat right-handed; my eldest grandson is right-handed but eats left-handed.

I suppose it was being a silver service waitress (one of my many jobs when children were young) but a spoon and fork are really necessary to eat dessert. I hate chasing food around the plate or dish whether it be starter, main or dessert and require the proper utensils (or irons as referred to in our house!) Needing special cutlery due to RA in my hands I take my own with me to eat out and I ask the restaurant/café to rinse them for me too! They usually oblige.

The thing that I find weird though is over here the French use their cutlery the other way round - fork in right hand and knife in the left. My grandchildren have started doing the same since starting school here and eating at cantine. They always used them the 'proper' way, learning in England. To me it is so cackhanded!

We had a room which was known as the 'stag' room because when we bought the house there was a horrible motheaten stag's head mounted on the wall! This diferentiated it from the sitting/drawing room depending upon which parent was referring to it. We also had a kitchen and a scullery but I have a kitchen and a untility room, what's the difference?

Oh, and DD is using it as a greenhouse at the moment too.