Ah the Foley Fork ! Numerous impersonators, none get the details right !
First a bit of family history. My grandma Hazel Sheets, sweetest lady, was a wonderful cook. She and Grandpa Edwin Sheets had a large farm on the outskirts of Topeka Kansas. Grandpa was a stockman. He bought and sold dairy cattle through the midwest from Canada right down to Argentina. He knew livestock !
Grandma Hazel kept things going house, garden and 4 kids-side in their family. She was a fantastic cook. Always interested in trying new foods even when well into her nineties. She was a champion pie maker, pickle maker and any kind of jam maker. Food was as fresh as you get living on a farm. Potatoes, peas, tomatoes, melons, guinea hens, fresh milk for butter and cream were literally right out the back door.
With her passing at 106, I inherited her two pie pans and many fine recipes. My mom got her Foley Fork. Oh envious me! How I looked for one myself in antique stores and garage stores ! Finally eBay filled my Foley Fork desire ! I'm now the happy owner of three. One, with a broken tine lives at the studio where I work. The other two live at home where they are loving used in any weekend baking project.
For making that mealy aspect of pie crust making or folding one thing into another, there simply is no better tool.
The story of the Foley Fork is a simple one. In 1926 , Mr. Walter M Ringer Sr. bought a manufacturing company in Minneapolis making bandsaws. Walter's motto of "Keeping Everlastingly At It Brings Success " pretty much describes the can- do attitude of the day. They made various metal kitchen tools, a popular food mill, even mess kits during the war years. In the sixties they moved manufacturing of their kitchen tools overseas. These days Foley United is out of the kitchen tool business and concentrates on golf turf cutting machines.
Lots of copies, but none that get those two all important details of the gentle curve ot the metal stem nor the 6 twisted tines !
Very hard to photograph but I think you can see how the six tines are each twisted towards the right at about a 35 degree angle. 
The tines don't lie exactly flat yet they don't have an extreme curve upwards like some of the copies. The metal stem has a slight curve which allows it to sit perfectly in the bottom of a mixing bowl. You'll find a replica Foley Fork on sale at the Minnesota Historical Society Online Gift Shop !
Haven"t held one in my hand but I'm hoping they know their business !
I've also added a link here to the current ebay selection of Foley Forks.
A welcome addition to any baker's kit !
Great info! Thanks for writing this excellent description.
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Wife likes my Grandma's so well I am now getting two more, on EBay, which she will gift.
ReplyDeleteThe one from the Minnesota site is the RSVP Endurance fork. (Link below.) It is excellent!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/RSVP-Endurance-Stainless-Steel-Fantastic/dp/B000BU7UBG
I did try another fork, labeled a 'Granny Fork" and the proportions were off and it did NOT have that bend at the bottom. The Endurance fork does. I highly reccomend it!
Most of the time these sometimes expensive kitchen gadgets are more good than their worth!
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I just want to let you know that I just check out your site and I find it very interesting and informative.. KTZ
ReplyDeleteHi. I am glad for this information. I came by a Foley fork by chance, in that I found it in a box with other things that I had bid on at an auction. I had never seen one before and after reading the uses, I am trying it out at each opportunity. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteGreat info, thanks. I found my original Foley Fork today at a street vendors stall in the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya; still in very good condition....
ReplyDeleteHappily shared my Grandmother and her sister's Foley forks. My dietician daughter told me during college she was so glad to have learned how to cook by hand. She was not dependent on appliances and difficult to clean dishes. Our Foley forks are frequently in use and are appreciated via results every time!
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