The Swiss Navy spoon was famous for its lack of options. It rested forlornly beside the rusted submarine in Alpine dry dock as the nation’s strategic stockpiles of soup and tea ran out. Alas for the shrimp, now without bisque or ocean! Alas for the singing tea kettles robbed of their song! But the Swiss Navy spoon was used to extreme conditions. Its handle sported nothing but a toothpick & a dispenser of salt — or as the Secretary of the Navy liked to call it, instant sea. They had an arrangement with Nestlé to manufacture seven million more.
I live in an Appalachian hollow in the Juniata watershed of central Pennsylvania, and spend a great deal of time walking in the woods. Here’s a bio. All of my writing here is available for reuse and creative remix under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For attribution in printed material, my name (Dave Bonta) will suffice, but for web use, please link back to the original. Contact me for permission to waive the “share alike” provision (e.g. for use in a conventionally copyrighted work).
In secret, in the night, they teach the tea-kettles to hum “Eidelweiss”.
Ha! Yes, they probably do.