Furca (Latin: Pitchfork), the original name of the common table fork, originated at least 4,500 years. Forks marked civilization and “class” since then. I learned much in Giovanni Rebora’s book Culture of the Fork: A Brief History of Everyday Foods and Haute Cuisine in Europe. FF sent me her collection of Civil War era knives and forks, originally sold to troops by a sutler or victualer. These civilian merchants followed the troops in their covered “Shop” wagons. In the times around 1860, soldiers felt proud of their forks and knives because many bear the soldier’s marking and some custom handles. Soldiers usually bought the less expensive slightly defective pieces. For example the typical three tined fork may have one tine longer than the others.
You may wonder about FF’s spoons, or the lack there of. In those days they considered spoons separate objects unnecessary for eating. Spoons came made of tinned metal, die cut in two pieces, bowl and handle, and riveted together. Cheaper than knife and folk sets. Soldiers with little money, who still wanted to eat, might buy a tinned spoon and use it for all utensils. A bowl with a shaper point made this possible.
Birth of the Fork
Sadly, civilization slowly leaned to eat without the “hand to mouth” technique. Finally in the 4th century forks ‘caught on’ throughout the Byzantine Empire. Previously they used a long wooden spike, until the neighboring Italians invented pasta. In the 11th century the two or three tined fork became the style.
Not without controversy did the use of the fork spread in Southern Europe through the 11th century to the 16th century. The fork met a tragic fate in the 16th century in Northern Europe and England because it its association with the ‘decadent South.’ They considered the use of a fork foppish and unmanly.
Those unmanly enough to use a fork typically used ones with three tines. Then the US entered the fork war after the Revolutionary Period, and developed the four pronged fork in the early 19th century. So, the fork, so ubiquitous today, was not so ubiquitous in the past. No matter how people conveyed food to the mouth, a historical tradition says to use the right hand, the cleaner one. They undertook bathroom activities with the LEFT.
I remember on the counter at the ice cream shop in Deerfield Illinois a container that held balsa wood sporks, a cross between a spoon and a folk, used to sample ice cream. In England they used such miniature sporks in fish and chip shops. The German version of the sampling fork used for potatoes they call a Pommesgabel.
Fork Etiquette
As I speak about the cultural differences indicated by the use of forks, I mention that I married a Brit, and at his mother’s house they called me unmannerly. I cut my food with my fork in the left hand and knife in the right, then flipped the tines over the same time I moved the fork to my right hand to EAT. “No,” Adrian said. “Hold your fork with downward tines in the left hand and insert into mouth with downward tines in your right hand.” I tried, but when I cut meat with fork and knife, fork tines down, and flipped it changing hands to eat, HORRORS!
“Furthermore,” Adrian said. “Do not impale your veg or the tatties with the fork, and worse than that, do not scoop with the fork tines upwards. Worse still, do not shovel with the fork. Try not to show the handles of the knife and fork. Keep the handles in your palm. Do not treat a knife handle like a fountain pen.”
“What do I do with the PEAS?” I asked. “How do I balance them on the flip side of the fork on the way to the mouth?” They considered the American method poor etiquette. When I lived in the UK I practiced the older way of eating with a fork, because as mentioned above, for generations people delivered food to the mouth with the RIGHT hand.
My relatives in Germany considered it unacceptable to change the fork from hand to hand. The French, always different from anyone else, set the table with fork tines DOWN. This showed the family crest which, unlike any other country, they emblazoned on the BACK of the utensils or, what I consider the back of the utensil!
Formal Dinner Settings
If you set a formal table this holiday season you no doubt show cultural insensitivity to your uncle, who will NOT discriminate between the dinner fork, the salad fork, and the dessert fork. Your Uncle will use only one fork to eat ALL your hard-prepared courses. No one taught him that in formal table settings, we arranged cutlery for use form the outside IN. You work through the courses and cutlery towards the dinner plate.
When it comes to the “class” angle shown by the use of the fork, my son, the child of a Brit, may endeavor to teach his two year-old how the British eat. In some circles to eat ‘British’ shows one’s urbanity. Good luck teaching my grandson to mash peas on the back of a fork. I offer a better solution. Smash the peas into a fork-back laden with mashed potatoes and the family may avoid finding peas all over the dining room for years to come.
Finally, legal battles have been fought based on the uses of forks. In 2006 the Montreal-Philippines Cutlery Controversy made International Headlines when a seven year-old Filipino immigrant to Canada used the South Asian style of fork manipulation, using a fork to fill up the spoon. The School Lunch Matron reprimanded the boy, and the battle waged in the Courts for four years until the court awarded the boy’s family $17K in moral and punitive damages for the school’s cultural insensitivity.
The Value of FF’s Civil War collection is $300.