Small sickle. Bukhara, 19th century

[fernando]

Originally Posted by ariel

The overall configuration of the blade of a pen knife is largely irrelevant: all it needs is to have a thin and sharp blade and a sharp point to make a slit in the tip of the pen.
In fact, the edge on that knife is either straight or minimally concave. Either, or especially the latter, will be very convenient for the task. Oriental cutlers were artistically more inventive than their European colleagues: witness the fancy blunt side with golden decorations: both are absolutely unnecessary for any cutting function but are very pretty. Reed pen, quill pen,- the principle is the same: they need re-sharpening, i.e. re-newing the tip...

Vicit ... sed non persuasum .

Originally Posted by ariel

...As to peeling apples, pomegranates or oranges ( alas, not being grown in Central Asia), that's what servants are for:-)

Possibly servants were also used to resharpen quills . Talking of extremisms, i have once read that their tongues were used to wet the post stamps of their masters during colonialism.

[Gavin Nugent]

Olufsen noted that the pichoq attached in pairs were often used by the cooks in prominent families.

This is certainly from a person/family of standing to afford such a piece, and perhaps it too was used in the kitchen and is a bird's beak paring knife.

Gavin