posted 01-28-2001 09:41 PM            

I have a knife with a blunt blade that's sharp. It's marked 800, so I understand it's from the Continent.

The knife is 10 3/8" long and has a hollow handle decorated in the Rococo style.

How would this knife be used?

posted 01-29-2001 09:32 AM            

I can't imagine a fruit knife that large, but knives with silver blades were supposedly for fruit, since the silver didn't create a bad taste with the acid of the fruit, as steel supposedly did.

I think of small carving knives, for game, as pointed-bladed, but then I don't know everything.

posted 01-29-2001 10:09 AM            

You've provided food for thought.

Pat

quote:

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Originally posted by Ulysses Dietz:
A blunt blade--steel? or silver? The size of it suggests a dinner knife--but that term is wholely 19th century.

Steel bladed knives of that size would not be unheard of simply for cutting (and eating) food. Before the elaboration of 19th-century table manners, knives were far more actively involved in eating--the round-headed knife superscedes the pointed knife when the fork takes over the piercing role in the 18th century. The rounded headed knife let it be used for eating with less risk to mouth and lips.

I can't imagine a fruit knife that large, but knives with silver blades were supposedly for fruit, since the silver didn't create a bad taste with the acid of the fruit, as steel supposedly did.

I think of small carving knives, for game, as pointed-bladed, but then I don't know everything.

Helpful?

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