Why the Fork Was Once Considered Scandalous

Before it became a staple of every place setting, the fork was a curiosity—mocked, resisted, even condemned as "devilish." From its ancient origins to its scandalous debut in medieval Europe, the fork's path to the modern table reflects shifting etiquette and dining norms. Here's how a once-controversial tool carved out its place in the rituals of civilized eating.

While kitchen knives date back 2.5 million years and spoons to around 1000 B.C., the table fork has more recent origins. According to Bee Wilson in Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, roasting and carving forks existed in ancient and medieval times. Ancient Romans used fork-like tools to handle shellfish or remove food from fire, and medieval diners used specialized forks for sweet treats, catering to the wealthy. Ancient Greeks used large two-tined forks to serve meat, and seventh-century Middle Eastern royalty had dinner forks, according to the California Academy of Sciences. 

However, table forks didn’t become popular until the modern era. “The table fork is far less time-honored than such objects as the colander, the waffle iron, the bain-marie (double boiler),” Wilson writes. “In the great scheme of things, eating with prongs is a novelty.”

The first recorded mention of a fork dates back to the 11th century. According to Wilson, a two-pronged gold fork used by a Byzantine princess wed to the doge of Venice was mocked—partly because it resembled the Devil’s pitchfork, and Saint Peter Damian criticized the princess for her “excessive delicacy” in choosing the utensil over her hands. The tale was retold for centuries, Wilson adds, often embellished with the detail that her death by plague was divine punishment for using a fork.

For the next 400 years, spoons and knives remained the preferred utensils in Europe. And although Queen Elizabeth I reportedly had access to forks during her reign from 1558 to 1603, she considered spearing her food crude and opted to eat with her fingers. 

Before the 17th century, forks were primarily used by Italians, who found them convenient for eating pasta, according to Wilson. “Pasta and the fork seem made for one another,” she writes. “Having discovered how useful forks were for eating noodles, Italians started to use them for the rest of the meal, too.”

British traveler Thomas Coryate is credited with introducing forks to England in 1608, after seeing them in Italy, according to the California Academy of Sciences. Initially, the English viewed the utensils as unnecessary and effeminate, the academy notes, but they gradually became popular among the wealthy—often made from pricey materials and seen as status symbols.

By 1633, King Charles I declared using a fork to be “decent” and gifted silver utensil sets to his children, design historian Amy Azzarito writes in The Elements of a Home. By 1700, most Europeans had widely adopted forks, with a 1782 French etiquette manual listing them as essential. 

Americans, meanwhile, didn’t widely use table forks until the American Revolution, writes Azzarito. Before that, British-imposed taxes made forks difficult to produce, and colonists viewed them as an unnecessary luxury.  

Early table forks were modeled after kitchen forks, with two long prongs—but food often slipped through, according to the California Academy of Sciences. By the late 1600s, the French introduced curved four-pronged forks, an improved design that better held food. Wilson notes there were also attempts at a five-tined fork, but it was “too much metal for the human mouth to hold.”

Fork styles began to grow rapidly. In the mid-1800s, Victorians began creating specific utensils for nearly every type of food, including forks for lobster, snails, strawberries, salad and even ice cream. “The basic rule of Western table manners in the 19th and 20th centuries was: If in doubt, use a fork,” Wilson writes.