On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:06:46 -0700 (PDT), Sheldon >
wrote:

>On Apr 24, 1:53?am, "CC" > wrote:
>> As I remember from my early days, I'm 62 now, I had been told
>> It's to keep the carving knife from sliding down the fork and cutting
>> your hand,
>> Like the gauntlet on a sword
>> They also made some that would fold out to keep the fork tines off the
>> table when you set it down,
>
>That's exactly what it's for, creates a tripod stand so the fork tines
>don't stain the linen... many think (incorrectly) that it's a guard...
>look at its placement carefully and think about the distance between
>the fork and the carving, it guards nothing... were it truly a guard
>every steak knife would come with a similarly constructed steak fork.
>And nowadays carving sets no longer include that doohickey.


Nope. I have a 19th century carving set with a guarded fork. The
antler handle is too heavy to allow the fork to rest on the tines and
the guard. I would think the handle on any carving fork would be heavy
enough to preclude that. Also, the handle and the guard are not the
right shape to allow the fork to rest on them without falling over.

The only pratical solution it offers is to allow the guard to be
deployed when doing a reverse cut to protect against the inadvertant
slicing of the slicer.