London’s Map Project studio created the bio-plastic Tritensil for notorious tax-dodging luxury department store Fortnum & Mason, where it is provided as a disposable all-purpose cutlery item in the store’s picnic hampers.
Map’s solution is brilliantly simple. Like other sporks, it combines a spoon’s bowl, a fork’s tines, and a knife’s serrated edge in a single utensil head. But they are arranged in a novel way. Map began by moving the asymmetrical tines to the right edge. They’re longer, too. “This allows you to pierce a salad much easier,” says Barwick. The other half of the head is dedicated to a shallow spoon bowl, with tiny indentations on the back that act as the softly serrated edge of a knife.Map made the Tritensil asymmetrical, with the head doglegged at around 40 degrees. The clever move allows your index finger to naturally stabilize the utensil when cutting. It also created a buffer from the serrated edge by encouraging users to use the side of the utensil. “It’s not telling you how to eat,” says Barwick. “But it is suggesting a sideways action.” And lest you worry about lefties, Map made 10,000 of the 100,000 Tritensils backward just for southpaws.
Somebody Gave Us a Spork We Actually Want to Use [Liz Stinson/Wired]
Fortnum & Mason, Tritensil [Map Projects]