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 

Gilded Age Etiquette: Sensible Humor

“… there is a sensible reason for that rule. You are very liable to cut your mouth with the knife. That is one reason why you should always use your fork in conveying food to your mouth.” Above: Sir Alec Guinness looks on in bemusement as Sir John Mills eats food straight from his knife in 1946’s “Great Expectations.” By the latter half of the 19th century, etiquette books were decrying the practice of eating from one’s knife, though it had earlier been perfectly acceptable behavior in England for hundreds of years.

“Etiquette”

“Pardon me, Cousin Jay, but you should not eat with your knife,” said Mrs. Cittily, addressing her rural relative. “It is not according to the rules of etiquette, you know.”

“Hoh! What's the sense of eterket, anyhow?” airily answered the visitor from the wilds of the Wayback County, passing in the midst of an interesting exhibition of amateur sword-swallowing. “I ain't no dude.”

“I know you are not, Cousin Jay, but there is a sensible reason for that rule. You are very liable to cut your mouth with the knife. That is one reason why you should always use your fork in conveying food to your mouth.”

“Hoh! That ain't no reason at all! A feller that ain’t got sense enough to keep from cuttin’ his mouth with a knife would be just as likely to jab it with a fork.” – In “The World,” 1896

 

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