Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1884-11-30
KNIVES AND FORKS.
Useful Utensils Once Unknown to
Kings and Queens.
Barbaric Banquets Where Fingers Served
in Place Of Table Cutiey---Hsw
Forks are Used BY the People
of Different Nations.
New IorE Di1afck.

iofksW were Hrst mace. lork Is ABOUT as
necessary part of dinner nowadays IS
the dinner itself We all know how COM
pletely lost we have been if by chance forced
10 gothrough meal with knife alone. As
Mark Twain puts it in a description ofcamp
life ont West
II always felt like one-armed man till
got hold Of tough mimosa twig and made
a fork of it
Yet it is scarcely three centuries ago that
the whole civilized world, from king to pau
per, tore its food with teeth and nails, or
backed it up with knife. The custom Of
using fpger-bowls dates from the time when
YOU had to handle your victuals with your
hands, and there is description of Queen
Elizabeth at state dinner, which praises
her because she got so little grease on her
fingers, and kept her royal face very passa-
bly, clean"
1t is an old picture-the great Earl OF
Leicester, the sage Burleigh, the gallant
Raleigh and the good Sir Philip Sidney, sit
ling round the royal table putting their food
into their bearded mouths with their hands
ike greedy children, and the virgin
queen herself dipping her fingers into
dish, tossing morsel between her regal
lips, and then wiping her hands on her nap
kin as concession to decency required Of
her lofty estate. Even the napkin was I'M
known before the sixteenth century. Kings,
queens and mobiles previous TO that date
wiped their hands on the table-cloth; the
common people, says limbs, used their
creeks or kirtles, or licked their digets
clean"
A feast of those days would be singular
spectacle if we could see il now. The table
cloth was refinement unrecognized by the
middle classes, and even at the tables of the
higher ranks, where it was common, 1t was
considered as the appropriate receptacle OF
all the refuse of the platter or trencher.
such as
Zones, Cheese-Parings, and Other Disiecta.
Every now aud then during the course OF
he meal the serving-man came round with
a square basket called in the language OF
Tue time "voider, and swept the ;ablr
with a wooden dagger" or, in other words
.craped of the accumulated bones, scrap
and fragments with his long wooden void
ing-knife"
Very often half adozen knives served lor
a company of 100 feasters, being passed
rom hand TO hand on demand. Gour-
Al, IL, I'D
their own Knives to dinner with them. In
deed the common appearance OF a knife al
The girdle of all sorts people down to the
seventeenth century was due to this fact
Our forefathers did not arm themselves thus
in order 10 do one another damage so much
AS to be ready to carve their vicluals up il
they were invited to feast
In the early middle ages meat was not
even brought to the table on dish. The
cooks carried it in on splits and halted be
side each guest, who cut of what he wanted
transferred it TO his plate with his fingers
and devoured it at his ease.
Forks seem to have been invented in
Italy at any rate they were first used there,
though all trace of their inventor is lost.
They do not appear to have been known
anywhere before the middle Of the sixteenth
century, when they are first mentioned as
great curiosities in descriptions Of great
banuuets at Venice, Florence and else
where Only the great folks used them
then. An English traveller, one Fynes
Morvson, in the account of his travels, tells
us that, on making bargain with the mas
ter of a Venetian vessel that was to convey
him to Constantinople, and STIMULATING
among other things that he was to be al
lowed the use of fork as well as a knife
and spoon at his meals, he found that the
master
Had Never Heard of Forks.
The traveller had to describe the instru-
ment, and he described it according y as an
implement Ito hold the meat while be cut it,
as he considered it i'll manners to touch the
meat with his hands"
The fork in those days was an extremely
ponderous and ornate implement. 1t was
usually made of silver, and enriched with
arabesuues and carvings. There are forks
n various European museums which are
| perfect works of the jewellers art, and which
weigh upward of half pound. AS luxury
| demanded it they we're often incrusted with
levels, gorgeously enameled and in other
sxtravagant ways made to serve the cray
ing for style Of the best society.
Like oil other innovations, the use oil
forks was manfully opposed on their first in
reduction, and had to make its way By de
yrees. The congregation OF st. Maura, one
| Of the Jonian islands, set their faces against
hem as an article of useless luxury and
sinful indulgence, and for long time they
were rigidly interdicted by the elder breth-
rem, who, however had at last to succumb
and to tolerate their use by those who pre-
ferred to keep their fingers clean.
In some parts of Germany the opposition
took a more serious form; while the COM
mon people looked on the introduction OF
forks as a piece Of absurd and preposterous
affectation the pastors reprobated their use
as an insult on Providence who had be
slowed upon the people wholesome food,
which they, forsooth, we're to be ashamed
to touch with their fingers These opposi,
tons resulted in what are
Known in History as Cork Riots
and scores of people were actually killed be-
cause they wanted or did not want as the
case might be, to eat their meals in decency
and comfort.
The French, who seem always to have
been q people who knew good thing when
they saw it, accepted forks with gratitude;
however The rich used them at once and
enterprising manufacturers Immediately be-
gan TO make them in cheap form for the
benefit of the less opulent. Their use in
France after their introduction speedily be-
came universal
1 The first introduction of forks into Eng
land is claimed BY one Coryat, traveller,
and an exceedingly odd character, who once
enjoyed an equivoeal sort OF reputation
among the wits of Ben Jonson's time, who
made him the butt of their merciless hnmor
Coryat makes the boast that he introduced
the fashion of 1.-The forked cutting of meat
and we are not aware that his pretensions
10 the honor of having done so were ever
disputed. In England, however, the Gus
tom Of eating with the fork was OF very
Slow growth, and there is sufficient mention
made of it By writer's Of the time Of James