The protocol of silverware confuses me. Where is it written that if I want a salad, I have to use a small fork? And if I want soup, why do I get a spoon with a deep bowl that will ladle a scalding mouthful of the stuff down my throat? I want a shallow spoon that makes it easier to sip my soup – and I want a big fork for my salad, the better to dig at my greens.
My grandmother tried to drill the rules into me when I was young: start at the outside, she would say, and work your way in.
I can mostly manage that, but then what am I supposed to do with the extra spoons and knives that restaurateurs sometimes display along the top of a place setting? Are these for dessert? Post-prandial knife fights? Extras in case something goes skidding onto the floor?
I have more occasion to think about fork etiquette now that I live here than I did when I lived in New York. Back there, where I was a working parent with two young children and no nanny, going out to eat was a rare occurrence.
And when I did escape to a restaurant, I generally went to the good-food-casual-ambience sort of place that populates New York's East Village: lovely food, beautifully prepared, but not fussy, the sort of place with tablecloths and cloth napkins, but only one fork per place setting.
True, one reason why I chose restaurants like that had to do with their relatively reasonable prices (which were nevertheless so high that they shocked friends from out of town).
But my choice also had to do with the fact that when I went out for a meal, I wanted to be able to concentrate on my dining companions, rather than on a glittering array of silverware.
Too much tableware seems almost always to indicate a menu overloaded with foams, puffs, and gelees – or whatever the latest food trend du jour might be.
In Abu Dhabi, however, because my children are older now and because babysitters are readily available, I go out to eat more frequently than I did in New York.
But unless I pop into my favourite shawarma place for a quick bite, the restaurants to choose among invariably offer too many forks – and that makes a casual night out seem far too fancy, too serious.
I do realise that being bothered by too many forks at the table is not a problem that ranks up there with, say, the issues presented by Japan's nuclear power plant crisis.
But thinking about all these forks does raise a question for me about Abu Dhabi's amazing growth, both current and projected: who is using all these forks? Perhaps I simply dine earlier than many others in the city, but rarely am I in a restaurant that is more than half-full (or for you pessimists, half-empty).
I read in The National late last month that on Saadiyat Island alone over the next few years, 29 more hotels are slated to open – as well as a new mall, which I'm sure will have its own share of multi-forked restaurants, too. And that's just Saadiyat. Who knows how many more malls and hotels are scheduled for Yas, Reem, and Abu Dhabi city?
The mind boggles at the number of forks that will be deployed at all these fine-dining establishments, which may eventually ring Saadiyat's entire perimeter, like a Michelin-starred retaining wall separating the desert from the sea. The sunlight glinting off all that silverware will be blinding.
The cutlery bills alone are going to be enormous for these scores of hotels and malls, each of which promises to be a "signature destination" for both residents of Abu Dhabi and those using Abu Dhabi as a layover point on long airline journeys.
Do you suppose that the restaurants will establish some kind of quid pro quo with the airlines? The jets will deliver the customers and the restaurants will use their gleaming forks as landing lights?
All this development has to be good for business, obviously, but I'll bet that no one has thoroughly explored fork economics: if you're looking for a new investment opportunity, might I suggest a high-end tableware company?
In the meantime, I'm trying to make a dinner date with some friends, to catch up after the summer holidays. Before all the beaches are zoned off by the hotel restaurants, I'm thinking of suggesting a picnic on the beach – with finger food only, and no forks at all.
Deborah Lindsay Williams is a professor of literature at NYU Abu Dhabi
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