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"Fork Spoon and Knife"
My dinner guests expect a fork for their maincourse,
they expect a fork for their salad and it better be the right size. My customers they want
a fork for their cake and that is what our restaurant provides.
FORK, SPOON & KNIFE
On first sight I was sure these three eating utensils
had been inseparable as a trio since the day when they had been invented. My logic was
that people needed a knife to cut their food into portions. Don't we all want bite-size
pieces? To cook over a fire, to handle hot potatoes and other vegetables and to pin food
on a plate while cutting the same one always needed a fork. Oh yes, spoons were necessary
to hold and carry liquids to the mouth.
But than I found out that only the knives and the
spoons date back to the beginning of civilization. The dinner fork was only introduced to
the table setting in Europe in the seventeenth century and it was two pronged. Before
this, forks were solely used as cooking tools and by the servants who filleted and carved
meat in the kitchen or in front of the diners.
The fork is said to have been used as an aid in eating
in Byzantium much earlier. Forks as eating tools were introduced in Greece by 1100 AD and
from there the use of these eating utensils traveled to Italy, France and finally Great
Britain around 1500. It was not till the late 1500s under Queen Elizabeth I, that a few
well-to-do people carried a case fitted with a small pointed metal knife, a round spoon
and a two-pronged fork. Back then the diner provided his own eating utensils. Each set was
handcrafted, each piece was a one of a kind expensive utensil.
It all changed drastically in the early 1800s when the
Industrial Revolution produced stamped silverware. This process was much easier and
quicker than the hand hammering of each particular piece of flatware. Soon the market was
flooded with mass produced eating utensils, various patterns became available. In the
early 1900s a set of flatware was said to belong into every bride's hope chest. Today we
are used to seeing many types of forks and spoons and knifes, made in huge quantities from
a wide variety of materials including plastic, stainless steel and exotic alloys.
Now, realizing that there had been no machine
pressed forks available two thousand and more years ago, I wonder how the upper-class of
intelligent civilizations like the Mayas or Incas and the Pharaohs in Egypt ate their
daily dinner without dinner forks.
And how did the Romans carry food to their mouths?
Or were they all handfed by their servants? I do not know the answer. On the other hand I
have to acknowledge the fact that still today millions of people do not use forks as
eating utensil on their dinner table. In wide parts of Africa or the Arab countries spoon
and knife proof to be sufficient. In the Asian countries chopsticks are the preferred
eating tools. And closer to home looking at much of the American fast food; Hamburgers, hot dogs, tacos
and you name it, with them too more or less clean hands will do just fine. So why did
whoever it was, introduce the fork to the dinner table and why in the seventeenth century?
It is a mystery to me. And once more do I realize
how little control I have over the existing rules; nevertheless where I work, here in
California, dinner guests expect a fork for their maincourse, they expect a fork for their
salad and it better be the right size. My customers they want a fork for their cake and
that is what our restaurant provides. It is my job to make sure the silver is properly
polished and laid out on the table according to standards set.
 gotoDinner Setting
04/01/11 |
