Here is my lovely Sheffield Grapefruit-cutter-set:
The case is made of brown reptile-skin (maybe not allowed to be sold today) - inside beautiful off-white silk and a funny little device in dark-blue velvet to keep the knife in place. The knife has a Faux Bone handle, the slim spoons are Silver Sheffield and of excellent use even if you don't cut the grapefruit before, because they have little 'teeth' on one side.
But I do cut the fruit - always.
I, then being very young, was so impressed when at breakfast they served us the cut grapefruit in Gosford Hall Inn - a beautiful listed hotel in Cumbria (now 350 years old), - we were there in 1976 - coming back from Scotland in our old blue Merc (1969 with tail fin). Coming home (to Mainz then), I cut a grapefruit every day myself.
I don't know when the grapefruit-cutter was made - maybe around 1940 or the beginning fifties?
Anyway: they are beautiful AND useful - thus I use them.
Every morning.
I have a serrated grapefruit knife which has a curved blade and a bone handle, not quite as pretty as your spoons though.
ReplyDeleteThe curved knife is above in the cover of the box - I never know whether it is real or "Faux" bone. I like cutting with that knife.
DeleteIt truly is lovely. I am so happy that you use it rather than packing it away. Too often things like this are kept to "have" rather than to use.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Emma! I too feel sorry for objects (and subjects :-) that are not appreciated in the way they were meant.
DeleteNo you don't, not every morning Britta; there are only six there! ;)
ReplyDeleteGreetings Maria xx
Haha, Maria - you might know that I wrote a book on doing housework (not only a how-to book, but also with literary ambiotions :-) - in wich I showed over 60.000 buyers how to make most of one's assets? Subtitle for the third edition might be: "How To Live On Six Spoons For A Whole Week - And Still Have Fun"? Greetings Britta xx
Delete"ambiotions" instead of "ambition" is trying to include our German Green Movement - we seldom call it "ecological", we call it "Bio" :-)
DeleteI cannot keep up with the grapefruit my granddaughter eats. Without such a beautiful set, though, she goes through her own ceremony of peeling, stripping away offending membranes, and eating one, section by section.
ReplyDeleteI, too have a set like this. It was a wedding present back in 1972. Absolutely perfect for eating grapefruit, especially the knife for cutting out each segment and all around the edge of the flesh.
ReplyDeleteYes, the knife is wonderful to cut the segments - and it is fun to do it. A great wedding present, Helsie!
DeleteMy people had a set of silver Grapefruit spoons (No knife). I think they went when the price of silver rocketed back in the 1980's. Lovely things to use.
ReplyDeleteThat was clever, to sell then - and, if I look at Tom's remark below it might also be healthier to buy stainless steel ones :-) Yet the feeling is not the same...
DeleteI was told (by a friend who died of liver cancer) that eating too much grapefruit is bad for your liver - it has some sort of enzym which attacks it. So the choice for me is wine or grapefruit - maybe the fruit in smaller quantities than the wine.
ReplyDeleteI read that this concerns "silver plated" spoons etc - because under the silver is a nickel-(silver)-copper base - and that can be slightly toxic. On the other hand I only know that "furanocoumarine ", which is contained in grapefruits, does not go with quite a lot of medicines and pills (so abstain from Earl Gray too - it is in Bergamotte!).
DeleteI recommend half a grapefruit in the morning -, and (hahaha: half!) a glass of red wine in the evening :-)
But then: you are tall, Tom, so your liver can work on much more than mine.
Yes, it is unfair that women's livers can be destroyed by alcohol 7 times faster than men's. Originally, all solid silver dining room ware was called 'plate'. Then silver-plating came along and the meaning was distorted. I am heartened by your explanation of the toxin (or flavour) of grapefruit reacting to certain medication. I like grapefruit!
DeleteI didn't know that about "silver-plated"!
DeleteIn Bavaria son & DiL had to pass a health-test before becoming a judge/prosecutor, and they were asked: "Do you drink alcohol?" Then - unique in whole Germany, I think - came the addition: "Mind: Beer is considered alcohol, too!"