What can be said about it? We all use it, every day…or so I suppose!
But did you actually know when and why table cutlery was invented? I didn't know I must admit, so I did some searching on google. If I'm going to tell nonsense now, you know you can blame Google for that. Or would it have to do with my search skills? Hmmm, that's something to think about.
In any case, back to why the table cutlery would have been invented.
Long time ago
In ancient times, people ate differently than we eat today. In the earliest history, food was placed on wooden boards and eaten by hand. If sauce was part of a meal, they dipped the bread in the sauce and the sauce was consumed that way. Soup was eaten in wooden bowls. People scooped the soup out of the pan with the wooden bowl, and drank the soup from the same wooden bowl. The crockery that was used depended on the wealth of the people. Several examples of this can be seen in old paintings from the 16th century. But what became clear in all those paintings was that there was an early form of the crockery we use now, but there was no cutlery. People just used their fingers as cutlery. Rich and poor made no difference back then.
So why and when was cutlery invented? That seems to have been in Roman times, but then it disappeared again for a long time. Until the 16th century when the high class rediscovered cutlery and started using it. Many men already carried a kind of pocket knife with them at this time! And they found that it was easier to cut off a piece of meat with this tool, rather than tearing it off with your fingers or teeth.
Large white collars
The reason for the daily use of the fork seems to have had to do with clothing. Now you might be thinking, "Huh, how?" At that time, mainly rich people often wore clothes with very large collars, which were usually white. Eating with the fingers didn't keep those collars white for very long. They found that if they pinned their food to something, the food was tampered with less, and their pristine white collars did indeed stay pristine white for longer.
An abundance of cutlery
In this day and age we don't know any better than eating with cutlery, and only once in a while will we use only our fingers. There is an abundance of cutlery to be found, and I must admit that I don't even use most of it.
Then of course there is the table etiquette. If you want to set a table the right way, make sure your plates are right in front of you, about 2 centimeters from the edge of the table. Starting with a lower plate (which is not used), and then the dinner plates are placed in order of use. Which means, the soup plate is on top. If you use soup, of course.
Cutlery etiquette
There is also a complete etiquette for placing cutlery that you must adhere to. Knives and spoons are to the right of the board, knives with the cutting side facing the board. And forks are to the left of the plate. Dessert cutlery is horizontally above the plate with the tips of the fork pointing to the right, and the spoon is exactly the other way around. All cutlery is placed from the outside in, the cutlery you use first is the furthest from the plate.
And I really have to admit, such an elegantly set table looks great. But the amount of dishes you get from it is just impossible to do in everyday life. How often does it not happen that you quickly grab a bite to eat with your plate on your lap in front of the TV, or as I do almost every day … eating while at the same time doing something behind my PC.
I do miss the moments
Times have changed, and only on very special occasions you still see this kind of elegantly laid tables. In people's daily lives, eating has often become an activity that goes quickly in between. And when I think about it, I do miss the moments of the past when I still lived at home with my parents. Then dinner was the time to say that the work day was over, and the evening had begun. It was time to chill, relax. It's moments to leave the ′MUST DO′ of the day behind us, and move on to the moment when you didn't have to do anything anymore, but only did what you felt like.
My mother really didn't set the table as extensively as in a restaurant, but we did have a set time each day when we sat down to eat with the whole family. There was no doubt about that, and it was really counted on. The whole family sat together at the table, each in their own place and ate together. During dinner, the day was discussed.