Hidden History: Eating Utensils
A SELECTION OF CUTLERY ON DISPLAY AT MACKIN HOUSE
We use eating utensils multiple times every single day of our lives without considering where they came from or why they are they way they are. We investigated these essential items in preparation for our current exhibit, Deconstructed: The Hidden History of Everyday Objects.
The first eating utensils humans ever used were their hands, and this practice is still the case in many parts of the world today. Human hands, however, have invented many wondrous tools, including knives. The history of knives dates back to the Stone Age, almost 2.6 million years ago, when humans created knives using rock materials like flint and obsidian. Innovation led to new technologies, such as metallurgy as early as 5000 BCE and from then on there was a preference for knives made out of metal.
In the Middle Ages, pointed knives were a necessity for meals at the dinner table, and they were usually used in tandem with hands to eat food. Unfortunately for Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) of Paris, France, his guests used these pointed knives to pick their teeth after their meal. The cardinal was so disgusted by this behaviour that he had all his knives rounded off, and the table knife was born. The spread of this utensil design was largely due to Cardinal Richelieu’s influence as a prominent religious and political figure. In 1669, to honour the memory of Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis XIV banned pointed knives altogether, making them illegal.
A 17TH CENTURY KNIFE AND FORK, GERMANY. SOURCE: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Though it was and is an all-in-one utensil, what would the knife be without its partner, the fork? Believe it or not, people were skeptical, superstitious, offended, and appalled about the fork when it first started to become popular in Europe in the 1500s. The church saw it as an affront to God’s original forks, the fingers, and associated fork usage with indulgence. It was not until 1633 when England’s King Charles I championed the fork that people started respecting its use.
Chopsticks date back to 1200 B.C. in China where they were used first as cooking tools to reach into boiling pots containing water or oil. Chopsticks did not catch on until around 400 CE when cooks chopped food into smaller pieces to cook faster and use less oil. Smaller pieces meant smaller bites, perfect for the pincer-like precision of chopsticks. Knives were no longer as necessary at the dinner table, and Confucius’ teachings opposed the knife, making chopsticks ever more favoured.
If you would like to learn more about eating utensils, including eating etiquette in different cultures, come visit us at Mackin House! Deconstructed: The Hidden History of Everyday Objects will be on display until June 2021.