cocktail fork

plural cocktail forks

1. A small fork usually with two or three tines, used for eating dishes served as appetizers (such as fruit cocktails and shrimp cocktails), and for picking up olives and other small snacks.

   Mock Meatballs […] Serve in a shallow serving dish with cocktail forks or toothpicks.

   1991 December, Denis Jaricot, “The Art of the Hors d’Oeuvre”, in Paul Obis Jr., editor, Vegetarian Times, number 172, Oak Park, Ill.: Vegetarian Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 26, column 3

   5 more examples

   Oyster and cocktail forks are placed at the extreme right of the cover beyond the teaspoons, or they may be laid across the right side of the service plate underlining the cocktail glass or the oyster service.

   1942, Ruth M. Lusby, “Unit 1. Preparing and Closing the Serving Station.”, in Training Restaurant Sales Personnel: A Teacher’s Manual for Use in the Vocational Training of Restaurant Sales Personnel (Vocational Division Bulletin; no. 222; Business Education Series; no. 15), Washington, D.C.: Federal Security Agency; U.S. Office of Education; United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, part IV (Work of Table-service Salespersons), page 86

   No fairy tale this. Just the story of Soviet slave labor in icy camps, dumping millions of pounds of fish for your dainty cocktail forks each month—and so beginning to kill off a multi-million dollar American fishing industry, canneries, boatbuilding and gear production.

   1950 April 19, Russell V[ernon] Mack, “Russian Crab Imports: Extension of Remarks of Hon. Russell V. Mack of Washington”, in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 81st Congress, Second Session: Appendix (United States House of Representatives), volume 96, part 14, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, page A2862, column 2

   [page 944, column 1] Cocktail fork—used for sea foods. It is a short, slender fork about ½ inch wide at the prong end of the fork. […] [page 945, column 3] On the left are all the forks except the cocktail fork, which is laid to the extreme right of the knives when placed.

   1986, “Your Meats”, in Ruth Berolzheimer, editor, Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook (A Perigee Book), New York, N.Y.: Berkley Publishing Group, published March 1988, pages 944 and 945

   We just returned from a cruise where there were eleven pieces of flatware on the table for dinner: three knives and a soup spoon to the right of the plate, four forks to the left, and a cocktail fork, teaspoon, and demitasse spoon above the plate. Could you please explain the function of each?

   1990, Judith Martin, “Dealing with the Public”, in Miss Manners’ Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium (A Fireside Book), New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 364

   [H]ow could you talk a raving lunatic out of drinking his own urine or stabbing his invalid grandmother a hundred times with a cocktail fork?

   1998 February 1, T[homas] C[oraghessan] Boyle, “One Slit’s Enough”, in Riven Rock, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN, page 234