Fork

A metal fork.

A fork is a table utensil consisting of a handle and a head with long, nail-like teeth (usually four points) and is used to pierce or hold a piece of food. It was first used in the West, while in the East chopsticks were more used. Today, however, forks are also used in Asia.

In particular it is used to bring food to the mouth or to fix something while cooking or cutting. Transport is often done by simply placing the food on the horizontal tines. There are different types of fork depending on the use to which it is directed, for example, if it is for meat, fish or dessert.

History

Classical knitters, similarity to a trench.

Although there were already similar utensils in classical Greece and the Roman Empire for carving, the fork appeared as such around 1077. It arrived in Europe from Constantinople at the beginning of the 11th century by Theodora, daughter of the Emperor of Byzantium Constantine X Ducas and wife of the Doge of Venice, Domenico Selvo. But Theodora for her contemporaries was branded, for this and other refined oriental ways, as scandalous and reprehensible and even Saint Peter Damian admonished these extravagances from the pulpit, going so far as to call it « instrumentum diaboli ». It is speculated that the primitive fork, with a single prong, was invented by Erick Pries around 1070 in Constantinople.

But it was in France where it became really popular, in the 16th century, thanks to Catherine de' Medici who introduced it to the French court when she married King Henry II. As a curiosity it should be added that in addition to using the fork to eat, Catalina used it to scratch her back. The cheesy reputation of this table utensil made it take a back seat to eating with your hands until the 18th century. Years later, by Theodora with the Doge of Venice, the fork arrived in Europe, but it was reputed to be very refined, so it did not achieve popularity. After a few years, after Catherine de Medici married Henry II of France, the fork began to gain popularity, although it was still seen as something refined. Two centuries later; in the 17th century, the instrument eliminated the custom of eating with the hands. It was standardized in France and was beginning to be used in the Iberian Peninsula and fully used in Italy and arrived in the British Isles brought by the traveler Thomas Coyat.

Many Italians use a puncture to not touch food, to eat spaghetti, meat... It is nothing refined to eat with your hands, for they ensure that not all people have clean hands.

Fragment of a Journal of Thomas de Coyat

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It was not until the 18th century that the use of the fork was fully standardized, at the same time that it was invented in Germany the curved fork that is used today, although the 4 prongs came a century later. In 1770, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, under the reign of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, a shorter model with 4 points was adopted (in use until today), by the courtier Gennaro Spadaccini (Spaghetti). Its original name is still in use today in Calabria (broccia).

Materials and Crafting

Designation of various elements of the collection.

Composable plastic covers.

Cutlery was and is made from a whole range of materials: in addition to wood, bone, horn, mother-of-pearl, pewter, brass and aluminium, mainly iron (steel and stainless steel), silver and plastic, especially for disposable cutlery, and more rarely also glass and porcelain, partly in different material combinations.

Silver

For centuries, silver was the material of choice for cutlery. The metal is resistant to acids, its surface has an antibacterial effect, but it can darken with sulfur-containing foods, such as fish or eggs, due to the formation of sulfur. Therefore, fish cutlery made of silver is often plated with gold. For this reason, egg or caviar spoons are often made of horn or mother-of-pearl. Knife blades are often made of steel, since silver cannot be sharpened sufficiently. In earlier times, carbon steel was used for blades, but it can rust and then had to be thoroughly cleaned. Today mainly stainless material is used.

In Germany, Solingen is a traditional center of blade manufacturing, in Austria, Styria. Industrial cutlery manufacturing began in Sheffield, UK. Silver cutlery was handcrafted by silversmiths until the 19th century.

Silver

Since the 19th century, cutlery can also be silver plated using the electroplating process. Since this type of cutlery largely retains the advantages of silver cutlery but is much cheaper, it has now largely supplanted solid silver cutlery. To make it clear to the buyer how much precious metal was used in the cutlery, a stamping stamp was introduced around 1850, which is still valid today on silver cutlery. The stamped number indicates how many grams of pure silver is contained in a set of 12 table forks and 12 table spoons. The 90 stamping is the most common, but 40, 60, 100, and 120 are also common. Cutlery made of 800 silver was also galvanized with silver, since the luster of galvanic pure silver is more beautiful than that of fineness. 800/1000.

German silver

Since silver is expensive, substitute materials for silverware manufacturing were developed in the 19th century. In 1824 the so-called German silver entered the Prussian market, which did not contain any silver but an alloy of copper, zinc and nickel. Around the same time, a company in Aue used the same material under the name of Argentan. Alfénide from the French firm Christofle has a very similar composition. Another imitation silver is Britanniametall made of tin and antimony_

Aluminum

Due to the scarcity of raw materials, cutlery was often made from aluminum during World War II and in the postwar period. For a long time, this material was mainly used in the GDR, where all cutlery was produced by the state company ABS.

Stainless steel

WMF Cromargan stainless steel cutlery designed by Zaha Hadid (2007)

WMF Cromargan stainless steel covers designed by Zaha Hadid (2007).

Since the 1920s, cutlery has been increasingly made from stainless steel, initially in Germany by the WMF company, which has been using stainless steel from Krupp under the Cromargan brand as a cookware material since 1922. Since the 1930s, it has also introduced stainless steel cutlery to the market. The Saxon metalware factory Wellner & Sons presented its stainless steel cutlery at the Leipzig Autumn Fair in 1929. Before World War II, stainless steel cutlery was used almost exclusively in restaurants and canteens, not in private homes. It was reputed to be a cheap substitute for silver.

Plastic

In 1907, Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland developed the first fully synthetic plastic, named Bakelite in his honor. In the following years, especially in England and France, cutlery was made of Bakelite, but also of other plastics. They were not considered a substitute for silverware, as they were initially very expensive to produce. In the late 1940s, acrylic came onto the market as a new material. Today egg spoons and salad servers are made from it, otherwise almost exclusively disposable cutlery, for example in portion packs for fast food or on flights. The Danish company Bodumes is one of the few manufacturers that also markets high-quality plastic household cutlery designed by designers. Children's cutlery and travel cutlery are also made of plastic.