Two Forks

As a follow-up to my previous post, here another interesting cultural interface, or better, a cultural usage of a common interface.

I went out eating fried chicken in Seoul, Korea, and the waiter brought me a dish with two forks: the forks were meant both for me, as everyone else at the table had a pair of forks in their plates. Having seen this way of serving food for the first time, I have asked what was the reason for having two forks for eating chicken (we were not having a multi-courses Western meal).

A friend explained me that one fork is to hold the meat, while the other one is used to tear a piece, as a substitution for cutting it. I personally don't see a great advantage of using two forks rather than a fork-knife set, and my suspect seems confirmed by the fact that I haven't seen before this way of eating. I can imagine though that two forks might be easier to handle for people accustomed to chopsticks.

More importantly, however, I suspect that the choice of using two forks rather than the fork-knife set is also the result of a conscious attempt to distinguish Western food from Korean food. In fact, using a fork with a knife is a very codified interaction, which might implicitly remind people that they are having Western food (as for Western people, eating with chopsticks can emphasize that they are eating Asian food). Hence, the choice of two forks underlying the the message that the audience is eating a Korean food in a Korean restaurant, and not Western food in a fancy foreign restaurant. In some sense, the two forks might contribute in building a cozy or homey mood. (This is the same reason why we want to have chopstick when eating Asian food; the mood does not feel authentic otherwise).

Without going too far with my speculations, it remains interesting to note how the same interface (the fork) has different usages in different countries.