Fork, Spork and Knork Etiquette

(Above) An Albert Coles, coin silver, pickle fork– These were popular in the mid-19th century. Often sold in sets with knives, for eating pickled foods, they fell in and out of fashion quickly. Foods like pickled eggs, pickled pigs feet, pickled peaches, pickled asparagus, etc... were  elegantly eaten by using these forks.

(Above) Corn on the cob with a wide variety of forks and holders.–Green corn was a popular Victorian era food to serve. Rarely seen on fine dining tables today, corn on its cob was served then, as finger bowls were also at the table for each guest.

(Above) Two different melon forks, one in silver plate with a hollow handle and the other, in sterling. In France, melon forks were usually sold in sets with knives. In the U.S., most were sold as individual forks for dining.

(Above) A pie, pickle or even a "Nelson fork" — Some fork designs were sold for different purposes in different regions of the U.S. and in Europe. Other utensils were modified a bit to suit new foods, as foods that were considered delicacies, fell into and out of,  fashion. A "Nelson fork" was a fork adapted for eating with one hand, after British Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson lost his arm while fighting Napoleon at Tenerife.

(Above) An individual, Victorian cheese fork. These can be brought out with the fruit and cheese course or placed for each guest above the plate with a fork and spoon for dessert.

                               

(Above) Two individual corn forks (or knorks - knife-fork combinations), a small and large, and one individual corn scraper. Corn forks were made with one side a bit thinner and sharp, for scraping the kernels from one's corn at the table, if one was not given a corn scraper or corn stripper. Corn scrapers or strippers, were used like forks, but they were designed with "teeth" to cut the kernels off a cob at the table. The rule that no more than 3 forks are to be set to the left of a place setting, meant that some forks or dining tools, were brought out with the food itself, for each guest. Otherwise, Victorian era place settings would be too large for a regular dining table to accommodate more than one guest at each side of the table.

I have a theory a bit different than the common belief shared by many who have written books on Victorian habits and dining. The majority of them propagate the belief that it was a fear of foods being tainted by other humans, which created such a demand for the vast amount of designs for silver utensils in late 19th to early 20th centuries. (With our abundant use of hand sanitizer and anti-bacterial soaps, what will future generations say about us?) It’s true, there were inventors with patents obtained for sanitary cups, clips for drinking glasses, utensils and straws, etc... during the late 1800s and early 1900s. But I believe it was a complex combination of factors that drove the rush to create new pieces of table silver. The first may have been what lay in tin cans. 

When a Parisian candy maker named Nicolas Appert won 12,000 francs in 1809, it was for his inventing a new way to preserve foods. Prior to that time, pickling or salting and drying were the preferred methods of preserving foods. Napoleon had offered the prize of 12,000 francs, while preparing to invade Russia. With severe malnutrition decimating his troops, he knew he needed another way of stocking and preserving foods for something as involved as his Russian campaign. Appert used widemouthed, corked glass bottles that he filled with food, and heated in boiling water to find that solution. This new method of safely preserving foods, led to the invention of “tinned foods” or, the tin can, by Englishman Peter Durand. Tin cans would soon be used for feeding the British navy and army. New “tinning” or canning also meant more foods were available to the masses, as spoilage was no longer an issue. Price was still a concern for most consumers outside the military, though. 

"I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered, what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?" –Comedian George Carlin ~ (Above) The smallest forks in the fork family are for cherries and berries. They also work well when eating kumquats. 

Early tinned and canned items were too expensive for those in the lower, and even middle-class income brackets, at the time. Sardines were one imported tinned food that the wealthy could afford to serve, so sardine servers, dishes and tongs, like those pictured, were offered in abundance at the time. Tinned sardines and other such foods, offered an elegant way to not only outdo one’s neighbors, but an easy way illuminate one’s home.

A very well lit home was coveted in an era when candlelight and gaslight were the only substitutes for the sun. Mirrors, tin ceilings, gold and the all important, silver dining accoutrements, combined with sparkling crystal, all reflected one’s well-placed candles and chandeliers. Pricey wall sconces were designed with numerous concave “reflectors,” adding to a sconce's output of light. The number one factor for such a variety of silver and gold laid out at one’s table was surely light.   

(Above) Combination fork and spoons, like these for terrapin (turtle soup) or ice cream and desserts, were very popular for entertaining in the Victorian era.

Another important factor was that once an inexpensive form of silver plating was devised – electroplating– , the ownership of silver was no longer limited to the wealthy. Housewives and new brides could afford much less expensive silver items, which certainly added to the growing numbers. As silver had only been available to the wealthier in society, an overwhelming public demand soon grew for utensils or servers, designed with anything or everything edible, or drinkable, in mind. 

Marketing strategies were clever, too. If you didn't know you “needed” silver for your table, advertisements in women’s magazines and newspapers, told you they were necessities. They were touted as “heirlooms of the future”, so even if you hadn't felt a great need for them, all your descendants would certainly appreciate your thoughtfulness. One wouldn’t want to deprive their grandchildren of orange spoons with gold-washed, vermeil bowls, or bonbon spoons, like those pictured? Of course not! –Etiquipedia© Site Editor, Maura J. Graber, from her book, “Reaching for the Right Fork”

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

Etiquette and Eating Fruits Properly

Apples and Pears - 

Informally eaten in the hand, but at table they are taken onto the fruit plate and spirally peeled, or quartered with a knife, then peeled. The sections are then cored and eaten with the fingers or with the fruit fork. Lady apples, tiny as crab apples, are eaten in the fingers like plums.
    

Life is just a bowl of ... kumquats? Cherry forks are ideal for eating kumquats.

Apricots, Cherries, Kumquats, Plums -

 Apricots, cherries, plums are eaten in one or two bites, and the stones, cleaned in the mouth, are dropped into the cupped hand and placed on the side of the plate. Kumquats are bitten into or eaten whole depending on size.

Halved Avocados - 

In their shells these are eaten with a spoon, scooped out and taken spoonful by spoonful, with the dressing (perhaps lime juice and powdered sugar, or a little lake of French dressing) provided. Halved or quartered avocados in salads or on fruit platters are eaten with the fork after being broken into manageable bites.

             

Fried banana servers are rare in the world of silver flatware collecting.

Bananas - 

Very informally (at picnics and by small children) bananas are peeled down with the end of the skin as a protective holder. When eaten at table from a fruit dish they are peeled, then broken as needed into small pieces and conveyed to the mouth with the fingers.

Berry servers and berry forks shown with berries and strawberries.  Strawberries are not actually berries, but bananas and zucchini are botanically designated in the berry plant family.

Berries - 

Eaten with a spoon. Large strawberries are sometimes served whole with their stems on. These are grasped by the stem and dipped in
powdered sugar on the plate, then eaten in one or two bites, with the stem remaining in the fingers.

Grapes - 

Cut a bunch or section of bunch from bunches in bowl with knife or scissors (never absent-mindedly pull off grapes from centerpiece or arrangement of fruit) . Eat one grape at a time, after placing bunch on serving plate. Grape skins, if you can't eat them, should be cleaned in the mouth but not chewed, then removed in the cupped hand with the pits and placed on the side of the plate. Or, holding the grape with the stem end to the lips, pop the inside into the mouth and lay skin on side of plate if they will pop.

Once refrigerated railroad cars were in use, pointed spoons, originally designed for oranges, had serrated edges added to them, which made them ideal for grapefruit.

Grapefruit -  

Eaten, halved, with a pointed fruit spoon. Sections should be loosened with grapefruit knife before serving. Do not squeeze out juice at table, except en famille if the family can stand it.      

A selection of mango forks from Holland and Ecuador.

Mangoes - 

Wits say the only place to eat them is in the bathtub. But they may be used in a fruit bowl and eaten at table, even though the best way to serve them is peeled, quartered, pitted, and chilled. A whole ripe (spotted) mango should be cut in half with a sharp fruit knife, then quartered. Then, with the quarter turned skin up and held in place with a fork, the skin should be carefully pulled away rather than peeled from the fruit. The juicy sections are then cut in one-bite morsels. Finger bowls or at least paper napkins are necessary, as this fruit stains badly.
     

An ornate, Gilded Age, gilded orange spoon. The vermeil finish on the bowl of this spoon, protected the silver from the citric acid.

Oranges -

Peeled with a sharp knife in one continuous spiral (if you're adept), then pulled apart into segments and, if the segments are small, eaten segment by whole segment. If segments are large they are cut in half cross-wise with the fruit knife and eaten with fingers or fruit fork. Navel oranges are sometimes more easily eaten if the skin is quartered, then pulled down toward the navel and pulled off. The navel is then cut off and the orange segmented or cut in slices and eaten with the fork. At breakfast, oranges may be served halved like grapefruit, with the segments loosened, and are eaten with a fruit spoon.

Most gentlemen carried a personalized fruit knife with them, to cut and quarter not only their own fruits, but those of ladies whom they may have been picnicking with.

 Peaches-

Halve, then quarter with fruit knife. Then lifting the skin of each quarter at an edge, pull it off. Eat sections in small pieces with fork, preferably, as peach juice stains table linen.
    

Many fruits, sadly, were "Rodney Dangerfields"... they got no respect and no special utensils designed for them. Persimmons, papayas, kiwis, watermelon, peaches, cantaloupes, apples and pears are some of those "Rodney Dangerfields." And though the pineapple never had its own silver flatware, it did grace centerpieces at many tables in the New England states, as well as in England, and has become a symbol of hospitality.

Persimmons- 

Often served as a first course with the top cut off well below the stem and the base cut flat so the fruit stands firmly on the plate. Grasping the persimmon with the left thumb and index finger, scoop out and eat a spoonful at a time, keeping the shell intact. Avoid the skin which, unless dead ripe, is puckery. The large pits are cleaned in the mouth, dropped into the spoon, and then deposited on the side of the plate. Persimmons in salad are peeled and quartered too difficult a procedure to attempt at table, and persimmons in a fruit arrangement firm enough to be decorative are likely to be all but inedible anyway. They should be dead ripe and slightly spotted.

Pineapple-
 

Eaten with a spoon if served cut-up for dessert. If served on flat plates in quarters or eighths, peeled pineapple is eaten with a fork, after being cut with fruit knife.

Stewed or Preserved Fruit- 

The pits or bits of core of cherries, prunes, plums, apples, etc., eaten in compote form with a spoon are dropped into the spoon, then deposited on the side of the plate.

Citrus peelers were popular items for the Victorian and Edwardian Era table.

Tangerines-

Stripped of their skins, segmented, and eaten in the fingers without cutting or breaking the segments.

Watermelon- 

If served cubed and chilled (often in white wine), eaten from a compote with a fruit spoon. Otherwise eaten with the fork. If seeds are present, the fruit is taken seeds and all into the mouth, then the seeds are cleaned in the mouth, dropped into the cupped hand, and placed on the side of the plate, entirely dry.

Etiquette instructions from Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette.  

Photos of fruits and utensils courtesy of Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia Site Editor, Maura J. Graber 

Etiquette and the History of Forks

      

An assortment of fork designs, for everything from Victorian green corn, to baked potatoes, bread, butter, ice cream and cheese.

Early Forks and Use in Europe

Thomas Coryat was an English traveller and writer of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean age (c. 1577 – 1617). He is principally remembered for two volumes of writings he left regarding his travels, often on foot, through Europe and parts of Asia. He is credited with introducing the table fork to England, with “Furcifer” (Latin: fork-bearer, rascal) which then became one of his nicknames. The fork he described had two tines. Since then, forks have been designed with many more than 2 tines. Some forks have up to 7 or 8, depending on what one is serving.

               

Antique melon forks ~ Perfect for cantaloupes, watermelons, honeydew melons, etc. Though the fork’s early history is obscure, the fork as a kitchen and dining utensil is believed by some to have originated in the Roman Empire, or perhaps in Ancient Greece. Others believe the fork’s origins to be in Africa or the Middle East. 

The origins of personal table forks are believed to be in the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, when, according to “1843 Magazine” at the party celebrating her marriage to the son of the doge of Venice in 1004, Byzantine Princess, Maria Argyropoulina, niece to the emperor of Byzantium, scandalized the guests by using a fork to eat. Prior to that, forks were large, two-pronged utensils used for toasting or carving foods, and smaller versions could be used to retrieve food from jars or other containers, but no one had used one to eat with publicly. Her actions were immediately condemned. One priest declared that “‘God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks – his fingers.’ When Maria died of the plague two years later, it was seen as divine punishment for her decadence.”

Use of the fork spread slowly during the first millennium CE and then spread into southern Europe during the second millennium. Forks did not become common in northern Europe until the 18th century and were not commonly used to eat in North America until the 19th century. By the mid 1800s, forks were being designed for nearly every type of food, and were considered necessary to every proper home's table.

It is common knowledge (and a flattering social myth for us) that our own ancestors used to have very different -- and much cruder -- table manners from those we practice today. We have “come on,” in other words; we have “progressed.” The simplest historical novel or movie can make an exotic effect by presenting a scene in which dinner guests gnaw meat straight off bones gripped in their greasy fists, then hurl the remains into the corners of the room. These, the audience accepts without difficulty, were the manners of the past, before we became modern and civilized. (This sense of superiority does not prevent us from feeling proud, at the same time, of modern simplicity and lack of pomp. We are as capable of despising our ancestors for their tradition-bound complexity as for their rudimentary standards of propriety.) 

Forks had also to be made and sold, then produced in versions which more and more people could afford, as they slowly ceased being merely unnecessary and became the mark of civilized behavior. 

Manners have indeed changed. They were not invented on the spot, but developed into the system to which we now conform. Since manners are rituals and therefore conservative -- part of their purpose is always conservation -- they change slowly if at all, and usually in the face of long and widespread unwillingness. Even when a new way of doing things has been adopted by a powerful elite group -- using forks instead of fingers, for example -- it may take decades, even centuries, for people generally to decide to follow suit. Forks had not only to be seen in use and their advantages successfully argued; they had also to be made and sold, then produced in versions which more and more people could afford, as they slowly ceased being merely unnecessary and became the mark of civilized behaviour. After the eleventh-century date of the first extant document describing (with wonder) the sight of someone using one, the fork took eight centuries to become a utensil employed universally in the West. —From Margaret Visser’s, “The Rituals of Dinner” 

“It’s a dinglehopper!” Scuttle the seagull, answering an inquisitive mermaid Ariel, after she presents a dinner fork for his expert identification of a human item that she is unfamiliar with, in Disney’s 1989 The Little Mermaid ~ From “Let Them Eat Cake... The Strange Saga of the Mango Fork and the Unique Dining Habits of the Dutch” by Etiquipedia Site Editor, Maura Graber 

Meet Fork In Box. Fork, meet reader. “Meet Fork in Box” was the misspelled listing I found on eBay that allowed me to snag my second Dutch mango fork. Obviously a misspelling, I am sure the German Ebay seller who listed this beauty meant to list a “meat fork in box”. Before I go any further however, I should tell you a bit of my history with this odd utensil. In reality, I have never met a fork I didn’t like. My preoccupation with forks began not too long after Disney’s Ariel made her landing at the box office. Katie, my daughter, was almost three. She was enthralled with the precocious sea maiden who had red hair the color of her own. By the time the VHS tape was running continuously at home, I was starting an etiquette business for children and teens. The majority of the kids I taught were so used to fast foods, they rarely ate at a family dinner table. Showing them interesting and odd looking forks, along with other unusual utensils, was a way I found that kept kids interested when I talked of setting the table at home. I needed to do something to catch their wandering attentions, and strange utensils filled that need. 

Several Dutch mango forks ~ Many Dutch feel these forks are better suited to cake. All of these pictured are Dutch, save the fork on the far right. It was from South America. 

My husband was great at sussing out unique forks for me in the beginning. We stopped in thrift and antiques shops to find odd things for the table that were relatively inexpensive. Utensils over $10.00 seemed pricey. After all, these were props for my students to pass around and examine. Sales of very old used books on silver at the local library were how I did my research on pieces we’d found. Some were sold for only a quarter. I use them for reference still. 

Anything Victorian was popular during the 1990s. Tea rooms were sprouting up in malls, while magazines and books devoted to the subject were readily available. Over the next few years, as my collection of table silver oddities grew, my forays for the rarest of forks became more time consuming. Any weekend outing meant a side trip to a thrift shop or antiques mall. I was asked to give talks and lectures on not just my collection, but how people in America once dined with grace and forethought. At least more forethought than wondering if “... you want fries with that?”, before being handed a bag of fast food through the car window.– From various sources including the book, “Let Them Eat Cake,” by Maura J. Graber

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