Cutlery Guide from Dunelm Mill

View our Cutlery Range

Cutlery is a standard household product, a necessity for all homes and something that cannot be replaced with any other product. At the very basics a knife and fork are required however, there are a surprising amount of styles and designs available on the market today.

1. Types of Cutlery
2. Benefits of Cutlery
3. Cutlery Care Instructions
4. View our Range of Cutlery

Cutlery is a must for everyone in the UK. The shape, size and sharpness of the cutlery items that we use may vary as we get older but the principal remains the same.

Knives and Forks
This is the staple of the cutlery world, the very basics that all households in Britain require. When we are young children we learn to take our first mouthfuls of food with some small and blunt knives and forks. Nowadays, there are a great deal of children’s cutlery on the market, designed with kid’s in mind these knife and fork collections are full of colour and quirky designs aimed at encouraging children to use these implements instead of their hands. There are also different sorts of cutlery designs for specific purposes such as the cake fork. This style is characterised by having 3 equally spaced prongs on the end of the fork, designed to help the user securely dig into big chunks of cake without worrying that it might crumble before reaching your mouth.

An Array of Spoons
Spoons are also an extremely important cutlery item to have in the kitchen. They are often used to feed babies when they are young and only able to eat pureed food. The spoon is the perfect solution for this purpose as they have the ideal dimensions for sloppy liquid like food. The closest alternative would be the fork, which obviously has too many gaps to be a suitable replacement. Spoons are also available in a range of sizes from table spoons to tea spoons, serving spoons to soup spoons. Whilst not everyone may know or even care what the differences are between these spoons, when it comes to cooking it is vital that you use the correct implement as the measurements can be vastly different. No one wants to add a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda to a cake when all that is required is a teaspoon!

Steak Knives
This style of knife is perhaps less common in the average household. A steak knife, as stated in the name, has a very specific purpose, to ease the cutting of steaks or other meat foods. This is often considered to be more of a luxury product than other cutlery items as a normal sharp knife could probably suffice and also the frequency of use for such an item would be limited, unless of course you eat steak every night. This style of knife is characterised by the sharp serrated edge that slices into the meat and makes the meal a lot easier to chop up and eat. It must be noted that due to the sharpness of these knifes it is vital that you keep these items away from children.

Cutlery has many benefits but the main one being that of pure practicality, no-one wants to eat with their hands as it is messy and could potentially burn your fingers. Cutlery simplifies all meal times and can be purchased at a very economical rate.

Cutlery can be easily cared for; often all that is needed is a soak in warm soapy water. The majority of cutlery sets should also be dishwasher proof but it is always best to double check first. Each of our cutlery items are accompanied by product specific cleaning and care instructions.