The History Of The Fork - From Antiquity To The Present Day

Video: The History Of The Fork - From Antiquity To The Present Day

Video: The History Of The Fork - From Antiquity To The Present Day
Video: The Forgotten History of the Fork 2024, December
The History Of The Fork - From Antiquity To The Present Day
The History Of The Fork - From Antiquity To The Present Day
Anonim

Can you imagine the food without fork? It is like a part of the table, like an extension of our hand, like a spice, without which no dish will ever be delicious.

The fork has come a long and scary way to be a natural part of our lives today.

She was born in antiquity. The Egyptians began using it in the form of a device with metal teeth to cook and stab food in pots.

Presumably in its modern form the fork appeared in Europe first in the Byzantine Empire. It was "imported" into northern Italy in the middle of the 11th century, when the Byzantine princess Theodora Ducas married the Venetian doge Domenico Selvo. The story goes that the demanding princess found it humiliating to eat with her fingers, as was the custom at the time, and asked for a fork.

In Italy, the appliance was originally used to eat only pasta. And that's where the fork spread to the rest of Europe.

However, today's irreplaceable device has encountered an unexpected obstacle - in the Middle Ages it was designated by the Church as a device of the devil because of its resemblance to the trident of Satan.

Therefore, it was widely believed that the fork brought misfortune and no one dared to take their food with it. Only in some more artistic and aristocratic families was the device still present, but as a decoration. It is said that in the French royal court at that time there was a single fork, which was carefully stored in a case.

Thank God the anathema over the beloved fork falls with the coming of the Enlightenment and it officially enters the food books.

fork
fork

And her real rehabilitation came thanks to the French. In the palace at the time of Louis XIV, there was a fork for each guest to the left of the plate. Well, the truth is that the appliance was not used much even then, because the king himself liked to eat with his fingers.

It was necessary to wait until the end of the 17th century for the fork to be used for its intended purpose - to transport food from plates to mouth. It was at this time that its shape changed, going from two to four teeth.

And did you know that along with the rule that the fork should always be placed on the left side of the plate, there are two other ways to place the fork on the table - "in French" and "in English".

In France, it is usually placed upside down - upside down. This habit was carried over from the Renaissance, when people in high society had a tradition of engraving their coats of arms on the backs of forks. In order for it to be visible to everyone, the forks were placed upside down.

In England, the forks were placed upside down, because the English coats of arms were engraved on the front of the appliance.

And another curious thing - even today some forks still exist with only two or three teeth - oyster forks, mussel forks and snail forks.

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