Pepper Board

Pepper Board

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Eating with a Fork



You can read online and maybe surprised to learn that the fork is a latecomer to the dining table. Though the fork didn’t have a place at the Greek table, where people used spoons, knives and their hands, it was a recognized utility. In ancient Greece, Poseidon brandished a trident while mortals had large forked tools to pull food out of boiling pots. Thank goodness, the fork eventually made it to the table. Looking to the eighth or ninth century, some Persian nobility may have used a fork-like tool. In the 11th century, forks were in use in the Byzantine Empire. An illustrated manuscript from that period shows two men using two-pronged fork--like instruments at a table. Then there was St. Peter Damian, a hermit and ascetic, who criticized a Byzantine-born Venetian princess for her excessive delicacy. This princess refused to touch her own food and had a golden instrument with two prongs to carry it to her mouth.  This behavior came under Damian’s condemnation and led to the fork as being viewed with skepticism or even outright hostility.What do you think about that?

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