Wednesday 6 August 2008

Pickle forks - what and how?

Pickles are a delicacy that is made and liked in almost all the parts of the world. Pickles are made from a variety of fruits and vegetables such as raw mango, lime, tamarind, cucumber etc. These pickles are stored in large glass jars until they are ready to eat. Pickles are good snacks as well as appetizers.

Pickle fork is a fork with a long handle that is used to remove pickle from a large jar. It serves a very good purpose as the pickles are stored in large glass and picking up the pickles by hand is almost impossible. The pickle fork is also used for serving pickles. It is generally has two or three prongs. It is bigger than a seafood fork yet smaller than a dinner fork.

A pickle fork allows us to easily and hygienically remove pickles from the jar. The forks neither enable the users to extract the pickles without getting their hands wet with the brine nor do they allow any contamination of the other contents. Earlier people tried to use regular forks to extract the pickles from the jar. But it was not a good method as the pickles are slippery and smooth on the inside and generally slip off the regular fork. Hence the method was abandoned although a few improvements were tried to be made with these forks.

There are some specific methods to hold pickles by the pickle fork. The first one is as follows. The prongs of the pickle fork should be made to face the outside of the pickle on its sides. This creates an upward slope and enables proper and firm holding of the pickle on the fork. The pickle has no scope to fall off. This is the case with 2 pronged forks. With the 3 pronged forks, the middle prong remains taut and hence it is possible for the pickle to firmly stick to the fork.

The second method is to add hooks to the fork. It works just like a fish hook or bait. The pickle is secured firmly in place and thus can be extracted very easily. The fork otherwise just works like the earlier method that is the two pronged one faces on the outside edge of the pickle and in case of 3 pronged fork, the middle prong remains straight thus securing the pickle in place.

In any of the above mentioned methods, the pickles can be removed from the fork by shaking the fork a bit or placing it against the upper edge of a plate. However it is recommended that pickle should not be eaten directly off the fork. The pickle fork is used only for serving and not otherwise. It should be eaten only with hands and may be put inside a sandwich or a hamburger.

Pickle fork is a term that is used in automobile industry even. In industry it is used for separating the tie rods, ball joints, and many other parts which are secured tightly in position by friction around the shaft. The fork used looks more like a tuning fork rather than a pickle fork. Thus, it can be seen that pickle forks are used in some of the most important fields that is, food and industry.

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