The following is an extract from a paper that I wrote a few years ago:
The Humble Table Fork: It’s Life and History in Europe, which is based on a research paper I wrote for the 2005 Ice Dragon Pentathalon (
The Tines They Are A’Changing: A Brief History of the Fork in Western Europe). I was in the process of getting it published in the
Compleat Anachronist and kind of put it aside mid-way through its fourth re-write. A friend suggested posting a section might help me re-gain my enthusiasm for forks. I have already posted a
section from this document, in this blog.
The following is from the 6/23/2010 revision, pages 36 to 41.
On Top Of Old Spaghetti:
The difference that allowed forks to spread in Italy before the rest of Europe was pasta, or more exact; long pasta noodles. Try to eat a plate of hot, buttery linguine with your bare hands. It can be done, but not easily or cleanly. I would guess that the fork was pressed into service to eat noodles, rather than being "invented" to fit the job. We have already seen that forks have been around for a long time, it would be easy for us to imagine some unknown chef trying different methods of eating vermicelli before hitting upon the fork.
While pasta-like dough has been around since the ancient Greeks, [244] macaroni [245] dates back to at least the year 1000. In that year the first documented recipe for macaroni was written.
De arte Coquinaria per vermicelli e macaroni siciliani or
The Art of Cooking Sicilian Macaroni and Vermicelli written by Martino Corno, chef to the powerful Patriarch of Aquileia. [246] I will assume that pasta dough that was rolled into balls or folded around a filling (such as ravioli) was easy enough to eat with a spoon, the point of a knife or with one’s fingers. But the long, thin noodles of vermicelli would require a special tool. "The slippery strings of spaghettini either burned or slipped elusively through the diner’s fingers. Hence the ingenious fork, with allowed one both to spear and to twirl." [247]
Weird Pasta Fact #1: it may have led directly to the popularity of the fork. According to The Medieval Kitchen, the fork was in use from the 14th Century in taverns and manors alike, for eating pasta. Eating food with the fingers and a knife had been common practice, but eating pasta this way is difficult. Initially, a pointed stick was used to eat hot pasta, but the fork was eminently more practical. [248]
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That is because the fork was not yet used for this purpose - except in Italy, where it was in use from the late 14th century, even in tavern, for eating pasta. A tale by Franco Sacchetti depicts two people sharing the same plattern of steaming-hot macaroni, one wolfing it down and the other remaining hungry (Tables florentines, p21). Could not the spread of the fork in Italy be connected with the consumption of pasta, which was already typical of that land? What other tool, apart from chopsticks, could be better for eating noodles? And the author of one of our recipe collections, which probably predates Sacchetti’s story, suggest eating lasagne with a pointed stick (lc and recipe 6), which amounts to a preliminary design for the fork. But we must also link the use of forks to the generally more highly evolved customs of urban Italian society, who were less frozen in terms of social hierarchy and therefore more willing to accept new practices. [249]
One of the earliest references linking forks to pasta appear in a cookbook compiled at the Angevin court in Naples and presented to King Robert of Anjou. [250] In this book we find a recipe for lasagna:
On Lasagna: for lasagna take fermented dough and roll into a hollow tortellini shape as tightly as you can. Then divide the dough into four quarters measured and shaped by the fingers. Afterward you have salted boiling water and into which you put the aforementioned lasagnas to cook. And when they have been thoroughly cooked you add grated cheese. If you so desire you can add quality powered spices and sprinkle these over the mixture. Then you make a serving of lasagna and this concoction and serve until the bowl is full. Then eat picking up the lasagna with a single-pronged wooden utensil (punteruolo). [251]
This punteruolo appears to be a proto-fork; a single-tined fork, if you will. I would imagine that using a punteruolo would be like using a skewer or a toothpick to move food: If the food were firm, like a piece of cheddar cheese or a cube of salami, one could easily spear the item and move it from dish to mouth. However, if the item were soft and limp, like brie or an oyster, or like a cooked lasagna noodle, it would not work very effectively. Still, Robert’s cookbook recommends the punteruolo despite it being inconvenient and awkward. It did not take long for the fork to replace the punteruolo. Where ever pasta was eaten, it appears, forks were used. [252]
Franco Sacchetti, in the middle of the Fourteenth-Century, wrote a book entitled
Three Hundred Novellas: Story 124 of that book tells a tale of a Giovanni Cascio who sat at a table with Noddo d’Andrea, a glutton, able to swallow food "ancor che boglienti" (still hot). When "boglienti maccheroni" were served, "Noddo cominciò a raguazzare i maccheroni, avviluppa e caccia giù; n’aveva già mandato sei bocconi giù, che Giovanni aveva ancora il primo boccone sulla forchetta" (Noddo began forking the hot maccheroni, gulping them down. He had already swallowed six mouthfuls when Giovanni still had his first on his fork). [253]
It chanced upon one occasion that when Noddo was dining together with others, he was put to share a dish with a pleasant man named Giovanni Cascio. And when boiling hot macaroni was brought to table, this Giovanni, having several times heard tell of Noddo’s habits and finding himself put to share a dish with him, said within himself: "Truly, I am fortunate! I thought I was coming here to dine, and I shall have come only to behold Noddo devouring, and macaroni too, to make matters worse! Provide he doth not eat me, I shall do well."
Noddo began to stir the macaroni, to wrap it round his fork and hurry it down his throat, and he had already disposed of six mouthfuls whilst Giovanni still had his first upon his fork, not daring to put it in his mouth as it was smoking hot. And reflecting that the whole of this dish would disappear down the same road if he did not do something, he said within himself: "Of a certainty this man shall not devour all my share." So when Noddo took up one mouthful upon his fork, Giovanni took another and threw it on the ground to the dog, and when he had done this several times, Noddo cried: "Alas! what art thou doing?"
Said Giovanni, "Nay, what art thou doing? I will not have thee eating my share, I wish to give it to the dog."
Noddo laughed, and ate still more hurriedly, and Giovanni Cascio likewise more hurriedly flung the food to the dog. [254]
The gesture of twirling macaroni on a fork must have been familiar enough to his Fourteenth Century readers for Sacchetti simply to use the verb "avvilupparte" to evoke the image. [255] But pasta wasn’t the only dish that drove the fork to new heights: cuisine was changing throughout Europe. In the year 1000, the cuisine of most of Europe consisted of roasted meats and vegetables, meat pies, bread, stews and porridges. The kitchen of John of Guant, [256] Europe’s wealthiest man, served him, "meat pies and elaborate desserts of custard or spun sugar. Barbecued meat was still the staple serves at aristocratic tables, but the better chefs learned how to season the roasted or broiled meat with Oriental or Islamic spices. Pickled fish was also considered a delicacy." [257]
From Bread to Plate.
The various dishes were carried into the hall with great ceremony, a steward, with his rod of office, heading the procession. As we have already stated, the roasts were carried in on the spits, and these were often of silver. In the romance of Garin le Loherain, a quarrel is represented as taking place at dinner, when one of the guests, wanting a weapon, snatched a spit from the hands of an attendant. The fourteenth century Flemish brass of Robert Braunch, at St Margaret’s, Lynn, shews, at a feast given by Edward III. by the corporation of that town, the peacock being carried in with attendant minstrels, &c. The hour of dinner at this period was ten o’clock in the forenoon, and five for the afternoon meal. Each guest washed his hands before sitting down, and when he rose from the table. As forks were almost unknown, this was a very necessary operation. The guests were placed in couples, these eating the same food, and having one plate between them. Care was taken to place those together who were likely to be friendly. This was the origin of the phrase ‘ to eat in the same dish’ (manger dans la mime ecuelle), implying friendship. But plates do not appear to have been generally in use. Mr Wright observes that loaves, were cut into thick slices (called in French tranehoirs; English, trenchers, because they were to be carved upon), and in these the portions of meat were placed, the gravy passing into the bread. Sometimes this was eaten by the guest, but, if not, it went away with the leavings, which were destined for the poor. [258] In great houses, a platter (often of silver) was placed under the trencher, and so, after a time, the use of the latter was abandoned. [259]
The menu of England’s Henry IV’s coronation in 1399 included; braun en peuerarde (brawn in a sort of spiced wine pottage), viaund ryal (a soup of almond milk, wine, and spices), roasted boar’s head with tusks, large roasts (of some animal), syngnettys, capoun de haut grece (larded and fried capons), roasted pheasant, roasted heron, crustade lumbarde (a sort of savoury custard pie with marrow and dried fruit), roasted sturgeon, roasted pike, a subtlety, venison with frumenty, jelly, stuffed sucking pig (roasted), roasted peacocks, roasted cranes, roasted venison, roasted old rabbit, roasted bittern, gilded chickens (roasted), graunt tartez, (great tarts with game, birds, etc, marrow, spices and eggs), braun fryez. (brawn cooked in a sweet batter), leche lumbarde. (a paste of dates, wine, and spices, in slices), another subtlety, a white soup, preserved quinces, roasted egrets, roasted curlews, roasted partridge, roasted pigeons, roasted quails, roasted snipe, small birds (or meat pies depending on the translation of ‘brydys’), roasted young rabbits, meatballs, brawn cooked with almond milk, jellied eggs, fritters, cheesecakes, small tarts, roasted hedgehog, pottys of lylye, a third subtlety. [260] All foods that can be eaten with one’s fingers or with a knife or a spoon. The majority of the meal was roasted meat which could easily be sliced apart with a knife. It is worth noting that Henry didn’t ask for any vegetables. Henry’s son, Five, [261] had a similar menu for his coronation; mostly roasted meats that could be eaten with one’s fingers. [262]
Manorial servants often fed well. In the 13th century they ate two meals a day consisting of beef and ale, fish, in the form of herrings and cod, cheeses and rye or wheat bread. The basic diet of the peasants consisted of carbohydrates in the form of grain, mostly barley and oats, baked or brewed into bread or ale. They ate little protein, meat and eggs being in short supply. The wedding feast menu of Jean du Chesne in 1394 is fairly typical of an upper middle class meal:
Pottage: ground capon thickened with almond milk, pomegranates and red comfits.
Roast: kid, duckling and spring chicken all served on the same dish.
Entremets: crayfish set in jelly, loach fish and young rabbits and pigs.
Dessert: Frumenty (a kind of wheat porridge with eggs and milk) with venison.
Hippocras: (sweetened spiced wine) and wafers.
Boutehors: (The sally forth) spiced wine and spiced sweetmeats. [263]
Even between grand feasts, the cuisine didn’t change much. Richard II appears to have eaten mostly roast meat when at home:
Thys is þe porweaunse for the fest for þe kynge at home for his own table. Venesoun with furmynte in potage, borys hedes, grete flesshe, swan rostyd, capones rostyd of hy grece, pesson, pyke, and ii sotelltees. Potage called blunsorre, potage called gele, pyggys rostyd, crunes rostyd, fesaintes rostyd, herones rostyd, pekokys rostyd, breme, sartes, broken brawn, conyng rostyd, & i soteltee. Potage called bruet of almayne, new lombard, venesoun rostyd, egret rostyd, pekokys rostyd, perteryches rostyd, pegones rostyd, rabetes rostyd, qualys rostyd, larkes rostyd, a mete called payne pufe, perchys, resquyle, longe freturys, and ii sotelteys. [264]
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century cuisine, particularly English cuisine, appear to be very similar to our modern barbecues: mostly meat that could be eaten with one’s fingers. The menus that I have listed rarely describe a dish; the majority of the items are roasted animals. The few dishes that require an explanation (brawn in a spiced wine pottage, custard pie with marrow and fruit, crayfish in jelly) are very straight forward descriptions and, to my mind, could be eaten with a spoon. When we compare this to what the French were serving in the Sixteenth-Century, it becomes very apparent that one’s fingers might not have sufficed. The famous Renaissance author, Francois Rabelais, wrote of a banquet he attended on the 20th of May, 1529. "The menu consisted of seventeen separate courses. Here is course number two, each dish served in fifteen separate platters while musicians played in the background: trout in pastry; stuffed hard-boiled eggs with sauce; fish entrails fried with orange juice, cinnamon and sugar; sturgeon with garlic (decorated with the Este arms in red sauce); sixty large fried river fish; white almond soup; pizza and little fried river fish. The seafood served included tuna, mullet, lamprey, stuffed crab, shrimp, squid, pike, caviar as well as a thousand oysters." [265]
But in order for the spoon, and knife and the fingers to do the job cleanly, with a modicum of decorum, foods had to be served either a) in bite-sized morsels, or b) in a liquid, mash or paste. Most prepared dishes were just that, either a) or b), dishes for the eating of which either the pointed knife or the spoon were respectively adequate. The whole development at this time of meat- and fish-pies (chopped meat or fish cooked and contained between pastry crusts; the late-medieval sandwich par excellence) can be attributed at least in part to an on going desire to find clean finger-foods. [266]
As cuisine evolved from simple roasts, fritters and pies to more complicated dishes served with sauces and gravies, forks were called into use more and more often. While the English were happy to see whole animals roasted and then served to their tables with side dishes of gravy and sauce, Spain, France and Italy were pioneering the prepared dish. Instead of carving a roast in front of the diners, chefs were pre-slicing the roasts and serving particular cuts already covered with the right amount of sauce.
Naturally, the advent of the fork meant that foods could more often be sauced before presentation, or could be presented in ways that were unusual in the middle Ages. The influence of the fork on the cuisine if Europe in generally underestimated, but it does seem crucial to understanding how cuisine ultimately shifts entirely after the late seventeenth century. [267]-By now [16th century] chefs and chroniclers were, like Scappi, writing down their banquet menus so that we have more details of what was served. Europe diversified into cuisines still identifiable today. In Italy, while table decorations and service became more elaborate, the food itself became simpler, lighter, and less heavily spiced than medieval ‘messes’. ... French cooking became more complex, with dozens of ingredients in each dish, larded meats, and an enthusiasm for sauces. Britain, Germany and other northern countries remained enamoured of their red meat, plain and lots of it. However, accounts start to praise the quality or rarity of food at feasts rather than only its quantity. [268]
Before the dynamic duo of knife and fork could take over European dinner tables, they first needed a solid bedrock for support. A bread trencher, no matter how stale, can not provide enough resistance to allow a diner to slice through a particularly tough cut of meat. The wide spread adoption of wood, ceramic or metal plates assisted the development of "modern" eating methods: Not only could these plates hold up to the stabbing and slicing of the fork and knife, but a meal, or a remove of a feast, could be delivered from the kitchen or sideboard straight to the diner, and then taken away to the kitchen either for the next course, for seconds or to be cleaned. "Wood, metal and eventually china plates replaces the bread trencher; glassware, particularly in Italy, made its sparkling appearance on the table; forks as well as knives started to be used, and intricately folded napkins decorated the table throughout the meal.' [269]
The addition of the fork reflects half of an important change that was coming to northern European tables from Italy in the late sixteenth century. The necessary other half was the replacement of the bread trencher by pewter, silver or glazed ceramic plates, whose firm and impermeable surface made it possible to serve more liquid sauces and to serve preparations most conveniently cut with knife and fork by individual diners. [270]
With the great houses switching from edible to non-edible eating surfaces, kitchens would no longer be spending so much time baking bread for the sole use as trenchers. Cooks would have more time to work on meals as well as their appearance on the plate. Bakers would have more time to bake pastries and cakes. Since used trenchers were thrown into pots to thicken soups, stews and porridges, new methods of thickening were developed; which, in turn, led to thickening sauces and gravies; which, in turn, led to new dishes that the medieval diner would never have thought possible.
The replacement of porous bread trenchers by ceramic plates made it possible to serve both more liquid mixtures and firmer ones requiring the use of knife and fork. Many compositions were suitable for serving in individual portions; the egg-size piece of meat or stuffed vegetable became a standard format. Garnishes of cockscombs, artichokes, and truffles surround larger pieces of meat, such as legs of mutton or roast chickens. Although pies of all sizes continued to be standard fare, their smaller relatives - turnovers, pastries, and little fried crusts - were experimented with and would be immensely popular through the eighteenth century. Well seasoned mixtures of meat, poultry, and fish, either used as farces or formed into meatballs, were very wildly used. [271]
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The bread consumption dropped during the period since 1390 because custom has changed: the court [of Poland] now ate from silver plate, majolica, or gilded pewter. The bread was still either used as sops or torn apart and eaten with the gravies that were served with the meal. On fast days, however, it was customary for the Polish court to eat from bread trenchers rather than from silver plate or fine majolica. [272]
[244] Many sources
[245] From the Sicilian word ‘maccaruni’ meaning "made into a dough by force"
[246] Whittington, Serventi, Barzini. et al.
[247] Rebora; Sonnenfeld, px
[248] Adler-France, Medieval Pasta.
[249] Redon; Sabban; Serventi, p13
[250] Reigned from 1309 to 1343
[251] Rebora; Sonnenfeld, p14
[252] Rebora; Sonnenfeld, p16
[253] Rebora; Sonnenfeld, p16 & Frugoni; McCuaig, p121
[254] Sacchetti, p104
[255] Rebora; Sonnenfeld, p16
[256] 1334-1399
[257] Cantor, p72
[258] Martial de Paris, writing of the episcopal tables of that time (fifteenth century), says : ‘Alas ! what have the poor! They have only the tranchoirs of bread which remain on the table’ Footnote from quoted text.
[259] Chambers; Chambers, p360
[260] Cosman, p20
[261] Actually crowned Henry V
[262] Myers; Douglas, p1160. The documented menu mentions that many of the roasts were also gilded with eggs, saffron or other food dyes.
[263 Medieval Gallery Text
[264] Hieatt; Butler: Curye on Inglysch, p39. Modern translation by "Garay": This is the menu for the feast for the king at home for his own table. Venison with a dish of boiled wheat, a stewed dish, boars’ heads, boiled meat, roasted swan, roasted fat capons, peas, pike, and two subtleties. White pudding, jellied meat or fish, roast pork, roasted cranes, roasted pheasants, roasted herons, roasted peacocks, fish, tarts, meat served in pieces, roasted rabbit, and one subtlety. German broth, spiced pudding of pork, dried fruits and eggs in a sauce of almond milk or wine, roasted venison, roasted small heron, roasted peacocks, roasted perch, roasted pigeons, roasted rabbits, roasted quails, roasted larks, meat in puff pastry, perch, a rice dish, fritters, and two subtleties.
[265] Bowen, p151
[266] Scully, p28
[267] Albala, p7-8
[268] Fletcher, p135
[269] Fletcher, p134
[270] Ketcham-Wheaton, p54
[271] Ketcham-Wheaton, p11117
[272] Dembinska, Weaver, Thomas, p61
Adler-France, Chris (Katja Davidova Orlova Khazarina of Robakovna).
Medieval Pasta: History, Preparation, and Recipes. http://www.katjaorlova.com/PastaClass.html.
Albala, Ken.
Cooking in Europe, 1250-1650. Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006
Cantor, Norman F.
The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of Modern Era. Free Press. New York: 2004.
Chambers, William; Chambers, Robert.
Chambers’s Journal Of Popular Literature, Science And Arts. W & R Chambers, 1872. Google Books. Original from Indiana University. Digitized Feb 4, 2009.
Cosman, Madeleine Pelner.
Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony. George Braziller, Inc. New York: 1995.
Dembinska, Maria; Weaver, William Woys; Thomas, Magdalena.
Food and Drink in Medieval Poland: Rediscovering a Cuisine of the Past. Translated by Magdalena Thomas. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Fletcher, Nichola.
Charlemagne’s Tablecloth: A Piquant History Of Feasting. Macmillan, 2005.
Hieatt, Constance B.; Butler, Sharon.
Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks. Toronto: University of Toronto P, 1976.
Ketcham-Wheaton, Barbara.
Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. Published by Simon and Schuster, 1996
Medieval Gallery Text. Medieval Gallery of the Corinium Museum. Cotswold District Council Web Site: http://www.cotswold.gov.uk/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=2679&tt=cotswold. Last Posted Update: 06/02/2008
Myers, A. R. Douglas, David Charles.
English Historical Documents 1327-1485. Routledge, 1996.
Rebora, Giovanni; Sonnenfeld, Albert.
Culture of the Fork: A Brief History of Food in Europe. Translated by Albert Sonnenfeld. Published by Columbia University Press, 2001.
Redon, Odile; Sabban, Françoise; Serventi, Silvano.
The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes From France And Italy. Translated by Edward Schneider. 1998
Ronsen, Jeremy Caleb. (Caleb Reyonlds).
The Tines They Are A’Changing: A Brief History of the Fork in Western Europe. Ice Dragon Pentathalon Research Paper. March 2005.
Sacchetti, Franco.
Tales from Sacchetti. Translated by Mary G. Steegmann. J. M. Dent & co., 1908.
Scully, D. Eleanor; Scully Terence.
Early French Cookery: Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations. Published by University of Michigan Press, 2002
Scully, Terence.
The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi 1570: Larte Et Prudenza Dun Maestro Cuoco. University of Toronto Press, 2008.
Whittington, Mark.
The Joy of Pasta. Published Oct 02, 2005: Associated Content.
Image Credit:
Matching Silver Fork and Spoon With Carved Red-Coral Handles. Nuremberg, Germany. 1600-30. Smithsonian Museum
