the trouble with gherkins

Its coming up to the Christmas party season.

My parents were big on parties in the Sixties. I was a carpet crawler to start with in the early Sixties eventually becoming a page boy by the first Moon Landing.

There were always some unusual items out which were only found at these get-togethers.

One that 'springs' to mind was a spring-loaded fork. It was like a pogo stick with two tines [I had to look that up, tines!] and designed for piercing, picking up and discharging socially awkward pickled onions and gherkins. 

The spring-loaded handle allowed you to push the cornichon off the forked end without any fuss or faff. A very clever design really and I hope the designer got the day off after coming up with that one.

Another party gadget was the vegetable chopper. Shaped like a plastic stick grenade it was basically another spring-loaded device, which cut veg up into small chunks. 

It did this by forcing down a handle, which in turn sent a series of sharp blades down a plastic shaft in which a quarter cucumber or clod of mushrooms were trapped. It was a repeating and merciless guillotine for condemned tubers and corms.

Cheese was always a favourite in the holiday season. It was usually something shaped like a dairy's brick and foil wrapped like Cracker Barrel.

This was placed on a ceramic board portraying street urchins from Old Spain, which came with a shaped slot for a curved double-pointed knife straight off the set of Dr.Giggles. Even worse was a length of wire, which was drawn slowly down the cheese to cut off a slice. That cheese wire WAS the stuff of nightmares!

Cheese was also cut into small cubes and arranged on a melamine floral tray alongside their tart chums those silverside onions and radishes. These were picked up from the tray using one of the many cocktail forks that were stood up and fanned neatly around a glass. 

These forks were often short, curved, two pronged with a wooden or brightly coloured plastic handle. The only other place you found plastic that colourful in the Sixties were SpaceX toys!

There were countless more party gizmoes but my spring-loaded brain has been cut into bits inside a plastic veg chopper!

Can you think of any more?