scour me

The history of knives and forks provided an interesting essay for you to read another day, but suffice it to say that while in Indian Territory, Pa, Ma, Mary, and Laura each had a steel knife and fork with a bone handle; they were not eating with their fingers or from sticks or the tip of a knife. There was not a spoon in sight, however (in real life, Carrie wasn't old enough to start banging one), but the rounded end of the knife above served two purposes: it could be used as a spoon if you were quick enough, and if you dropped it, you didn't run the risk of stabbing your foot.

Common knives were made of steel, but the best table knives were made of shear steel, and were stamped as such. The tang, or part that goes into the handle, was made of iron and welded to a steel blade, which was heated red-hot and plunged into cold water to harden it. Afterwards, it was tempered to a blue color, then ground. Forks were generally a different branch of manufacture than knives. The prongs were formed by a stamp that cut them out, then they were filed and hardened and tempered. Handle-less forks were purchased from fork-makers by the manufacturers of table knives, who put them into handles.

Handles were made of wood, ivory, horn, silver plate, silver, etc. Bone handles, such as the Ingallses and Wilders owned, were made from the shank bone of the ox. Some bone handles were dyed green because the bone didn't keep its color very long. Bone handles were typically two pieces that were riveted to the tang. The blade of all table knives were not to touch the table when laid flat upon it, and were balanced accordingly.

Steel, being made of iron, would rust, and cutlery made from steel had to be cleaned. In Farmer Boy, Almanzo Wilder scoured the steel knives and forks with a scouring-brick. While a scouring brick might be an actual brick such as used in construction, they were more often pieces of sandstone or specially fired and patented Bath Bricks, made from the mud of the Parrot River in Bridgwater, Somerset, England (with a little sand and clay added). Bath bricks were exported to America, where they were available in literally every general store. As Laura wrote and had Almanzo demonstrated in Farmer Boy, a bit of the brick was scraped off with the back of a knife, and the dust was mixed with water or oil. This was rubbed vigorously on the blade, usually with a piece of leather. After the rust was removed, all traces of brick dust also had to be removed, because it would eat into the steel if left in place too long. Wash the steel and the vicious cycle of rust and removal began again.

One "trick of the trade" when polishing knives was to hold two knives in one hand, back to back, and rub two sides at once. The blades were then flipped to scour the other sides.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:45 PM