Eating with your fingers is a rare sensual pleasure that’s sadly frowned upon in most upmarket restaurants these days.
So - cutlery technology hasn’t changed much in recent years. Sure, here in the West, we’ve had to master chopsticks when eating out, but ditching knives and forks in favour of a couple of twigs for an evening is hardly revolutionary. There hasn’t been a cutting-edge development in cutlery technology since the invention of the knife.
Most forks have four stiffly rigid tines. Good for spearing things, but not much else. Articulate the tines, add an opposable one, and suddenly you’ve got a much more useful eating implement. Like a little hand on the end of a stick. A small button on the end of the fork activates the grasping mechanism of the implement – allowing you to grab individual peas, and grasp a steak in a wee tiny mitt as you raise it up to your slavering mouth.
Fork hands give you a far more hands-on experience of eating. Of course, each set comes with a teeny tiny “proper” knife and fork that you can pick up with your fork hands for a truly recursive dining experience.-- lostdog, May 23 2005 Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.-- justaguy, May 23 2005 I foresee hygienic problems with articulated utensils. If, however, the business end were covered with a little white latex glove with bulbous fingers and a little thonging on the back of the hand (for that classy look--you could always have a pinky extender, too), then, my friend, a winner you would have.-- Soterios, May 23 2005 [+], for recursive dining alone. Very alone.
//grab individual peas// Sounds too small.
The grasping motion will be hard to get used to. That is, having the metal ungrasp in my mouth as I try to pull the peas away seems a little akward. I could be very wrong.
As for pushing buttons and controlling a little mechanical hand while I eat, I can't even remember my name while I'm eating, and I like to eat fast, will your hand have different grasping speeds?-- daseva, May 23 2005 No, but I'll try to make sure I have my hands in my pockets if ever I have you round for dinner, daseva. Otherwise, by the sound of things, you'd be up to my elbow before I even noticed...-- lostdog, May 23 2005 I like it, but I confess what I expected when I entered the room was fingertip utensils.
Rings that slide halfway up the first joint of your fingers, with inch-long spooncups, fork tines, and short knife blades.
Damn, I wonder if this is baked....-- normzone, May 23 2005 Dinner? Where?!?!-- daseva, May 23 2005 //each set comes with a teeny tiny "proper" knife and fork// I love that! That is dining to the extreme...wait, what if they made that an extreme sport? I would SO do that.-- hobbitcoat, May 23 2005 isn't this just prosthetics and robotics, already in production?-- dentworth, May 23 2005 I hope so, dentworth.-- lostdog, May 24 2005 Hahahaha! Where's my illustration, damnit? What good are you people if you can't even draw a Seussian sketch of telescoping forks and knives all grabbing each other in a fruitless attempt to satisfy hunger?
Also, will the forks have elbows?-- k_sra, May 26 2005 [k_sra], that sounds pretty funny.-- daseva, May 26 2005 k_sra - yes they would, but it would be rude to put them on the table.-- lostdog, May 26 2005 Why complicate the simple? How about adding a lazer to zero in on the steak? Knives and forks have worked quite well since the sixteenth century and chopsticks are even better. Simply learn to use your tools.-- MauiChuck, May 27 2005 The buttons can be dispensed with if you use the weight of the hand at the end of the device to control the opening and closing, i.e., as the hand moves down it closes around the target (pea) (fully closed when almost vertical down) and when the hand moves up towards the mouth it is open. [NB, this would have to be reversed if you habitually place your dinner plate on your belly while recumbent on the sofa and feed yourself in a near comatose state. In this case the device should open when vertically down.] Other than that, I think my refinement not bad.-- Billydekid, May 27 2005 random, halfbakery