Rant and Roll

Due to several comments about my rant on the misuse of chocohol, I’ve decided (mostly for everyone’s entertainment) to get a few other things off my chest – namely Sporks and Utah Shakes.

Sporks
Who decided that the spork was a good idea? Worse yet, why do Taco Bell, KFC, and school lunchrooms still believe that they are a good idea? Sure, they’re probably cheaper than buying a separate spoon and fork, but really, why?

The idea of a spork is to combine the bowl shape of a spoon and the prongs of a fork. However, in its design, the spork really is getting the worst each contributor has to offer. A spoon is great for eating soup or apple sauce – things that are thin and runny. A spork, because it has cut away some of the bowl-shape to form prongs, now can contain much less soup than a spoon. A fork is great for eating solid foods. It is especially good for twirling spaghetti or stabbing peas with the fork’s long, thin tines. But a spork has prongs so short, it can never catch even a few noodles to twirl spaghetti. And with its prongs so wide, it can rarely stab at peas without simply splitting them in two.

Now I recognize that neither Taco Bell nor KFC serve neither spaghetti nor soup. But this being the case, why can’t I just use a standard fork to eat my Mexican pizza or my mashed potatoes? Why a spork? My only idea as to why school lunch rooms use the spork is that they may serve spaghetti and soup on the same day, and you just can’t trust a kid to handle two utensils!

Utah Shakes
One item besides soup that is commonly eaten with a spoon, and not a spork, is ice cream. I enjoy ice cream as much as the next guy, and I am even sometimes an ice cream snob. Who else do you know that bought a 30-year-old ice cream maker just to get a more powerful motor to fully freeze the tasty treat? But I digress. When I grew up (just West of Utah), we would sometimes get a shake with a burger instead of a soda. It was the beverage. If you looked on the menu at McDonalds, there were the shakes, right up there under the Beverages category. They were delicious. Sometimes on a hot summer day, we’d just make a homemade milk shake with vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, and milk in the blender. We’d pour it with all its pebble-like lumpiness into a tall glass, put in a straw, and sip away. I think I could go for one of those right about now.

Then I came to BYU. The thing to do there was to go to the BYU creamery and get shakes. I ordered the usual Oreo shake. When they gave it to me, however, it was not the kind of milk shake I was expecting. Sure it was cold and tasty, but it was nothing more than softened ice cream with chunks of cookie in it. How could I have possibly enjoyed drinking this with a straw as the complement to a burger?

Eventually, I came to fully enjoy the Utah Shake as a dessert. Don’t misunderstand – the Utah Shake is a delicious treat. It’s just not a beverage. Who ever heard of “Burger, fries and a cup of ice cream”? The phrase is “Burger, fries and a shake”. A shake is a beverage. Even Merriam-Webster defines a milk shake as “thoroughly shaken or blended drink made of milk, a flavoring syrup, and often ice cream.” Now I have no problem with getting a Utah shake with a burger from time to time. My complaint is that I can’t get it as a beverage in this state, unless I go to some national chain and get a partially gelatinated non-dairy gum-based beverage or make one myself.

Now I’m not the only one who understands this. I’ve talked to people from across the country about it. I had a neighbor from Maryland who would often go on this same rant, that shakes are a BEVERAGE. I have a co-worker from Wisconsin (you know, the state famous for its dairy products), who agrees that a shake is a beverage. However, she did say that they used to also have what they called “concrete shakes” there, which were like the Utah shake, but the primary shake was a BEVERAGE. Then take the example of a former co-worker from Utah who didn’t care. She would treat any shake as a beverage, no matter how thick it was. I’ll never understand how she had the patience to get that stuff through a straw.

Anyway, those are my rants. Take them for what they’re worth, and realize that they are worth a lot.