FINGERS AND FORK

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 September 1934, Page 12

FINGERS AND FORK

WHEN DISHES WERE SHARED. In the film “The Private Life of Henry VIII.,” there are several scenes showing the King at meals. He tears a chicken apart with hie hands, holds a large piece before his mouth as ho chews at it, and throws the bones over his shoulder on to the floor (says a writer in the Melbourne “Age”). It is improbable that Henry in real life behaved as badly as this at meals. No doubt he was a gross feeder, but knives and spoons were in use when he was on the throne, and had been in. use for many years, though forks did not come into fashion until the beginning of the seventeenth century. The introduction of forks into England is credited to Thomas Coryate, a jester at the court of James 1., who, in 1608, toured the Continent, mostly on foot, and on his return to England published the story of his travel under the title of “Crudites.” There he referred to the fact that the fork was used in Italy when meat was eaten, “because the Italian cannot by any means endure to have his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men’s fingers are not alike clean.” And he added that he had “thought good to imitate the Italian fashion by this forked cutting of meat.”

Ben Jonson, in his play “The Devi is an Ass,’’ refers to the fact that tin use of forks resulted in less need al table of napkin on which to wipe the hands: The laudable use of forks Brought into custom here, as they are in Italy To the sparing of napkins. Fifty years later when Samuel Pepys was writing his diary, forks were in general use, but he refers to the fact that the guests at the Lord Mayor’s banquet at. the Guildhall in 1663, were not provided with knives, forks, and napkins. In company with Mr Proby he went up and down the tables laid for the banquet. “Under every salt there was a bill of fare, and at the end of the table the persons proper for the table (i.e., a list of the persons who were to sit at the table). Many’ were the tables, but none in the hall but were the Mayor’s and Lords of the Privy Council that had napkins or knives,. which was very strange.” Apparently each guest was expected to bring his own knife and fork. “I sat near Proby, Baron, and Creed at the Merchant Strangers’ table,” wrote Pepys, “where ten good dishes to a messe, with plenty of wine of all sorts, of which I drunk none; but it was very unpleasing that we had no napkins nor change of trenchers, and drunk out of earthen pitchers and wooden dishes. . ... The dinner, it seems, is made by the Mayor and two 1 Sheriffs for the time being, the Lord Mayor paying one-half and they the other. And the whole, Proby says, is

reckoned tp come to about £7OO or £BOO at most.” CLEAN PLATES. Apparently it had become the custom in Pepys’s time to have a clean trencher for each course of a meal, but the supply of trenchers at the • Guidhall was not sufficient for this > purpose when there was a large num--1 her of guests. It has been suggested i in explanation of the meanness of the 1 table appointments that the gold and silver plate belonging to the City Corporation had been melted during the Civil War. China plates had not come into use, and the trencher of Pepys’s time was probably made of pewter. Previous to that it had been made of wood, and in earlier times it consisted of a slice of stale bread, on which the food to he eaten was placed. Mr William Edward Mead, in his book, “The English Medieval Feast,” gives a great deal of interesting information about the meals eaten in the great halls of the .lordly castles of England in the later part of the Middle Ages, which would be a little before the time of Henry VIII. “Notable guests always sat upon the dais and were thus raised somewhat above the level of ordinary diner. The tables, at. least the more important, were covered with a cloth laid with ridiculous solemnity and ceremony, and decorated in the taste of the time. On the dresser stood gold and silver plates and vases and tankards, while similar vessels adorned the tables. Besides the vessels of gold and silver there were cups and vases of glass or rock crystal. . . . The gold and silver vessels were not wholly for ostentation, and not even a proof of extrav- • agance, but rather of economy. In ’ the Middle Ages the lack of oppor- * tunity for safe investment encouraged ’ the lavish use of gold and silver for 1 the table, and for various household 1 purposes. It was indeed the simplest 1 form of banking, for in any emerg- f ency the vessels copld be thrown into 1 the imeltirig pots and the metal used 1 for exchange. t

e ‘‘lf the feast were at all pretentious r one of the most conspicuous ornaI | ments of the table was likely to be the s 1 nef, a vessel in the form of a medieval 3 ship, with a high prow and stern. In . some households this held the salt j cellar, small towels for wiping the 3 hands and mouth, and sometimes . knives and spoons. 1 NOT FOR INDIVIDUALS. f. ; “Of individual dishes there was a ; 1 su yP r * sin £ lack. There was, indeed, a L I di inking cup shared by the guest with I < his table companion; but, except perI haps for a knife or a spoon, the only » strictly individual feature of the II equipment of the table was the I; trencher. This was made or wood or ;;° f c °a r se bread cut in small slices , j and placed before each guest to serve '“ a .?? rt of P late - With moderate caie this gave some protection to the tablecloth though, since the trencher

r had no rim, a juicy sop or a piece of meat swimming in sau,ce laid upon it must often have been a source of i embarrassment to the guest. The trencher, when well saturated with .- sauce, was sometimes eaten by the a guest. Otherwise all trenchers left I, upon the tables were swept into a e basket and given to the poor, s “Carving was by no means re- - garded as a menial service, and even :1 great lords counted it all honour to e carve at a Royal feast. To be a 1 skilled carver required not only dexy terity but considerable strength, since » sheep and oxen were boiled entire t and often roasted whole. And to win f approval the carver must perform his £ duties in accordance with recognised i conventions, infraction of which t brought unkind comment. Since meat i in various forms was the principal # ? food, and forks as we know them wore not. in use, the carver or his ; assistants came into direct contact ’ with the guests. The lack of forks . compelled the use of fingers, and i since without a fork extensive use of > a knife is difficult, most dishes were . more or less liquid, or to be eaten with ■ a spoon, or soft messes to be scooped up with the fingers. “Serviceable in such cases was the sop. a morsel of bread about the size of two fingers, which was dipped in the sauce, and, as Chaucer tells us of his Prioress, perhaps so skilfully conveyed to the mouth that no drop fell upon the table or elsewhere. When the carver wished to offer a slice of meat he held it out on the point of his knife, and the guest received it with his fingers. “Serviettes or small towels appear to have been used for wiping the hands before and after meals, at least as early as the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The washing of hands before and after meat was ' by no means a perfunctory matter, for since, owing to the lack of forks, the guest had to dip his fingers into the common dish, his greasy and sticky hands at. the end of a meal must have been intolerable. Furthermore, a knight and a lady often had to share a dish with each other, and in such cases a modicum of cleanliness was desirable. Sometimes the guests were formally conducted to the adjoining lavatory, accompanied by the music of a minstrel, but ordinarily they remained in‘the hall and received from the ewer the warm water, otten perfumed with rose leaves, thyme, lavender, sage, camomile, marjoram, or orange peel, one or all. The water and the towels were, of course presented in* the order of the social standing of the guests, and it was esteemed a. signal honour thus to serve a king or a great noble.”