Silverware?

[Liudmilla]

I'm confused too...church based question??????.....I thought using utensils was just good manners? :mrgreen: and a means of getting food into one's mouth? without getting all over oneself? :shock:

[rebecca]

I know they just use spoons in certain monasteries, but I don't think there would be any sort of theological or ascetic reason why a lay person wouldn't use forks and knives, unless they were emulating monastic simplicity.

[Mary Kissel]

as paradosis pointed out I do use a spoon more often than i do a fork or knife...i only use a fork when i see that a spoon just won't work....like when eating something that needs cut altho i still sometimes find a way out of using a fork if i can help it...i just prefer spoons

MaryC.

[priestmark]

I know they just use spoons in certain monasteries, but I don't think there would be any sort of theological or ascetic reason why a lay person wouldn't use forks and knives, unless they were emulating monastic simplicity.

I was told that trident-like three-pronged forks are a Masonic introduction. This was either just before or just after the same man objected to singing the Greek National Anthem at Trapeza on Annunciation (1984?) because it was the anthem of a Masonic Revolution. This was in the days before the Boston influence waned.

The following was compiled from two sources after a web search. It does not provide confirming or disputing evidence. I must note that the timing of the development of three (as pictured on the source )and four pronged forks in France certainly coincides with their Masonic Revolution.

========

Kitchen forks trace their origins back to the time of the Greeks. These forks were fairly large with two tines that aided in the carving and serving of meat. The tines prevented meat from twisting or moving during carving and allowed food to slide off more easily than it would with a knife. [monasteries are seldom faced with such a dilemna - unless the Sturgeon is tough.]

By the 7th Century, royal courts of the Middle East began to use forks at the table for dining. From the 10th through the 13th Centuries, forks were fairly common among the wealthy in Byzantium, and in the 11th Century, a Byzantine wife of a Doge of Venice, a Greek princess, brought forks to Italy. This was regarded as a scandalous and heretical affectation, and when she died shortly thereafter it was perceived as a just divine punishment. The Italians were slow to adopt the use of forks. It was not until the 16th Century that forks were widely adopted in Italy.

In 1533, forks were brought from Italy to France when Catherine de Medicis married the future King Henry II. The French, too, were slow to accept forks, because using them was thought to be an affectation.

An Englishman named Thomas Coryate brought the first forks back to England after seeing them in Italy during his travels in 1608. Back in England he is given the nickname "Furcifer," means "fork bearer" but also "gallows bird." He is widely ridiculed and considered effeminate and affected.

The English ridiculed forks as being effeminate and unnecessary. "Why should a person need a fork when God had given him hands?" they asked. Slowly, however, forks came to be adopted by the wealthy. They were prized possessions made of expensive materials intended to impress guests. Small, slender-handled forks with two tines were generally used for sweet, sticky foods or for food (like mulberries) which was likely to stain the fingers. By the mid 1600s, eating with forks like those pictured [two times] was considered fashionable among wealthy British. Forks used solely for dining were luxuries and thus markers of social status and sophistication among nobles.

Early table forks were modeled after kitchen forks; two fairly long and widely spaced tines ensured that meat would not twist while being cut. This style of fork was soundly designed, but small pieces of food regularly fell through the tines or slipped off easily. In late 17th Century France, larger forks with three and four curved tines were developed. The additional tines made diners less likely to drop food, and the curved tines served as a scoop so people did not have to constantly switch to a spoon while eating. By the early 19th Century, four-tined forks had also been developed in Germany and England and slowly began to spread to America where the use of forks, sometimes called "split spoons", became popular.

pr M
using a keyboard instead of a fork at lunchtime today

[Julianna]

He is not asking because he is Indian... he is asking a legitimate, church-based question.

Nicholas' emoticons say he's joking. Are you sayin that if he'd be asking because he's indian it'd be illegitiment then?

[Julianna]

I was told that trident-like three-pronged forks are a Masonic introduction.

Knives aren't evil though are they?

[Joe Zollars]

sharp objects are generally a bad idea in my house around election time. Either the rest of the family wins and those vile DEMONcrats take control or I win and have to face a small mob.

Joe Zollars