SC - Plastic Ware (change to Forks??)

[RuddR at aol.com]

Kiri writes, 

>  Oh goodie....another thread, sort of.  I ran into something Saturday at the
>  event I cooked, that I thought you all might like ti "chew on".  One of our
>  metal workers, and a very talented one who does serious research, I might 
> add,
>  was selling a thing that I christened a "spork".  it is brass, has an early
>  spoon shape on one end and 3-tined fork on the other.  When I asked, he 
said 
> he
>  had documented it as 9th century Anglo-Saxon, and quoted me chapter and 
> verse.
>  Unfortunately, as I didn't have anything to write on...and my mind was a 
> little
>  toward the "pudding" stage at that point so I can't remember what he said, 
I
>  don't remember where the "chapter and verse" came from.  Any thoughts???

_European Spoons Before 1700_, by John Emery, John Donald Publishing, Ltd, 
1976.

P.63 (Northern Europe):
"Of slightly later date are two unfinished combined spoons and forks from a 
hoard of coins and silver scrap dug up at Sevington in Wiltshire and dated 
about A. D. 850. . . .the earliest appearance of a definite two-pronged fork 
[in Northern Europe]. . . ."

Rudd Rayfield