«Excuse me, could I have a knife please?” I had ordered “perches et frites” for lunch in a rather nice restaurant in Nyon last week. When the waiter brought the plate over, I could only see a fork and a spoon at my place-setting – hence my question.
“Madame, you already have one, it’s here.” He then pointed to a sort of spoon-type utensil laid on the table right in front of me. “This, he said, is a special kind of knife. It has a shape to it that has been designed for eating your fish.”
Now I do I know a little bit about table etiquette and have certainly used fish knives in my lifetime, but this piece of cutlery with its spoon design was new to me. Nevertheless, I ate the fish (which, incidentally, was delicious) whilst wondering if this particular knife style was a Vaudois thing and...