Eating Off Knives Still Problem, 1910

There was a shock expressed over a German chef not knowing how to make a pie? But no shock expressed over a man eating what was supposed to represent a pie with a knife!?! Believe it or not, in 1910, in all circles of life, men were still eating with their knives and not forks. It had been well over a hundred years since forks had become a common site on tables in the US… longer than that in Europe. But many people found the fork to be unnecessary when dining, even though specific forks had been designed for eating pie for over 50 years at that point. Sometimes new-dangled technology takes longer to be adopted than expected. Forks were just such technology!

Pie-Land in Der Velt Voran

A San Francisco cartoonist represents Ned Greenway, on his contemplated trip to Europe, absorbing the social customs of various countries. The idea is good, and the drawing is good. But the German cartoon represents Ned holding a huge stein of beer, and eating pie with his knife. The beer is all right, and so is the knife. But the pie! Who ever heard of pie in Germany? 

Actually there is no word for “pie” in the German language, and the Germans do not know what pie looks like. We remember serving on a committee, two different Thanksgivings, in Berlin, that tried to teach the chef of the Kaiserhof to make mince pie. He concocted a something that tasted good, but it was not pie. 

The poor man had never seen a pie, and could not understand, from mere description, what so strange a dish might be like. There are a thousand Americans who know what Pökelkamm mit Erbsenpüree is to one German who knows what pie is. Pie, as has been well said, is the palladium of American liberty. Therefore, do not seek it in any military imperialism. – From the Fresno Republican, 1910

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia