May 12, 2017 • 28 mins
How has the spork captured so much attention? Who designed such a questionably useful utensil? Anney and Lauren explore the surprisingly rich history of the spork.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annie Reeese and
I'm Lauren back Obam and today we're talking about sports. Yep,
it's kind of a funny story how we came to
decide on this as a topic. I was running in
the morning, as I often do, and I've had the
song Sugar Sugar stuck in my head for weeks because
(00:33):
of the related to the Sugar episode Sugar and Honey.
Oh yeah, yeah, Oh no, I got it. I got
it in my head last week when we were talking
about Honey and I couldn't get it out on my run.
So I was desperately like thinking, what is something something
else we could talk about or anything else, and my
mind desperately cast upon the sport And then when I
(00:57):
brought it up, it's like a potential episode or and
I did a quick Google search and we found a
Salon article with the headline quote the history of the
Humble Spoon Fork includes shocking racism and sexism, and a
funny Bill Clinton cameo. So that was it. We were
(01:18):
just like, well, then we have to do this now,
there's no turning back. No, no, we hope, we hope
that you understand and in case you haven't seen one
of these crazy looking things. It's an eating utensil purportedly
at the combination of a spoon and a fork another portmanteau. Yes,
(01:39):
it's basically a spoon with tiny little prongs on the end. Yeah,
and I usually think of the plastic kind that comes
with fast food, and I'm I don't. I don't think
I've ever seen one, not that um, I haven't seen
one like in the wild. But but if you really
need to have like a long lasting, sturdy sport, you
(01:59):
can definitely get titanium ones. They're apparently popular with campers.
I yeah, I can see that. I can only hope
it would be slightly more functional fingers crossed. Yeah, And
apparently foon fo n is also a thing, and if
you throw a knife in there too, it becomes a splade,
(02:22):
sometimes called a sport. Oh. I wish I had the
opportunity to use that word more often. Um, you've also
got a spife, which is a spoon knife hybrid designated
for eating kiwi in particular, or a nork a knife fork. Um.
And these combination of tools are often called joined tools.
(02:48):
And as you can probably tell from our tone, if
not your own, personal experience. Yes, the spork is a
bit of a joke in the culinary world. Um, since
the bowls too shallow to hold much liquid and the
prongs are too short spear anything and any liquid that
(03:08):
you do get in the shallow bowl is just going
to dribble out from it between You've got to have delicate, yes,
very careful. Um. So it's pretty useless. Yeah, but that,
of course didn't stop it from developing a occult following.
In fact, according to spork dot org yep um, their
(03:30):
uselessness is a metaphor for human nature. All yeah, I know.
Quote a spork is a perfect metaphor for human existence.
It tries to function as both spoon and fork, and
because of this dual nature, it fails miserably at both.
You cannot have soup with a spork. It is far
(03:50):
too shallow. You cannot eat meat with a spork, the
prongs are too small. There are a lot of websites
that have been dead catered to it over the years,
and and haiku written in their honor um. One that
was featured in that Salon article goes the sport true beauty,
the times the bowl the long stem life is now
(04:14):
complete man, you just heard a hik about us. For
I think about that for a second. Um, And you
can make things out of them like for example, this
was another example featured in the Salon article the leaning
tower of sport or Batman featured in a house Stuff
(04:37):
Works article. By bending down the two middle times, um.
For for the sports super fan, you can drop two
and fifty dollars on a hand carved wooden spork pendant
on Etsy. How many sports super fans do you think
are out there? I don't know, but there was more
than one sport pendant available from more than one seller,
(04:58):
so I don't know. Well, all right, more power to you.
Today sports are commonly used on airlines, fast food chains, schools,
the military, like Lauren said, by campers, and in prisons
since it's tricky to make a shift out of a sport,
and they are specifically designed sports with shorter times for prisons.
(05:22):
But in two thousand and eight, an Alaskan man was
arrested for attempting to rob a fast food fried chicken
restaurant with a sport and the victim had four quote
parallel scratches. Just pretty impressive. Oh, I'm sorry that I'm
laughing about someone getting attacked. It's not funny, that's not
that's not good. But the sport is I would have
(05:42):
gone for the fork. I would have gone five. I
honestly might have tried to spoon over a spork. I
actually like, I'll dig your eyebout eyeballs up kind of thing,
like I don't know that that it was an interesting choice.
It was, yeah, big creative, you know, very we appreciate creativity,
we do. And the history of the spork is longer
(06:05):
than Laurena and I suspect it certainly. Yeah, um okay.
Supposedly it showed up in the Century Dictionary for the
first time in nineteen o nine in a supplement. I
haven't been able to actually track that down, like everyone
says it, but no one has an actual reference to
the things. So so it's a possibility that the word
(06:26):
spork was floating around in nineteen nine. Definitely a possibility
for sure. The word spork, the name spork was not
trademarked in the United States until nineteen seventy. Yeah, the
history of the sport is kind of backwards. Yeah, it
goes way back, though, it does, all the way back
to the late medieval times. There was a utensil that
(06:49):
was a combo of the fork and spoon, But in
the early stages of spork evolution, the spoon was at
one end of the handle and the fork at the
other um, which probably was more useful and also kind
of what the sport has become now. Interestingly, Yeah, these
these may have been used for eating candied fruits and
syrup um, and and they're called suckets. Of course they are.
(07:14):
That's almost as ridiculous as sport. People of eighteen hundreds
might use a sport like terrapin forks for eating turtles
which had longer prongs, or ice cream forks which were
very ornate, kind of beautiful spoon fork combinations with three
prongs for eating, as you could guess, probably from from
(07:36):
the name, yes, probably. Edward Lear's seventy one poem The
Owl and the pussy Cat makes a mention of a
potentially sport like thing called run stable spoon. However, a
later illustration that he provided in in the perhaps lesser
known work twenty six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures portrays the
(07:57):
rencible spoon is more something like a like a ladle um. Nonetheless,
lots of dictionaries do define the runstable spoon as being
something like a sport. To be fair, Leir totally made
the word up. His His work often featured invented nonsense words,
so it's gotta up to anyone's imagination. I suppose. Yeah,
the title kind of implies there might be some some
(08:17):
nonsense in there. Speaking of ridiculous, our next bit of
spork history involves a really wacky inventor, dude. Um, But
but first, let's take a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. In
(08:43):
February of eighty four, Samuel W. Samuel W. Francis filed
a patent for a hybrid spoon and fork and a
knife like edge, but not a sharp knife. Were like
a better knife, but we don't really know if it
was ever produced on a larger scale. Yeah, this thing
looks incredibly even more ridiculous than the modern sport. The
(09:07):
knife part is attached to one edge of the spoon,
so I hope it was dull certainly too. You'd have
to eat just real carefully with it. I don't maybe,
Maybe am I just some kind of terrible monster for
occasionally putting my flatwear in my mouth? As I'm eating.
Is that a thing that humans don't do? I I
(09:27):
don't know. But by the way, though, this dude was great.
Um he was. He was this high society guy who
probably never moved his UM. I guess it would technically
be displayed or a sport. He never moved it into
production because he was busy like founding groups in Newport,
Rhode Island, including their Natural History Society, their Society for
(09:48):
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and what would eventually
become their Board of Health. Oh, also writing a few
books and patenting other great crazy stuff, like a typewriter
that you is a piano like keyboard for its input,
you know, with like like long ivory and short ebony keys,
which goes by the nickname literary piano. I love it.
He also made a spring loaded coffin that a person
(10:11):
could easily open from the inside in case they were
buried alive, which was a very popular thing to be
worried about at the time. UM. Seriously, if you guys
have never read up on this, google safety coffins. Sometimes
it's just just a great little bit of a cob history. Um.
Anyway back to sports, right, George Alaramie entered the sport
(10:33):
ring with his nineteen o seven patent of a table utensil.
Quote that kind of looks like a spoon with a
fork on the end. It's like a spoon, a complete
spoon and then a fork. Oh yeah, uh. And I
failed to see how you'd be able to get any
souper whatever went out having yourself. I guess if you
(10:55):
sipped carefully from the edge. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah,
I have difficulty enough, so I don't need that at
an obstacle um. British company Fortnum and Mason introduced a
combo spoon knife fork in their nineteen fourteen Christmas catalog
for Army officers, and a hundred years later the design
(11:17):
firm Matt Project helped them reintroduce the utensil, which they
call the much more dignified tri tensil. It looks a
lot actually like Samuel Francis's patent. Oh I did. I
had no idea there'd be so many different words for
different versions of sports. It's great. Australian William MacArthur debut
(11:38):
displayed another three in one utensil at his wife's cafe
in the nineteen forties. And it saw actually semi decent success.
By the nineteen sixties, it was mass produced and it
became the gift of choice at weddings and a popular
utensil for barbecues and buffet's And uh I when I
(11:59):
read this, I was confused why barbecues was included specifically.
But I do have an Australian barbecue story. One time
I was in Australia and I was at a barbecue
and they had kangaroo steaks, of course. Yeah, and by
the time I got to the end of the buffet,
they didn't have any forks or knives or spoons. All
(12:22):
that was left was the sport. Yeah, and there weren't
any tables. So I've got this piece of steak in
one hand. Eventually I just through this work away and
just ate it. Yeah. Yeah, It's not one of my
(12:43):
finer moments, but I did what I had to do.
It's okay, Yeah, that's you know, no one, no one
can blame a girl for improvising. Back to Dislade, over
five million have been sold, and apparently he got the
idea after seeing um a magazine in of women trying
to balance all their utensils and plates that's what made
me think of the story. Um, and I'm not sure,
(13:06):
but maybe this is the sexism thing from Slone's article
figured it out. Yeah, I couldn't. Yeah, I didn't see
that one. The racism thing though. It's based on a
popular myth about the sport, which which might be due
to the fact that that William MacArthur was the inventor
(13:27):
of this displayed right because he shares the name with
General Douglas MacArthur. So supposedly but not really at all.
MacArthur invented the sport during the nineteen forties occupation of Japan,
and the fork was too dangerous in case the Japanese
rose up in MacArthur's eyes anyway, and chopsticks quote too barbaric. Um. Yeah,
(13:52):
hence he introduced the spark into the into the Japanese. Right,
But the days don't really match up but the rest
of the timeline and there's no real proof of it
anywhere actually happening. It is true the army used foldable
combinations of spoons and forks, but not a spork in
the way we think of it. Yeah. The next instance
(14:15):
of the sport is the nineteen fifty two New York
Times article, and there's a comment about a Pennsylvania man's
failed attempt to patent the term sport. But I could
not find anything else beyond that that he tried to
do it and failed. Um. I did want to mention
that the plastic wear took off in the nineteen fifties
and sixties as polypropylene and poly styrene were developed, and
(14:36):
also as the expanding American middle class were We're craving
affordable new kitchen ware and and conveniently disposable picnic were right,
big big era the nineteen sixties, for like, oh man,
it's so convenient you can just throw it away and
that will never create any kind of problem down the line. Yeah, yea,
thanks ninety sixties. So that brings us to sport proper.
(15:02):
In a nineteen or nineteen seventy I read both In Massachusetts,
Van Brood Milling Co. Incorporated by Hold a patent for
sport all cats. Yes, a plastic combo tensil with the
designment you know today. Although in the patent it states
(15:23):
that a knife could sometimes be in the mix that
was acceptable. All the patent expired twenty years later. The
UK's Plastic Co Limited filed a patent for the spork
in nineteen seventy five and under a different company name.
They still own it. And there's there's another UK company
called life Venture and they sell forks booms. Yeah. It
(15:45):
is illegal to call a non PLASTICO limited spark a
spork in the United Kingdom. Don't do that, no, And
the name spork is theorized UM two played a large
role in the success of this bizarre utensil, right because
I mean sport yeah um. And another thing that helped
(16:10):
the sport along was our friend uh KFC oh right
yeah um, presumably to save money by getting you know,
two disposable plastic utensils for the price of one um.
And they were the first fast food restaurant to offer
the sport around yeah, and other restaurant chains followed shortly after,
(16:31):
and the sport this way became available all around the world.
And in ninet Regal Zone we went to court to
try and strike down Classico Limited ownership of the trademark. Um.
They lost, but appealed in two thousand one in a
(16:51):
nutshell Regal Zone as a manufacturer of sports wanted to
be able to call them sports without infringing on Plastico's
trademark and if you want to make your day very
strange and trippy, read a dry legal document describing the
sport and it's crazy. And then in two thousand and six,
(17:13):
in an attempt to modernize the spork, Swedish outdoor supply
company Light My Fire put the spoon and fork on
opposite ends of the handle and added a serrated edge
to one of the forks prongs. So so making a
new version of the second yeah, exactly, which is kind
of interesting. It comes back, um, and light my Fire
(17:35):
has a ton of options for your sport need. They've
got Toddler's sporks, office sports, left handed sports, all kinds
of sporks, and like Laurence said earlier, very popular among campers. Yeah,
because it's easier lightweight. Sure, yeah, I only need one thing. Yeah.
So that's the history part of the sport. And after
(17:55):
this short break, we'll delve into some of the science
of sports spork manufacturing. It's actually really interesting and we're back,
Thank you sponsor. Yes, so I would argue that other
(18:17):
than the fact that the name spork is just so good, um,
the popularity of the spork is is also dependent on
the development of an expensive plastics because they're they're multible
and stampable like metals, but of course very much cheaper.
UM sparks and other plastic wear are made by a
process called thermoforming, which is stamping the shapes out of
(18:39):
big sheets of plastic using metal molds UM. And so
in order to do this thing first you have to
make plastic, meaning that you extract crude oil or natural
gas from the earth and refine it. Yes, your plastic
forks are made from basically the same kind of stuff
that you put in your car UM and you use
(18:59):
the petroleum products because they're both made up of a
series of molecules that are called hydrocarbons UM, which is
a repeating chain of carbon and hydrogen molecules. And when
you heat hydrocarbons to a certain point, they convert into
reactive monomers, which are short chain molecules that are like
really good at linking together into long chains. The long
(19:20):
chains are called polymers UM, and you can process the
polymers differently, the monomers and the polymers differently, and add
various other substances in order to make different kinds of
plastics UM for sports. As I said earlier, you'll probably
use polypropylene or polystyrene, and you'll probably add stabilizers to
help keep the plastic from breaking down, and pig events
to color it, and stuff to just improve the workability
(19:41):
of the plastic during the manufacturing process. Yes, there are
FDA guidelines, Not that they've mentioned sports specifically, but there
are FDA guidelines about what can go into your sport. Perfect.
Once you've created this plastic from your fossil fuel, you
usually manufacture it into um we little like like lentil
(20:05):
sized pellets that are called nerdles. Nerdles is my new
favorite word. This episode did the best for fun words. Nerdles. Okay, alright, UM.
When it's time for production, UM, you melt the nerdles
and then extract them into a into a sheet. You
sort of like push the melted plastic through a long,
(20:27):
thin opening. UM. And then you take the finished sheets
and and you heat one up so it's nice and soft,
and then place it into a mold where where it
accepts the fork shape. Each individual spark is then stamped
out from the large sheet and the scraps are melted
down and reused. UM. I was starting at this juncture
to go into some of the problems of pollution and
(20:50):
waste and worker conditions in the plastic utensil industry. But
I very shortly realized that that is worthy of its own,
very terrible episode, really upsetting. Oh boy, yeah, excellent. Okay,
every time you use a plastic fork, you causing cancer,
not in yourself, thank you lord. Yeah. Well, kind of related,
(21:14):
let's talk about the sports place in pop culture. The
sports staying power is sort of in its ironic, kind
of useless existence that we referenced. Uh and perhaps because
the name, but it's certainly had a few moments in
our pop culture. In President Bill Clinton used the sport
(21:35):
to make a point during the radio and television correspondence
Dinner in Washington, d C. Saying the sport was quote
the symbol of my administration, no more false choice between
the left utensil and the right utensil. And later too
much applause and laughter. Quote this is a big new idea,
(21:56):
the spark And in the two thousand eight Picks are
film Wally, When Wally is sorting through the utensils and
he comes across the sport, he doesn't know how to
categorize it. For his robot hit almost six blues corspoon. Um.
There's a nonprofit group called spork um with an exclamation
(22:17):
point that that seeks to advocate for. It advocates for
and gives voice to UH to quote individuals who have
a physical, mental, or invisible difference the beloved sports of
our society. They call them yeah, which is which is
real sweet. They've got a they've got a few publications,
and they do profiles on different organizations that help out um,
(22:37):
which is really cool. Um. And along this vein a
musical comedy film from called spork featured a titular character
who is intersext and of course there's an app for that.
Of course, of course, or at least there was. I'm
not sure you can download it anymore. Oh I didn't check,
and I don't have my phone on. I stride it
and it said it wasn't available for download. But I
(22:58):
don't know if that was just forever or temperate um.
Either way, it was is called ice Work. The description
in the app store is as follows. Quote the ice
work is almost better than having an actual spork in
your pocket. Almost. This is the definitive app for sport connoisseurs.
(23:22):
And from what I understand you just wiped your spork
around and learned some sport history. So it's nothing I
would ever ever use. But I have to admit I'm
kind of charmed that it exists and that it is
as useless as the sport no offense sport and I spork.
That's pretty much everything we could find on the sport.
(23:46):
I mean, there's probably many other pop culture references out
there that it is. I did a quick check on
on what is it the Google How popular are words
throughout history Google trends. Yeah, and there was a huge
spike of interest in the sport around big big times
for the spark, I guess, um. But yeah, but that's
(24:09):
that's that's the story of the sport. Um. So so
let's let's move on to some listener mail, because we're
still getting lovely messages in from all y'all. Yes, we
heard from Aaron, who, like Lauren, has um an intolerance
of food intolerance. Would you like to read this on Lauren? Sure,
(24:30):
Aaron says, Hey, ladies, I've really enjoyed your podcast so
far and can't wait to see what ideas and topics
you discussed in the future. I'm currently listening to your
Bloody Mary episode and heard Lauren mentioned that she can't
eat pineapple. I can't either. After two decades of enjoying
the sweet tropical fruit, I suddenly became physically unable to
tolerate it. After a horrifying trip to Mexico, I visited
(24:51):
the allergist who determined I wasn't allergic, but developed an
intolerance to the enzyme brome lane bromelane whatever. Sure, um
she didn't she didn't mess up the pronunciation in her email.
Um no uh parenthetical. As a side note, this is
only found in fresh pineapple, so canned fruit and juice
(25:12):
is just fine. A tropical drinks pineapple would be a
fantastic topic, not only due to the fruit scientific uses
um I e. Blane supplements, It's used as a tender
eyes or etcetera, but also it's historic and economic impact
in the Americas. I'm going to get back to the
Bloody Mary's now. Just had to stop everything I was
doing and send this your way. Keep up the great work. Ah,
(25:34):
thank you, Aaron. That's great. I wonder I wonder if
that is, if that is the thing that I've got.
You should check that out. I suppose I should because
if I could be if I could have been drinking
canned pineapple juice this entire time. The cocktails, Oh, my goodness,
the cocktails. Do you know how long it's been since
I've had a Pina Colado? I want to know. I
responded to Aaron, and I was like, well, I'm very
(25:55):
happy you can can at least enjoy pineapple cocktails every
time I go to Trader Vix. It's just it's just
like a like a gambit of danger. Anyway. Um, Yes,
thank you, thank you for writing in, Aaron. Yes, we
also heard from John from Milwaukee and he said, hey, guys,
(26:16):
great Bloody mary episode, and thanks for the Wisconsin shout out.
A shot and a beer for a chaser is popular here.
When Bloody Mary's came around, we figured we serve it
with a beer too. I always order a beer back
out of state. I just appreciated hearing that I really
enjoyed my time in Wisconsin and that it was so
funny the first time I ordered a Bloody Mary and
they just handed me a bear and I was like, Okay,
(26:38):
sure this is what's happening now, willing to roll with it. Yeah,
So thanks, thanks to all of you written and they
We've really gotten some great personal stories and we enjoy
so much hearing from you guys. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, if
you would also like to send us some stuff, you
can do that. We've got an email address. Yep. It
is food Stuff at how stuff works dot com. We're
(27:01):
also on Twitter and Instagram. We are at food stuff
HSW on Twitter and at food stuff on Instagram. Um
And and yeah, well we'll definitely like like keep tuning in.
We'll definitely have to do a whole episode about other
flatwear um and its history sometime. Apparently the fork as
a dining utensil was considered an insult to God in
(27:24):
the eleventh century. That's pretty epic for I want to
know how you had that reputation for sure. Um. And
I would like to add for those who have asked
where this video component is, it is available on Amazon Prime.
If you search how Stuff Works, it should pop up
(27:44):
as a content provider and it's a featured its food
Stuff featured videos. So yeah, check that out if you're interested. Yeah. Yeah,
we've got two episodes up now, one on champagne and
one on yogurt. And for both of those we got
to visit actual producers of this stuff and kind of
see how it's made and which is awesome. Yeah, super cool. Um. Also,
we're even sillier on film than we are on audio,
(28:07):
if you yeah m um. Oh. And also before we go,
thank you so much to h to Null, our audio producer,
and to Tristan who has just taken over editing these
episodes from Annie, which is a large relief. I'm sure
it is very much thanks thanks to both of them.
Without them, we would not be here and we would
not be here without you either. Yes, so thanks so
(28:28):
much for listening. We hope that lots more good things
are coming you in
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annie Reeese and
I'm Lauren back Obam and today we're talking about sports. Yep,
it's kind of a funny story how we came to
decide on this as a topic. I was running in
the morning, as I often do, and I've had the
song Sugar Sugar stuck in my head for weeks because
(00:33):
of the related to the Sugar episode Sugar and Honey.
Oh yeah, yeah, Oh no, I got it. I got
it in my head last week when we were talking
about Honey and I couldn't get it out on my run.
So I was desperately like thinking, what is something something
else we could talk about or anything else, and my
mind desperately cast upon the sport And then when I
(00:57):
brought it up, it's like a potential episode or and
I did a quick Google search and we found a
Salon article with the headline quote the history of the
Humble Spoon Fork includes shocking racism and sexism, and a
funny Bill Clinton cameo. So that was it. We were
(01:18):
just like, well, then we have to do this now,
there's no turning back. No, no, we hope, we hope
that you understand and in case you haven't seen one
of these crazy looking things. It's an eating utensil purportedly
at the combination of a spoon and a fork another portmanteau. Yes,
(01:39):
it's basically a spoon with tiny little prongs on the end. Yeah,
and I usually think of the plastic kind that comes
with fast food, and I'm I don't. I don't think
I've ever seen one, not that um, I haven't seen
one like in the wild. But but if you really
need to have like a long lasting, sturdy sport, you
(01:59):
can definitely get titanium ones. They're apparently popular with campers.
I yeah, I can see that. I can only hope
it would be slightly more functional fingers crossed. Yeah, And
apparently foon fo n is also a thing, and if
you throw a knife in there too, it becomes a splade,
(02:22):
sometimes called a sport. Oh. I wish I had the
opportunity to use that word more often. Um, you've also
got a spife, which is a spoon knife hybrid designated
for eating kiwi in particular, or a nork a knife fork. Um.
And these combination of tools are often called joined tools.
(02:48):
And as you can probably tell from our tone, if
not your own, personal experience. Yes, the spork is a
bit of a joke in the culinary world. Um, since
the bowls too shallow to hold much liquid and the
prongs are too short spear anything and any liquid that
(03:08):
you do get in the shallow bowl is just going
to dribble out from it between You've got to have delicate, yes,
very careful. Um. So it's pretty useless. Yeah, but that,
of course didn't stop it from developing a occult following.
In fact, according to spork dot org yep um, their
(03:30):
uselessness is a metaphor for human nature. All yeah, I know.
Quote a spork is a perfect metaphor for human existence.
It tries to function as both spoon and fork, and
because of this dual nature, it fails miserably at both.
You cannot have soup with a spork. It is far
(03:50):
too shallow. You cannot eat meat with a spork, the
prongs are too small. There are a lot of websites
that have been dead catered to it over the years,
and and haiku written in their honor um. One that
was featured in that Salon article goes the sport true beauty,
the times the bowl the long stem life is now
(04:14):
complete man, you just heard a hik about us. For
I think about that for a second. Um, And you
can make things out of them like for example, this
was another example featured in the Salon article the leaning
tower of sport or Batman featured in a house Stuff
(04:37):
Works article. By bending down the two middle times, um.
For for the sports super fan, you can drop two
and fifty dollars on a hand carved wooden spork pendant
on Etsy. How many sports super fans do you think
are out there? I don't know, but there was more
than one sport pendant available from more than one seller,
(04:58):
so I don't know. Well, all right, more power to you.
Today sports are commonly used on airlines, fast food chains, schools,
the military, like Lauren said, by campers, and in prisons
since it's tricky to make a shift out of a sport,
and they are specifically designed sports with shorter times for prisons.
(05:22):
But in two thousand and eight, an Alaskan man was
arrested for attempting to rob a fast food fried chicken
restaurant with a sport and the victim had four quote
parallel scratches. Just pretty impressive. Oh, I'm sorry that I'm
laughing about someone getting attacked. It's not funny, that's not
that's not good. But the sport is I would have
(05:42):
gone for the fork. I would have gone five. I
honestly might have tried to spoon over a spork. I
actually like, I'll dig your eyebout eyeballs up kind of thing,
like I don't know that that it was an interesting choice.
It was, yeah, big creative, you know, very we appreciate creativity,
we do. And the history of the spork is longer
(06:05):
than Laurena and I suspect it certainly. Yeah, um okay.
Supposedly it showed up in the Century Dictionary for the
first time in nineteen o nine in a supplement. I
haven't been able to actually track that down, like everyone
says it, but no one has an actual reference to
the things. So so it's a possibility that the word
(06:26):
spork was floating around in nineteen nine. Definitely a possibility
for sure. The word spork, the name spork was not
trademarked in the United States until nineteen seventy. Yeah, the
history of the sport is kind of backwards. Yeah, it
goes way back, though, it does, all the way back
to the late medieval times. There was a utensil that
(06:49):
was a combo of the fork and spoon, But in
the early stages of spork evolution, the spoon was at
one end of the handle and the fork at the
other um, which probably was more useful and also kind
of what the sport has become now. Interestingly, Yeah, these
these may have been used for eating candied fruits and
syrup um, and and they're called suckets. Of course they are.
(07:14):
That's almost as ridiculous as sport. People of eighteen hundreds
might use a sport like terrapin forks for eating turtles
which had longer prongs, or ice cream forks which were
very ornate, kind of beautiful spoon fork combinations with three
prongs for eating, as you could guess, probably from from
(07:36):
the name, yes, probably. Edward Lear's seventy one poem The
Owl and the pussy Cat makes a mention of a
potentially sport like thing called run stable spoon. However, a
later illustration that he provided in in the perhaps lesser
known work twenty six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures portrays the
(07:57):
rencible spoon is more something like a like a ladle um. Nonetheless,
lots of dictionaries do define the runstable spoon as being
something like a sport. To be fair, Leir totally made
the word up. His His work often featured invented nonsense words,
so it's gotta up to anyone's imagination. I suppose. Yeah,
the title kind of implies there might be some some
(08:17):
nonsense in there. Speaking of ridiculous, our next bit of
spork history involves a really wacky inventor, dude. Um, But
but first, let's take a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. In
(08:43):
February of eighty four, Samuel W. Samuel W. Francis filed
a patent for a hybrid spoon and fork and a
knife like edge, but not a sharp knife. Were like
a better knife, but we don't really know if it
was ever produced on a larger scale. Yeah, this thing
looks incredibly even more ridiculous than the modern sport. The
(09:07):
knife part is attached to one edge of the spoon,
so I hope it was dull certainly too. You'd have
to eat just real carefully with it. I don't maybe,
Maybe am I just some kind of terrible monster for
occasionally putting my flatwear in my mouth? As I'm eating.
Is that a thing that humans don't do? I I
(09:27):
don't know. But by the way, though, this dude was great.
Um he was. He was this high society guy who
probably never moved his UM. I guess it would technically
be displayed or a sport. He never moved it into
production because he was busy like founding groups in Newport,
Rhode Island, including their Natural History Society, their Society for
(09:48):
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and what would eventually
become their Board of Health. Oh, also writing a few
books and patenting other great crazy stuff, like a typewriter
that you is a piano like keyboard for its input,
you know, with like like long ivory and short ebony keys,
which goes by the nickname literary piano. I love it.
He also made a spring loaded coffin that a person
(10:11):
could easily open from the inside in case they were
buried alive, which was a very popular thing to be
worried about at the time. UM. Seriously, if you guys
have never read up on this, google safety coffins. Sometimes
it's just just a great little bit of a cob history. Um.
Anyway back to sports, right, George Alaramie entered the sport
(10:33):
ring with his nineteen o seven patent of a table utensil.
Quote that kind of looks like a spoon with a
fork on the end. It's like a spoon, a complete
spoon and then a fork. Oh yeah, uh. And I
failed to see how you'd be able to get any
souper whatever went out having yourself. I guess if you
(10:55):
sipped carefully from the edge. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah,
I have difficulty enough, so I don't need that at
an obstacle um. British company Fortnum and Mason introduced a
combo spoon knife fork in their nineteen fourteen Christmas catalog
for Army officers, and a hundred years later the design
(11:17):
firm Matt Project helped them reintroduce the utensil, which they
call the much more dignified tri tensil. It looks a
lot actually like Samuel Francis's patent. Oh I did. I
had no idea there'd be so many different words for
different versions of sports. It's great. Australian William MacArthur debut
(11:38):
displayed another three in one utensil at his wife's cafe
in the nineteen forties. And it saw actually semi decent success.
By the nineteen sixties, it was mass produced and it
became the gift of choice at weddings and a popular
utensil for barbecues and buffet's And uh I when I
(11:59):
read this, I was confused why barbecues was included specifically.
But I do have an Australian barbecue story. One time
I was in Australia and I was at a barbecue
and they had kangaroo steaks, of course. Yeah, and by
the time I got to the end of the buffet,
they didn't have any forks or knives or spoons. All
(12:22):
that was left was the sport. Yeah, and there weren't
any tables. So I've got this piece of steak in
one hand. Eventually I just through this work away and
just ate it. Yeah. Yeah, It's not one of my
(12:43):
finer moments, but I did what I had to do.
It's okay, Yeah, that's you know, no one, no one
can blame a girl for improvising. Back to Dislade, over
five million have been sold, and apparently he got the
idea after seeing um a magazine in of women trying
to balance all their utensils and plates that's what made
me think of the story. Um, and I'm not sure,
(13:06):
but maybe this is the sexism thing from Slone's article
figured it out. Yeah, I couldn't. Yeah, I didn't see
that one. The racism thing though. It's based on a
popular myth about the sport, which which might be due
to the fact that that William MacArthur was the inventor
(13:27):
of this displayed right because he shares the name with
General Douglas MacArthur. So supposedly but not really at all.
MacArthur invented the sport during the nineteen forties occupation of Japan,
and the fork was too dangerous in case the Japanese
rose up in MacArthur's eyes anyway, and chopsticks quote too barbaric. Um. Yeah,
(13:52):
hence he introduced the spark into the into the Japanese. Right,
But the days don't really match up but the rest
of the timeline and there's no real proof of it
anywhere actually happening. It is true the army used foldable
combinations of spoons and forks, but not a spork in
the way we think of it. Yeah. The next instance
(14:15):
of the sport is the nineteen fifty two New York
Times article, and there's a comment about a Pennsylvania man's
failed attempt to patent the term sport. But I could
not find anything else beyond that that he tried to
do it and failed. Um. I did want to mention
that the plastic wear took off in the nineteen fifties
and sixties as polypropylene and poly styrene were developed, and
(14:36):
also as the expanding American middle class were We're craving
affordable new kitchen ware and and conveniently disposable picnic were right,
big big era the nineteen sixties, for like, oh man,
it's so convenient you can just throw it away and
that will never create any kind of problem down the line. Yeah, yea,
thanks ninety sixties. So that brings us to sport proper.
(15:02):
In a nineteen or nineteen seventy I read both In Massachusetts,
Van Brood Milling Co. Incorporated by Hold a patent for
sport all cats. Yes, a plastic combo tensil with the
designment you know today. Although in the patent it states
(15:23):
that a knife could sometimes be in the mix that
was acceptable. All the patent expired twenty years later. The
UK's Plastic Co Limited filed a patent for the spork
in nineteen seventy five and under a different company name.
They still own it. And there's there's another UK company
called life Venture and they sell forks booms. Yeah. It
(15:45):
is illegal to call a non PLASTICO limited spark a
spork in the United Kingdom. Don't do that, no, And
the name spork is theorized UM two played a large
role in the success of this bizarre utensil, right because
I mean sport yeah um. And another thing that helped
(16:10):
the sport along was our friend uh KFC oh right
yeah um, presumably to save money by getting you know,
two disposable plastic utensils for the price of one um.
And they were the first fast food restaurant to offer
the sport around yeah, and other restaurant chains followed shortly after,
(16:31):
and the sport this way became available all around the world.
And in ninet Regal Zone we went to court to
try and strike down Classico Limited ownership of the trademark. Um.
They lost, but appealed in two thousand one in a
(16:51):
nutshell Regal Zone as a manufacturer of sports wanted to
be able to call them sports without infringing on Plastico's
trademark and if you want to make your day very
strange and trippy, read a dry legal document describing the
sport and it's crazy. And then in two thousand and six,
(17:13):
in an attempt to modernize the spork, Swedish outdoor supply
company Light My Fire put the spoon and fork on
opposite ends of the handle and added a serrated edge
to one of the forks prongs. So so making a
new version of the second yeah, exactly, which is kind
of interesting. It comes back, um, and light my Fire
(17:35):
has a ton of options for your sport need. They've
got Toddler's sporks, office sports, left handed sports, all kinds
of sporks, and like Laurence said earlier, very popular among campers. Yeah,
because it's easier lightweight. Sure, yeah, I only need one thing. Yeah.
So that's the history part of the sport. And after
(17:55):
this short break, we'll delve into some of the science
of sports spork manufacturing. It's actually really interesting and we're back,
Thank you sponsor. Yes, so I would argue that other
(18:17):
than the fact that the name spork is just so good, um,
the popularity of the spork is is also dependent on
the development of an expensive plastics because they're they're multible
and stampable like metals, but of course very much cheaper.
UM sparks and other plastic wear are made by a
process called thermoforming, which is stamping the shapes out of
(18:39):
big sheets of plastic using metal molds UM. And so
in order to do this thing first you have to
make plastic, meaning that you extract crude oil or natural
gas from the earth and refine it. Yes, your plastic
forks are made from basically the same kind of stuff
that you put in your car UM and you use
(18:59):
the petroleum products because they're both made up of a
series of molecules that are called hydrocarbons UM, which is
a repeating chain of carbon and hydrogen molecules. And when
you heat hydrocarbons to a certain point, they convert into
reactive monomers, which are short chain molecules that are like
really good at linking together into long chains. The long
(19:20):
chains are called polymers UM, and you can process the
polymers differently, the monomers and the polymers differently, and add
various other substances in order to make different kinds of
plastics UM for sports. As I said earlier, you'll probably
use polypropylene or polystyrene, and you'll probably add stabilizers to
help keep the plastic from breaking down, and pig events
to color it, and stuff to just improve the workability
(19:41):
of the plastic during the manufacturing process. Yes, there are
FDA guidelines, Not that they've mentioned sports specifically, but there
are FDA guidelines about what can go into your sport. Perfect.
Once you've created this plastic from your fossil fuel, you
usually manufacture it into um we little like like lentil
(20:05):
sized pellets that are called nerdles. Nerdles is my new
favorite word. This episode did the best for fun words. Nerdles. Okay, alright, UM.
When it's time for production, UM, you melt the nerdles
and then extract them into a into a sheet. You
sort of like push the melted plastic through a long,
(20:27):
thin opening. UM. And then you take the finished sheets
and and you heat one up so it's nice and soft,
and then place it into a mold where where it
accepts the fork shape. Each individual spark is then stamped
out from the large sheet and the scraps are melted
down and reused. UM. I was starting at this juncture
to go into some of the problems of pollution and
(20:50):
waste and worker conditions in the plastic utensil industry. But
I very shortly realized that that is worthy of its own,
very terrible episode, really upsetting. Oh boy, yeah, excellent. Okay,
every time you use a plastic fork, you causing cancer,
not in yourself, thank you lord. Yeah. Well, kind of related,
(21:14):
let's talk about the sports place in pop culture. The
sports staying power is sort of in its ironic, kind
of useless existence that we referenced. Uh and perhaps because
the name, but it's certainly had a few moments in
our pop culture. In President Bill Clinton used the sport
(21:35):
to make a point during the radio and television correspondence
Dinner in Washington, d C. Saying the sport was quote
the symbol of my administration, no more false choice between
the left utensil and the right utensil. And later too
much applause and laughter. Quote this is a big new idea,
(21:56):
the spark And in the two thousand eight Picks are
film Wally, When Wally is sorting through the utensils and
he comes across the sport, he doesn't know how to
categorize it. For his robot hit almost six blues corspoon. Um.
There's a nonprofit group called spork um with an exclamation
(22:17):
point that that seeks to advocate for. It advocates for
and gives voice to UH to quote individuals who have
a physical, mental, or invisible difference the beloved sports of
our society. They call them yeah, which is which is
real sweet. They've got a they've got a few publications,
and they do profiles on different organizations that help out um,
(22:37):
which is really cool. Um. And along this vein a
musical comedy film from called spork featured a titular character
who is intersext and of course there's an app for that.
Of course, of course, or at least there was. I'm
not sure you can download it anymore. Oh I didn't check,
and I don't have my phone on. I stride it
and it said it wasn't available for download. But I
(22:58):
don't know if that was just forever or temperate um.
Either way, it was is called ice Work. The description
in the app store is as follows. Quote the ice
work is almost better than having an actual spork in
your pocket. Almost. This is the definitive app for sport connoisseurs.
(23:22):
And from what I understand you just wiped your spork
around and learned some sport history. So it's nothing I
would ever ever use. But I have to admit I'm
kind of charmed that it exists and that it is
as useless as the sport no offense sport and I spork.
That's pretty much everything we could find on the sport.
(23:46):
I mean, there's probably many other pop culture references out
there that it is. I did a quick check on
on what is it the Google How popular are words
throughout history Google trends. Yeah, and there was a huge
spike of interest in the sport around big big times
for the spark, I guess, um. But yeah, but that's
(24:09):
that's that's the story of the sport. Um. So so
let's let's move on to some listener mail, because we're
still getting lovely messages in from all y'all. Yes, we
heard from Aaron, who, like Lauren, has um an intolerance
of food intolerance. Would you like to read this on Lauren? Sure,
(24:30):
Aaron says, Hey, ladies, I've really enjoyed your podcast so
far and can't wait to see what ideas and topics
you discussed in the future. I'm currently listening to your
Bloody Mary episode and heard Lauren mentioned that she can't
eat pineapple. I can't either. After two decades of enjoying
the sweet tropical fruit, I suddenly became physically unable to
tolerate it. After a horrifying trip to Mexico, I visited
(24:51):
the allergist who determined I wasn't allergic, but developed an
intolerance to the enzyme brome lane bromelane whatever. Sure, um
she didn't she didn't mess up the pronunciation in her email.
Um no uh parenthetical. As a side note, this is
only found in fresh pineapple, so canned fruit and juice
(25:12):
is just fine. A tropical drinks pineapple would be a
fantastic topic, not only due to the fruit scientific uses
um I e. Blane supplements, It's used as a tender
eyes or etcetera, but also it's historic and economic impact
in the Americas. I'm going to get back to the
Bloody Mary's now. Just had to stop everything I was
doing and send this your way. Keep up the great work. Ah,
(25:34):
thank you, Aaron. That's great. I wonder I wonder if
that is, if that is the thing that I've got.
You should check that out. I suppose I should because
if I could be if I could have been drinking
canned pineapple juice this entire time. The cocktails, Oh, my goodness,
the cocktails. Do you know how long it's been since
I've had a Pina Colado? I want to know. I
responded to Aaron, and I was like, well, I'm very
(25:55):
happy you can can at least enjoy pineapple cocktails every
time I go to Trader Vix. It's just it's just
like a like a gambit of danger. Anyway. Um, Yes,
thank you, thank you for writing in, Aaron. Yes, we
also heard from John from Milwaukee and he said, hey, guys,
(26:16):
great Bloody mary episode, and thanks for the Wisconsin shout out.
A shot and a beer for a chaser is popular here.
When Bloody Mary's came around, we figured we serve it
with a beer too. I always order a beer back
out of state. I just appreciated hearing that I really
enjoyed my time in Wisconsin and that it was so
funny the first time I ordered a Bloody Mary and
they just handed me a bear and I was like, Okay,
(26:38):
sure this is what's happening now, willing to roll with it. Yeah,
So thanks, thanks to all of you written and they
We've really gotten some great personal stories and we enjoy
so much hearing from you guys. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, if
you would also like to send us some stuff, you
can do that. We've got an email address. Yep. It
is food Stuff at how stuff works dot com. We're
(27:01):
also on Twitter and Instagram. We are at food stuff
HSW on Twitter and at food stuff on Instagram. Um
And and yeah, well we'll definitely like like keep tuning in.
We'll definitely have to do a whole episode about other
flatwear um and its history sometime. Apparently the fork as
a dining utensil was considered an insult to God in
(27:24):
the eleventh century. That's pretty epic for I want to
know how you had that reputation for sure. Um. And
I would like to add for those who have asked
where this video component is, it is available on Amazon Prime.
If you search how Stuff Works, it should pop up
(27:44):
as a content provider and it's a featured its food
Stuff featured videos. So yeah, check that out if you're interested. Yeah. Yeah,
we've got two episodes up now, one on champagne and
one on yogurt. And for both of those we got
to visit actual producers of this stuff and kind of
see how it's made and which is awesome. Yeah, super cool. Um. Also,
we're even sillier on film than we are on audio,
(28:07):
if you yeah m um. Oh. And also before we go,
thank you so much to h to Null, our audio producer,
and to Tristan who has just taken over editing these
episodes from Annie, which is a large relief. I'm sure
it is very much thanks thanks to both of them.
Without them, we would not be here and we would
not be here without you either. Yes, so thanks so
(28:28):
much for listening. We hope that lots more good things
are coming you in
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Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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