"spork" news and stories

When the spork was first invented, there is little doubt that its creators thought that they had created the ultimate fusion of eating utensils. The spork soon spread to school cafeterias and even into those little plastic baggies they pass out with the meal on airplanes. But the spork wasn't as useful as it could be because you couldn't cut anything with it. To compensate, airplanes included knives with their sporks and schools prepare lunches with no discernable texture. The spork, however, has finally evolved to take cutting abilities into account. The Spork/Knife, coined as the sporknif by Bea of La Tartine Gourmande, has a fork/knife on one end and a paddle-like spoon on the other. It is made from durable, heat-resistant PC material, comes in a variety of colors and only costs a few dollars.

You may never need another utensil again.

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A school principal in Montreal reportedly told a parent: "'Every time your son eats like a pig, he'll be disciplined.'" Maria Theresa Gallardo, the mother of 7-year old Luc Cagadoc, says that now her son no longer wants to go to school and dreads lunchtime. Luc's "problem" was that he ate his lunch with a fork and a spoon, as he says Filipinos traditionally do. When his teacher saw him doing this, she called him "disgusting," "a pig" and "a  clown."

This conflict has sparked and international protest over whether little Luc should be forced to "adjust to the Canadian way of eating. The school board claims that this is a matter of etiquette, not culture, while people on the other side of the issue are calling it "an affront to Filipino culture" and outright racism. Cultural sensitivity needs to be taught to educators, say anti-racism groups, so that discrimination - even if it is unintentional - can be avoided.

What utensils do the school officials expect small children to use during lunch? The majority of schools seem to provive no more than sporks to students - would such a fusion be more or less acceptable than separate use of the spoon and fork?

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