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Are Forks Indispensable?
| Article
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19563 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1991 |
1,280 Words |
| Author
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Roger Welsch
Roger Welsch is a contributing editor to The World & I. |
Motorized pogo sticks, whiskey-flavored toothpaste, hammocks for two: All were interesting ideas, but they just didn't work out. And neither have forks. For a couple of centuries, the Western world has been fooling around with the experimental eating tool called a fork--and with almost no success.
We can't even agree how many forks should be at a dinner setting or how we should hold them. Europeans hold forks in the left hand with the tines down, piling peas, potatoes, and meat on the back so the gravy is steered directly onto the shirt.
In America we hold the implement the way we hold a hay fork. And many of us do a little hand dance every time we cut meat--Step One: take fork in right hand; Step Two: stab meat with fork; Step Three: transfer fork to left hand; Step Four: pick up knife with right; Step Five: cut meat; Step Six: drop knife; Step Seven: transfer fork to right hand; Step Eight: eat meat, Step Nine: return to Step One. Thanksgiving is prime-time viewing for this dance.
Children are taught not to hold forks in their fists--even though this is the best way to hold them--probably because a fork looks too much like a weapon. Americans fear nothing more than an armed child.
We are told that forks are efficient and convenient. But if they're so efficient and convenient, why does someone have to tell us?
Actually, forks are a lot of trouble. I therefore propose that we retain the implement primarily to hold things down while we cut them with a knife--this will save a lot of nicked fingers. We might also use the fork for spearing meat out of thin stew, although I think it makes more sense to adopt a new implement called a serving spear. Otherwise let's just forget the whole thing.
Forkologists tell us that the first fork was probably a sharp stick some caveman or proto-New Yorker used to stab a piece of meat out of the fire, or maybe to stab another caveman who was after the same piece of meat. The Romans were very advanced in forkery: They used two-tined forks, for serving. By the end of the sixteenth century, Italians were eating with forks, to the astonishment and disgust of everyone around them. Well after the Civil War, there were still places in the United States where forks were rarely used.
Thus, the dining fork is a fairly
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