The Story of a Fork

If you figger folks in ye olden days had it tougher than we do now, you don’t have to look further than the matter of forks. Oversimplifying like mad, one may say that Europe went from a state of no forks whatsoever, to the slightly more satisfying condition of two-pronged forks, to the multiply pronged jobbies we enjoy today.

Let us go back to the very beginning of fine dining in Europe. Here’s a Medieval feast. White cloth, pretty

click for closeup

dishes, probably wonderful food  and wine or mead or whatever. But the guests were expected to manage the food with their knives and spoons, which they brought with them, and their fingers which they also brought with them and washed from time to time with fingerbowls and clean linen.

See how that table has knives set about here and there. There’s no soup or stew in evidence so folks

I don't know why the knife is pointed at her

haven’t taken their spoons out.

 

Here's another picture. Her dinner is soup and fish and maybe a veggie. She has a spoon, I think, in her bowl and a knife, but she has no fork. It's 1656. 

We are pre-fork.

Of course, there had been forks in the kitchen forever, poking roasts and holding meat down to be carved and fetching beets out of boiling water. Now the fork emerged into the culinary daylight and took a place at the table. It served two purposes there. It secured food so your knife could cut it. And the fork could be used to convey food to the mouth, a job that had heretofore been performed by the sharp point of a knife or the bowl of a spoon. Or, you know, fingers.

I have no doubt folks were nimble at this eating food off a razor-sharp knife tip. However, I’m glad I didn't have to teach a three-year-old the knack. Knives doubtless made food-fights in the nursery an altogether more deadly affair.

Steel and gilt 1550-1600 V&A

The table fork was originally looked upon with some skepticism when it arrived in Europe. Disfavor, even. In 972 forks entered Europe with the Byzantine bride (Wouldn’t that be a great title for a book? The Byzantine Bride?) of the Doge of Venice.

It struck Cardinal Peter Damian as nearly blasphemous, this over-dainty eating. As he put it, “... nor did she deign to touch her food with her fingers, but would command her eunuchs to cut it up into small pieces, which she would impale on a certain golden instrument with two prongs and thus carry to her mouth.”

One commenter said, “God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks—his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to him to substitute artificial metal forks for them when eating.” Nowadays he’d be a troll.

Despite such controversy forks, like so many other refinements, spread. They made their way from Byzantium to Italy and from Italy to France. They were carried that last step by Catherine de Medici when she married Henry II in 1533. She brought her own forks. A girl needs a few civilized necessities after all.

Forks of the fifteen hundreds were still, you understand, twiddly, mannered, two-pronged toys to pluck up sweetmeats and savory olives rather than robust eating tools for the masses.They were, and would be for at least another century, viewed as somewhat sissyfied.

Gold and crystal French 1786 http://www.metmuseum.org/

 

 

In 1570 or so Montaigne could remark that he rarely used a fork. But move forward a century and in 1700 the fork was so common among fashionable folk that in Perrault’s fairy tale, La Belle au Bois Dormant, each of the fairies invited to Sleeping Beauty’s christening was presented with a splendid ‘fork carrying case’ for lugging the tableware about. As one did.

The fork hopped across the Channel round about that time. In 1611 Tom Coriat, English traveller, could remark that he was teased for always using a fork. By the 1700s, forks were an English commonplace.

1700 to 1730 http://www.metmuseum.org/

The 1700s, in fact, were a period of considerable forment and experimentation in tableware. Two great changes had come about. First, table knives were no longer the instrument of potential mayhem that had delighted small fry. In 1669 King Louis XIV — who doubtless had his reasons — ordered all table knives must have blunt tips. This was a game changer. Since they could no longer double as a weapon, the new rounded table knives became broad and flat. They became, in short, useful for eating from.

I eat my peas with honey.
I’ve done it all my life.
It makes them taste quite funny
But it keeps them on my knife.

1769

And in the 1700s the fork established itself as a three or four-tined instrument for scooping up food. It was no longer just a two-pronged poker and jabber.

This was an era of new tricks for both knife and fork. (The spoon just sorta kept on keeping on, though it was relieved of certain food shifting duties when the fork got its new tines. This may be why it ran off with the dish.)

1700s http://www.metmuseum.org/

This slow revolution happened in the Georgian and Regency period. People still ate off their knife or ate from the plate with a spoon through the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century. Eating off a knife started the period as robust and natural and perfectly polite. It only gradually became countrified and crude as Victorian times advanced upon us. Rich English silversmith Joseph Brasbridge could write in 1824, “I know how to sell these articles [forks], but not how to use them.”

In the race between knife, fork, and spoon, the fork was the winner.

The fork has now become the favorite and fashionable utensil for conveying food to the mouth. First it crowded out the knife, and now in its pride it has invaded the domain of the once powerful spoon. The spoon is now pretty well subdued also, and the fork, insolent and triumphant, has become a sumptuary tyrant. The true devotee of fashion does not dare to use a spoon except to stir his tea or to eat his soup with, and meekly eats his ice-cream with a fork and pretends to like it.

             Florence Howe Hall, Social Customs, 1887

 

Two men on left are eating left-handed. The second guy on the right eats right-handed. He may only have stuff that needs no knife.

The new fork had all this exciting, expanded capacity. You could use it in the same old way to spear some tidbit or to hold down food while you cut it. But now you could scoop food into the front of it as if it were a spoon. You could pile food on the back of it as if it were a — I don’t know — a thing you pile food on.
Mad possibilities. Woohoo.

Sadly, in this time of great change, Europeans and Americans went their separate ways.
In the 1700s the Great Transatlantic Fork Divide was born.

There was the American style.
One theory is that Americans adopted a then-current French mannerism of handling tableware. The fork was held in the left hand to anchor the food. The knife, in the right hand, to cut it. (Bear with me here. I know it’s complicated.) Then the knife was put down and the fork transferred from left hand to right hand to do the actual eating.

Perhaps this French fashion was seen as particularly civilized and complex. Americans weren't backwoods barbarians after all.

Another theory is that a fork switch from left hand to right hand was just plain traditional. You have to do it if you’re using a spoon. First the left hand anchors food with the spoon to cut it. Then the spoon goes to the right hand to scoop and eat.
Because eating left handed with a spoon is uncanny and challenging and probably leads to nervous tics.

So maybe Americans clung to an established eating custom when them newfangled four-tined forks come along dag nab it.

Europe, faced with a new tableware situation, adopted a new and radical eating procedure. They kept knife and fork tranquilly in hand and ate left handed from the fork.
Which was held  tines down.

They use the right hand for potatoes

You didn't scoop up food with the fork.You piled food on the back of the fork.
That must have been a snap for folks used to balancing peas on a knife.

Having established battling utensil philosophies, folks on both sides of the Atlantic have been secretly sniggering at each other about it ever since.

 

 

Which side are you on? American fork-switching or the streamlined European style?
Which is more logical?

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Comments

[Mary T]

You ladies are so good. You can make the simplest things so interesting.

Well I'm an American fork switcher. I'm not sure if it is because I'm American or because I am right handed. It would seem awkward to convey food to my mouth with my left hand.

All of this reminds me of a Jerry Seinfeld joke from years ago. Can't remember the exact words, but it was something to effect that he really admired the Chinese for still using chop sticks because, after all, they have "seen" forks.

Thanks for another interesting post.

[Mary Jo Putney]

LOL! I knew forks were latecomers to the table, but I didn't realize -how- late. Nor all the controversy and politics involved. What an enlightening way to start the day. *G*

[Joanna Bourne]

I can kinda eat with chopsticks. I hate to think how clumsy I must look to anyone who uses them regularly and knows what they're doing.

[Joanna Bourne]

It's deep background on the Georgian, it seems to me. I don't know that I'd ever find a use for it, exactly. But the women who set the table with the silver forks would maybe still be eating off the edge of a knife in the kitchen, or their parents would at home.

[Alison Y]

This is such a fun and fascinating article. Mary T is correct, you all make everything so interesting and thus educate the rest of us. Thank you for that.

I am an American and always switched my fork. Then, many years ago, I lived in England for 12 years and learned to eat the European way. I found I really liked it. Now I eat both ways, often depending on how easy it is to pile the food on the back of a fork. You have to pile it on in order to make it all go smoothly. If you try to flip the fork and use it like "switchers" do, then it becomes awkward.

[Airieanne]

Once again something everyday becomes fascinating. Thank you Joanna Bourne ! I'm a dyed-in-the-wool American fork switcher. I've tried using utensils like a Brit, but smashing food on the back of a fork and getting it to the mouth without making a mess isn't consistently achieved. I do like spoons or even those "sporks". Hooray for Byzantine and Italian brides who bring their own forks. Maybe that's an added item for a reticule. I've never been sure what all is carried in a reticule anyway. A little money, and......? (Maybe a rock so it can be used as a cosh in self defense?) Cheers. Thanks for the nifty blog.

[Sue McCormick]

In 1940 (at the age of 13 or 14), I participated in a drama called "The Forks of the Dilemma." I purported to be about the coming forks to England during the reign of Elizabeth the first. I see now that this is much too early — but I never did truly believe in the play as any type of fact! Thank you for correcting this wrong impression.

I usually keep my fork in the left hand when cutting and eating meats such as pork chops or steaks, but otherwise use it in the right hand. I guess I like both ways.

[Isobel Carr]

I can manage either way, but I was raised eating "American-style". One of the things I discovered being a re-enactor is that eating with a spoon and a knife (and your fingers) is actually very efficient. I almost never bothered with my 16thC fork.

[Kathleen Bittner Roth]

I switched to the European method after I married my German husband and we moved to Europe from the states. I'm still across the sea, living in Budapest, and by now, it seems odd-looking the American way.

[Shelagh]

What a brilliant history lesson to start my day. I read it over breakfast (porridge, eaten with a spoon held in my left hand as we left-handed Antipodeans do) and laughed like a drain over peas and honey. It doesn't take much to make me laugh early in the day.

[Joanna Bourne]

You're bi-fork-able. How clever of you.

My son is the same. He grew up eating European style and had to learn to do it American when he went back to the US for college.

I don't know what he does now. He appears to live out of Chinese food cartons and eats with chopsticks.

[Joanna Bourne]

I think my female protagonists carry a gun. Just a small little cuff pistol.

But they are Turn-of-the-Nineteenth-Century and sophisticated and expect their hosts to have an adequate supply of table cutlery, which was why folks used to carry their own.

And ... folks were just a little worried about whether the inns properly washed the flatware, I think. Maybe.

[Joanna Bourne]

Really creative types create their own fork drills. They thereby give great pleasure to everyone who watches, trying to guess what they'll do next.

No. I don't think Tudor folks used forks much ... though it's not at all impossible some came in with those ambassadors and their followers.

[Joanna Bourne]

The food would have been adapted as fingerfood. Hands would have been washed and cleaned with some frequency at the more sophisticated tables. Spoons can tuck into the odd custard and ragout.

Look at all the fast food we get through without a fork in sight.

I've seen it speculated that the great motivator for forks was Italian pasta.
I mean, think about it ...
Ms Spoon, Master Knife ... meet Signor Spaghetti.
(awkward silence)

[Joanna Bourne]

I have to admit, I've never tried eating European method.

I'm always mildly surprised I can manage my food in one, old accustomed way, what with most meals spent reading.

[Joanna Bourne]

I am glad you enjoyed that. My father used to sing it to us as a lullaby.

I hadn't realized Australians always used their left hand for eating, being on the opposite side of the world and all. That provides a useful insight into the great reality.

[Ella Quinn]

What a great post! Having learned both American table manners and, much later in life, German table manners (where the fork is held tines up in the upper classes and down in the lower classes), I much prefer the German method.

[Kareni]

What a fun article! Thank you, Joanna. I was raised in Australia by European parents -- I eat in the European style. My husband is American and eats in the traditional American style. My daughter, who is generally right handed, eats in her own fashion. She keeps the fork in her right hand but will use a knife with her left hand; the net result is that she does not need to switch her fork from hand to hand.

[Mary M.]

Oooh, another "reater" (reader/eater)! Hands-free ebooks make this easy for me, as I always have a clean knuckle to "turn" the page. I never have to stick a fork (or a finger) in it. I'm an American eater, by the way, occasionally eat meat Euro style, and am quite good with chopsticks. I love the variety in our global acculturation these days. Thank you for this entertaining fork tutorial, Joanna.

[Faith Freewoman]

I laughed my head off throughout, and get the feeling you had fun writing this one, Joanna, kind of cut loose and let 'er rip! So thanks for inviting us along.

And when I got to peas and honey, I, too was transported to the past with a jolt, and another laugh.

Have a great week, everyone.

Cheers,

Faith

[Katja]

Very interesting article (as almost always on this site), I love the timelines and the citations.
But let me just point out, that there is no "European" way of using a fork.
The Brits use their forks upside down (or tines down)for cutting and eating, just as you described.
But a lot of other Europeans will use their forks in the same way as a spoon (tines up) for eating things that do not have to be cut. But they will use it tines down for cutting.
In fact, using your fork the "continental" way is considered quite ill-mannered by British people, while piling your peas onto the "back" of your fork looks really strange to a lot of continental Europeans.
Should you by the way use your fork to eat spaghetti in Italy you will keep it in your right hand (and never, ever use a knife or a spoon).

[Joanna Bourne]

I wonder how many people, routinely, eat while they're reading. Or read while they're eating,I suppose.

And yes, have to keep that knuckle clean.

[Joanna Bourne]

Now that permutation I didn't run across.

Okay. It's because I don't plan to set a story in Germany in the foreseeable future. My knowledge of history is pretty narrow.

[Joanna Bourne]

Your daughter is obviously a free and inventive spirit. Pretty dexterous, too, to cut with her left hand.

Maybe she's ambidextrous?

[Joanna Bourne]

I'd forgotten I had a posting due in the morning so I had to scramble to get this written.

Fortunately I had the factoids gathered together ahead of time (I have a number of possibilities foregathered) and just had to write.

I think I got a little silly about 3 am.
I try to be more serious ...

[Kathy K]

The hand in which you hold your fork may also have something to do with whether you are are a lefty or a righty. My Dad was a lefty and though he was American born and lived here all his life, he used the fork in his left hand. It also makes a difference in the seating arrangement if there is a lefty at the table. We always had to reserve a spot for him with no one at his left so that there would be plenty of room to maneuver. Thank you for this very interesting post.

[Joanna Bourne]

'Using a fork tines up' is something I come across all along historically (as in The Potato Eaters picture) where the knife is unemployed, lounging to one side, and the fork is in the right hand. Is this what you mean?

I will look for fork tines up in the left hand, but it sounds awkward. Ella Quinn also mentioned this. You folks sure do expand my mind.

The spoon/spaghetti intersection is one of those vexed etiquette questions that we all enjoy.

In Italy, spoon use is deplored.

But pasta and Italian immigrants arrived in the US sorta 1890-ish and simultaneously and Americans learned their spaghetti-eating customs from their new neighbors.

Like most of our immigrants, they were not always exactly the creme de la creme of society. So Americans of all sorts may blithely pick up a big spoon to twirl their pasta, never knowing or caring this is lower class behavior in Naples. It is now 'American behavior' for American food. Which spaghetti now is. Ask anybody.

My mother always sniffed and said "Don't use a spoon. It's bad manners." I don't know where she learned that.

This is not unlike eating pizza in your hands. I still remember my shock in Paris the first time I saw pizza eaten with a knife and fork.

Also peaches, which still amazes me. Though that's another story.

And pizza actually is an American food. Like chow mein.

[Joanne Bourne]

I remember at college we did the same thing. One of us was left-handed and she was always relegate to the corner seat.

She accepted it philosophically.

[Sonya Heaney]

Fork in left hand. Knife in right. I don't know how or why or where I learnt that, but I'm guessing my combination of Australian and English living, with a bit of living in Korea with chopsticks thrown in (for variety!), means that's how I do it.

When travelling, you can generally tell a person's nationality by how they use cutlery - and when in the meal they expect a salad to arrive!

[Betina]

I have read that Dolly Madison, James Madison's wife, instituted the practice of the fork-knife shift because she found the speed of eating at the White House table coarse and unseemly. The shift slowed down the process. But apparently the tradition was already known on the continent-- or so it seems here.

Did I just dream reading about Dolly's decree?

[Karin]

Fork in left hand, tines up, knife in right hand. I happen to do some things with my left hand(eating, writing) but I'm not a total lefty. I use tools like scissors and hammers, and tennis rackets with my right hand. But I think the real reason I eat like that is because my parents were European, and that's how everybody in the family ate. I never saw anyone eat with the tines facing down, that would have seemed very fussy. If I twirl my spaghetti on a spoon, I've still got the fork in my left hand, spoon in the right.

[Kareni]

She writes with her right hand; however, she does do a few things with her left. In archery, she pulls the string with her left hand; I believe she also bowls and shoots with her left hand.

[Joanna Bourne]

This whole eating thing is obviously more complex than it appears at first glance.

(You will soon see me lurking in the underbrush, with binoculars, taking notes for my sociological study.)

[Joanna Bourne]

Y'know ... this might be one of those colorful stories that are not, in strict fact, true.

She would have been First Lady 1810-ish, which seems a little late for establishing this tradition.

[Joanna Bourne]

I find the whole 'salad before the meal or salad after the meal' devastatingly revealing.

I can just see a clever spy noting that someone pushes their salad bowl to one side to finish it after the main course ... and spotting them for a secret European.

[Anne Gracie]

The English/European conventions — spoons and knives in the right hand, forks in the left — are the convention here, although like many other aspects of our culture, the American influence is seeping in, and you will see some people transferring their fork to the right hand.

My parents and grandparents were very strict about table manners and on my last visit to the US I felt quite daring when I occasionally transferred my fork over. I could almost feel Nana's hand hovering, ready to smack me. She's also hovering when I use good Chinese and Japanese manners and drink from the bowl.

And the way to eat peas off the rounded back of the fork is to have some other vegetable and maybe a little sauce or gravy on first and then add the peas. Honey would be no good. If the peas were hot, the honey would melt. *g*

[Anne Gracie]

There is an excellent, slightly tongue-in-cheek article about the decline of British table manners here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11941132/Misusing-a-knife-and-fork-is-the-eighth-and-deadliest-sin.html

[Joanna Bourne]

My life is now enriched by this knowledge. I will spend the rest of my life looking at how people use their forks.

[Vicki L.]

Fascinating....all this fork and knife information and how we eat. Wow...I always felt I had good manners because I managed to get the food in my mouth without spilling it and I chew with my mouth closed. Grin.

Yes, I am a right handed, scoops with tines American. My husband is a left handed, sits at corners and ends of tables person. Though he does cope very well when he has to sit in the middle of a table.

I vaguely knew there was a difference between American and European implement usage (just like there is in knitting - American and Continental). But I never knew how VAST the difference and even country to country.

Next time I'm with the whole family I'll have to observe how they hold their forks. Fist, the use of 2 fingers and a thumb, etc.

Thanks Joanna...this has been fun, fun, fun. And after you complete your sociological study you can present your results here. Giggle.

[Joanna Bourne]

I knit continental, myself -- inasmuchas I knit. My aunt from Mississippi taught me. I have no idea where she learned.

[Anne Gracie]

And their knives. I remember when I was about fifteen and came home from a sleepover at a friends house, and had picked up what I thought was her familys cool way of holding their knives — like a pen. My mother was utterly scathing! And I chuckled when I saw a reference to that in the UK article I linked to in my previous comment.

[Joanna Bourne]

I'm trying to look at how I hold a pen and how that would work with a knife and have become totally confuzzled.

I will pursue this at some leisure moment.

The whole 'what if you were eating with the utensils held all strange?' is making me clumsy. I may stick to sandwiches for a while.

[Anne Gracie]

Heres another article about it -- http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/463498/How-to-have-perfect-table-manners-and-etiquette-at-a-dinner-party

And theres an image of a knife being held like a pen here. The handle of the knife protrudes between the thumb and forefinger.
http://depositphotos.com/9089543/stock-illustration-position-of-the-knife-held.html

A correctly held knife is braced under the palm.
http://www.naijaloaded.com.ng/2015/08/04/share-your-experience-of-using-fork-and-knife-to-eat-for-the-first-time/

[Karen]

I'm English by birth but moved to Canada when quite young. I eat with my fork in my left hand. We only ate with it in our right if someone else had to cut the food for us. In other words when we were kids. Having to switch back and forth always felt awkward to me. But as I got older I have switched back and forth. But I'm still more comfortable eating with my left hand if I have to cut the food as I go.

[Joanna Bourne]

Sounds like you're a European/British eater. You should feel right at home in Canada.

Strange how eating by an unaccustomed system feels so awkward.

[J]

At some point in time I heard or read that the custom of switching the knife out of the right hand (predominant hand) was to minimize the handiness of the knife should violence break out.. during a meal.

[Joanna Bourne]

This could well be the case.

On the other hand, one set of people kept the knife left handed and the other half right. It does not seem much related to the peacefulness of the parties involved.

So maybe some folks chose one way of eating because there were fewer knife fights.

I, on the other hand, would 've just knocked the boys upside the head till they settled down and tucked their elbows in which has to be the foundation of manners.