KNIVES OUT

How to make even a simple meal momentous? Decorative cutlery, an art that has taken its share of sharp turns, is back at the head of the table.

- FRITZ KARCH

Totemic Devotion cutlery set in 24K plated gold, $670, alighieri.​com

Spoons, knives, and forks encrusted with gems, or fashioned by hand in sterling silver twisted to look like ribbons: We are in the dawn of a new age of beautifully crafted eating utensils. But it's hard to call it a trend. Indeed, since Homo sapiens first showed up on this planet 300,000 years ago, stylish diners have progressed past eating with our hands, or with twigs and bones, to inventing implements that do more than just transport food from plate to mouth.

Records show that from the earliest days of the privileged classes, ambitious hosts have created tablewares out of precious materials. Beyond their utilitarian function, these very fine and often novel implements added exoticism, status, and sparkle to a table. There are surviving examples of eating utensils throughout history, from the bronze knives and forks and wooden spoons found in the tombs of the pharaohs to the silver spoons and ladles discovered intact in the ruins of Pompeii.