What is silverware made of

Here's everything you need to know about the history of silver as a metal choice for flatware and dining utensils. Stainless steel forks are silverware. A silver-plated brass candlestick is silverware. And believe it or not, a silver plate is also silverware. Comparison : When you're sick, do you blow your nose with Kleenex or facial tissues? When you're hurt, do you put a Band-Aid on it or an adhesive bandage? The same way people use proprietary eponyms like Kleenex and Band-Aid, the word silverware is used.

Silverware got its name because silver was often used to make flatware. Long after humans evolved past using primitive tools fashioned from bone and stones, they began making more sophisticated utensils from wood, shells, and eventually metal, including bronze, iron, and steel.

The spoon was one of man's earliest inventions, possibly as old as the custom of drinking hot liquids. In Northern Europe, the first spoons were carved from wood. Later specimens were fashioned out of horns of cattle, ivory tusks, bronze, and eventually silver and gold. The earliest mention of spoons made from precious metals is found in the Book of Exodus, when Moses is commanded to make dishes and spoons of pure gold for the Tabernacle.

Moses asked Bezalel the first spoon-maker known to us by name in history to work in gold, silver and brass. Since Bezalel had come with Moses out of Egypt, he must have learned his trade there. Many Egyptian spoons were cast in the form of handled dishes with a cover and a spout, an elaborate but not very practical design.

Greek and Roman spoons, on the other hand, looked much more like the spoons we are used to seeing in modern times. Pan, the patron of shepherds and huntsmen, was honored with spoons in the shape of a goat's foot. The Roman fiddle-patterned spoon, originating in the first or second century A. The first English spoons, made of horn or wood, were probably imitations of those brought in by Roman troops in Britain.

The Angles and Saxons introduced a spoon with small, pear-shaped bowl. By the fourteenth century, castings of bronze, brass, pewter and sheet tin were fairly common. The knife, used by hunters and soldiers for cutting and spearing the meat, was first made of flint, then of metal.

Its main characteristic was a sharp edge. Traces of the primitive knife, such as the incurved shape at the top, or the beveling of the metal to achieve an edge, are still present in some of our styles today.

Handles at first were only long enough to allow a firm grip for carving. In the s, the Duke de Richelieu, chief minister to France's Louis XIII, ordered the kitchen staff to file off the sharp points of all house knives and bring them to the royal table, thereby introducing the knife as an every-day eating utensil for the aristocracy.

Forks were introduced at the table around the time of the Crusades, at the beginning of the twelfth century, when Venice's Doge Domenice Silvie and his Dogess placed a fork beside each plate at one of their banquets. The forks took about three centuries to gain acceptance, probably because the custom of placing food in one's mouths with both hands, five fingers, or—for the refined few—three fingers, was more expedient than using a new gadget.

Most dinner guests first carried their own knives. After the introduction of forks, the custom of guests providing their own eating utensils continued, and attention was given to minimize the space occupied by the knife and fork when not in use, with the fork sometimes serving as a handle for the spoon.

The production of tableware on a wide scale in England after played a large role in improving the dinner-table etiquette. In time, strict laws demanding high standards greatly enhanced the quality of silverware. Silversmiths were required to stamp their name, the place, and the date of their manufactured goods on their pieces.

The word "sterling" came to mean "of unexcelled quality. American silversmiths widely copied these spoons. In fact, the colonial craftsmen's first silver goods were spoons. Table knives with steel blades started to appear around this time as well. However, silver forks and sophisticated serving vessels were rare until the late eighteenth century.

Before the seventeenth century, silver could be melted and poured into shaped molds to be cast into a variety of objects, but more often it was hand beaten with sledge hammers on an anvil, or coerced into flatsheets of the required thickness by a version of the old-fashioned laundry mangle with iron instead of wooden rollers. Well, not quite: materials scientists in France, Germany and the US had, unbeknown to him, already discovered that adding chromium to steel changed the electrode potential of its surface by creating a stable and transparent oxide layer, making it resistant to rusting.

What made Brearley special was that he discovered it in a city renowned for its cutlery, and so he had the urge to put it in his mouth and see if it tasted of anything.

The 6,year quest for an affordable tasteless metal was over. Of course we take it for granted now. It has become the metal with which we are the most intimately acquainted; after all, we put it in our mouth almost every day.

The average kitchen is full of stainless steel cutlery, pots and pans, not to mention the kitchen sink. Ultimately it has been a very democratic invention, giving everyone, however poor, a culinary experience as exceptional as using gold. So it is really odd then, that on special occasions, people still get out their silver cutlery.

We are the generation born with stainless steel spoons in our mouths, and we should be very proud of that. When determining a set of flatware's quality, you'll want to look at the chromium and nickel percentages, the latter of which adds luster and provides resistance to corrosion. There are two primary ways of turning stainless steel into cutlery: forging or stamping.

Forged flatware is made from a thick piece of stainless steel that's heated and cut to form each utensil. Stamped flatware is cut like a stamp out of a piece of stainless steel. Because of the heating process, forged flatware is stronger than stamped flatware, which is more flexible.

You shouldn't necessarily only buy forged flatware, but the difference especially for knives is something to take into consideration. Finally, you should buy silverware that can be used in a variety of dining situations.

My own mother used to bring out a chest of fancy silverware when guests came over I remember because I had to hand-wash and immediately towel-dry them after the party , but she hasn't gotten it out for dinner parties in the last 10 years. Instead, she relies on one dishwasher-safe set that suits all occasions. Below are a few piece stainless-steel flatware sets judged according to the above factors.