History and Etiquette of Cutlery

The European rule is to keep the tines down, unless it is the only cutlery you are using, in which case you can scoop with them up. Americans are happy to scoop up at any time.

Who invented cutlery?

Forks — The word fork comes from the Latin “furca” or “pitchfork.” It consists of the prongs, which are called “tines,” and the handle, known as the “shaft.” The European rule is to keep the tines down, unless it is the only cutlery you are using, in which case you can scoop with them up. Americans are happy to scoop up at any time. The fork was invented because some things when cooked are too hot to hold. Ancient Egyptians used large forks for cooking, as did the Greeks, and there were bone forks found in Chinese burial sites from more than 4,000 years ago. Frankly, forks are now a pest in museums.

Knives — There was a time when everyone carried their own knife. It was sharp and pointed and for centuries hosts tried to stop guests picking their teeth with it after a meal. The dinner knife, a much less threatening implement with a rounded tip, is said to have been invented on May 13, 1637 by the First Minister of France, Cardinal Richelieu. You'd think he had better things to do, but apparently one night at a dinner he saw a guest picking his teeth with a sharp knife and had had enough. He ordered all his knives ground down and rounded off to stop such disgusting behaviour. In 1669 King Louis XIV made it illegal for French cutlers to forge pointed dinner knives.

Spoons — “A camel does not drink from a spoon.” ~ Persian Proverb. That is so true yet you rarely see it written down. The spoon has been around since Paleolithic times. Before some genius invented the spoon there is no doubt people used shells to scoop food if it was too hot to touch. The word spoon comes from Old Norse “sponn,” meaning “chip” or “splinter” so some probably used a bit of wood. After that you find the ancient Egyptians using spoons, the usual catalogue of Greeks and Romans, Indians and Muslims etc... Everyone thought the spoon was a cracking idea. — From “Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern Manners,” by Sandi Toksvig

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

An Etiquette “Idiotorial” from 1919

“There are usually so many different kinds of knives, forks and spoons at the average dinner party that it might be a good idea to have the jeweler engrave its use on the handle… When the jewelers are marking forks they ought to move the tines closer together, so that the food won't sip through the cracks and fall on your chest and spoil your rented dress suit. With clothes the price they are, somebody ought to invent a spotless food.” ~ Above– Four forks which never became popular – An American-made, “left handed” fork and three, British-made forks. The three to the right were designed by Ellington in 1867 as “gravy forks or pea forks”. The tines are melded together all except for the ends in order to more conveniently scoop up one’s gravey, or one’s peas. Pease were a staple of British life in the 1800’s and many people in 1867 were still eating their peas from their knives.

Table Manners Not as Necessary As the Food to Practice Them On

There is a school in town which teaches table manner. This may be a good idea, but before we learn how to eat our food we ought to learn how to get it. If it wasn't for table manners, we could just have a set of knives and save ourselves the expense of a lot of silverware.

A lot of people claim that good table manners help them in getting invited out to dinner often. The bird who gets invited out is the one who doesn't cop too much of the table silver when he's visiting.

There are usually so many different kinds of knives, forks and spoons at the average dinner party that it might be a good idea to have the jeweler engrave its use on the handle.

Or it might be a good plan to make the handle longer and print on it everything that may be eaten with it. Take a spoon, for instance. It could have written on it “To be used for soup, coffee, ice cream, pudding, tea, jelly, prunes and mush.”

If you get some food which you never saw before, you could just look over the different silverware and find out which tool to eat with. If the name didn't happen to appear on any of the knives, forks or spoons, just tell your host or hostess that he doesn't care for any.

Grapefruit spoons should be equipped with a windshield or some other contrivance to keep the Juice ont of your neighbor's eye. Either this, or pass goggles to all of the diners.

When the jewelers are marking forks they ought to move the tines closer together, so that the food won't sip through the cracks and fall on your chest and spoil your rented dress suit. With clothes the price they are, somebody ought to invent a spotless food.

Can you imagine how nice it would he to have an egg which you could drop on your white shirt front without soiling it. Of course, it's hard enough to get any kind of an egg at all without going out and hunting for a non-spot.  

This table manners school ought to teach diners not to hit you in the stomach with their elbow every time they try to cut their meat. You can't tell whether they're eating or giving you a massage. 

People should stop using little squares of butter and eut them into balls so that you can roll them around the table instead of passing a heavy plate. An amateur would have to practice playing pool in order to be able to direct the balls. 

The same thing could be done with peas and olives. Instead of the maid passing the dish, she could just stand at one end of the able and roll five or six peas to each guest. After a little practice, a diner could soon get them to roll up his knife and into his mouth. This would save a lot of dishwashing. 

Still, this would confuse the diners. They wouldn't be able to tell whether they were eating or playing tennis. There’s only one suggestion we’d like to make. Tell us how to get the food and we’ll find a way to eat it. 

*On a side note: Amber is believed by the Turks to be an infallible guard against injurious effects of nicotine; hence its extensive use for mouthpieces of pipes.– From “Love, Laughter, Life: An “Idiotorial,” by humorist, John P. Medbury, 1919

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia