Continental Silver Skewers (Various Sizes)

I bought these as a whole box-lot. I think they're just so cute!



I've been told that the long ones are for stuff like beef, pork, ham, etc. And the smaller ones are for game and poultry.

I just have one question - what are meat-skewers used for? How are they used? What is their purpose!?

I've researched these extensively since I've bought them, and I've asked a few people, but the answers I'm getting are EXTREMELY vague.

The Victoria & Albert Museum website, for example, simply says that they have a "practical purpose". It doesn't tell me what that purpose is, beyond the obvious.

Why were meat-skewers made? What function or purpose did they serve?

So far I've read everything from:

1). Checking to see if the meat was thoroughly cooked. (???).

2). Heat-conductors to cook the inside of the roast while in the oven/on the roasting-spit. (Silver being a good heat-conductor, it sends heat right into the inside of the meat to cook the interior and prevent rawness).

3). To secure the meat TO the spit while being roasted (to stop it spinning around on the spit).

4). To secure the roast to the carving-board while the roast was being carved and served at table (to stop it rolling around etc).

Which one of these is correct????

 

This is from a 1988 article, 'Inventive Solutions, in the New York Times Magazine:

To open envelopes, skewers are perfectly suitable. Skewers like the silver one above, made in London in the early 1800's, were used to hold meat before the development of carving forks.

Not sure this holds up as an explanation either, but there it is.

 

This seems to second that:

http://www.leopardantiques.com/object/stock/detail/262

Skewers were used in joints of meat to hold them together whilst carving.

 

Thanks B!

Yes that's what I always suspected, but I've read (and been told) so many conflicting accounts, I just dunno what to believe!!

I have sent an email to Ivan Day (the noted food historian) through his website.

Hopefully he's able to answer this

 

"Silver decorative skewers called Attelets (French) derived from the term" Hatelets" that described a decorative skewer used to decorate meat or fish presentations on grand buffet presentations."
From:
https://salonculinaire.com/museum-decor.htm

I use a skewer with Toledo sword hilt (miniature) as a letter opener.

 

Cooking skewers are iron or copper. Hampton Court has lots of them in the Tudor kitchens.

I don't credit that bit about the invention of the carving fork. Two tine forks have been used for carving for centuries, not to say millenia. cf Roman ones.

 

I can think of many ways skewers are used in cooking. Would they have actually used sterling as cooking skewers?

Shish kebab, holding the bird together after stuffing, stuffed rolled meats, in potatoes to speed the baking, to name a few.

 

Nah. Not silver.

 

I have 2 silver ones from France. I used to have more, but I gave away a few when a friend just couldn't stop talking about them(!)

I've never used them - they sit in a tall vase in a display cabinet:

 

Think they'd be good now in place of those toothpicks with colored cellophane frills on top for holding together thick sandwiches.

 

It would have to be a VERY thick sandwich! Mine are 10" long.

 

That added a different outlook. Wondering whether the long ones held together meat that had already been sliced so it could come to the table looking intact.

 

Not some thing I've ever seen here. Traditionally, meat is either carved at table/table aide, or served on large platters by one's Man. Silver service spoon and fork job to dole it out.

 

I think I should mention that the large skewers are 12 inches from point to pommel.

 

Maybe meant only for serving shish kabab. Cook everything separately, then skewer to serve.
Just a suggestion.

 

My Mum used to use skewers (not as fine as these) to hold the wings in place when baking a chicken in the oven. She usually used 4, 2 on either wing to hold them close to the body.

 

I'm sure they were not 12 inches long. I think somewhere Shangas said these were 12 inches.

 

The big ones, 12 inches, yes. The smaller ones are probably 4-8 inches.

 

Shangas, just use them to serve satay. Not to prepare, just serve.