Featured Cream Cheese & Lox set - and a sandwich tongs

I went to my first real estate sale in my old stompin' grounds a few weeks back, hours after it opened. I didn't know it was going to happen. The jewelry was gone but somebody seriously missed the boat on these! Sandwich tongs or toast tongs with a matching spreader, and a full bagels and lox set. The latter has a lox fork, bagel knife, and a cream cheese spreader. (or whitefish salad, depending) Also what's probably a pickle fork. What did they miss? All the pieces have sterling handles or are solid sterling.

Someone wanted to know what the lox fork looked like. I'd bet @komokwa and @pearlsnblume already know, among others.

 

We never had a lox fork, I never heard of this before. Live and learn and nice finds.

 

Thanks. I'd take a bow, but it took me until AFTER I bought them to twig to what they were.

 

The top item in the first image looks like a cake knife. The fork below it is for sardines although I suppose you could use it for lox. The last item in the last picture is a "jelly knife" like for cranberry jelly that comes in a can.

 

Have you got a pattern or maker for those?

 

I wish! I suppose you could use it for sardines, but they were found in an observant Jewish home and a cream cheese and bagels set makes more sense. Someone else bought the bagel and spread plate while I was there. It was missing its bagel holders.

 

Not what the maker would have called them, though.

 

Sardines are a big food item on dairy nights in Jewish homes.

Yes, I know sardines are not dairy, but we called it dairy night because we had no other meats to speak of on the table. Blintzes, sardines, tuna, buttered noodles etc.

 

Swimming, scaly stuff with fins is Kosher. I've never quite gotten how fish could be considered OK with dairy, but it always has been. Noodle kugel too? Not my favorite food, but I've never had homemade.

 

I've got fresh bagels, whipped cream cheese with chives, and lox.....in the kitchen at the moment....
but, I never remember a specific utensil used to serve the lox.........

 

Eh, first pic shows a cake server knife, a sardine fork, and a cheese server; second pic shows a cocktail/hors d'oeuvres fork, pastry tongs, and a jelly server - might find a few variations in names, but personally, have never seen a 'lox fork' reliably referenced, even after decades of silver flatware collecting, selling, and researching through books, catalogs, advertisements, etc. As already noted, a suggested use is not what an item would have been manufactured or sold as...

Believe all pieces except the sweet little 4-leaf clover fork were likely produced by 1950s-60s Newark, NJ manufacturer Ambassador - mid-quality stuff usually sold in department and jewelry stores, the working ends of the hollow-handle pieces often made in England or Italy.

~Cheryl

 

Not noodle kugel, something different than that.
Soft wide noodles, cooked, and drained, add in butter and pot cheese and mix, serve with pepper and salt.

 

Your first item in first photo is a cake knife or cake saw. dragonfly correctly id'd what their intended original normally accepted use was, but I think it likely that the former owners improvised very well. If they don't make a specific piece for your application, then get what works. Although I'm not inclined to say you aren't 100% right in that they are all the same pattern so it might have been the retailer who improvised when they were sold and maybe they were presented as a bagel and lox set. They're very nice and I would have picked them up as well.

 

I agree with Pearls........never had one and didn't know one existed.

 

Me either, and apparently it was just good improv. A cake knife, sardine fork, and a jelly server. But I'd bet it worked.

Sounds better than the prefab; they put sugar in that. (ick)

 

Noodle kugel is tasty cept I am not a golden raisin fan.

 

Though it's often easy to discern if the household was Jewish, can't really know that items found at an estate sale were used as a 'bagel and lox set'. Have spent considerable time in my life around those of the Jewish faith, pretty sure they've all eaten cake, cheese, pastries, jellies, and possibly sardines (no personal experience with sharing those) - see no reason to believe their serving pieces wouldn't have been used for their intended purposes, and like anyone, whatever else struck their fancy as well.

Frankly, not sure why you'd need that long wide blade intended for picking up a slice of cake for a bagel, also not sure why the wide tapered blade of the cheese server, intended to lift slices or chunks of cheese, would be better for cream cheese than a nice rounded butter spreader, nor does the sardine fork, intended to lift relatively rigid whole dripping fish from a can or dish seem particularly appropriate for thin slices of lox - I use my fingers at home, but when offered by others, usually picked up with tongs or a smallish fork and draped onto my bagel...

~Cheryl

 

The Jewish household part was easy - within walking distance of a Synagogue, Judaica all over the house (I bought Wainberg candlesticks too) and I googled the last name of the last owner. I guess I just figured on what the stuff could have been instead of what they really were.

 

Now craving lox and a schmear on a beigel.

 

Toasted pumpernickel for preference!