05/31/2024
On use of table knives and forks by French and English custom, quotes and sources provided by Steve Raynor, copied with permission. Photo by Greg Shipley of his private collection.
“In England the fork is always held in the left hand and the knife in the right. The fork holds the meat down, the knife cuts it, and the pieces may be carried to the mouth with either.” - Barthelemy Faujas de St. Fond, 1783-84.
18th century accounts differ in opinion in whether the fork, or the knife, should be used to convey food to the mouth. It seems that social class as well as national origins played a role and of course, nations loved to critique each other's manners.
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"Fork... an Instrument commonly made of Iron with Prongs, to stick into and hold Things fast, and when made about 5 Inches long are used to take up the flesh or Victuals we eat, and when larger have commonly some Appellation added to it to distinguish it, such as Flesh-Fork, Dung-Fork, &c."
Dyche, Thomas, and Pardon, William; "A New General English Dictionary: Peculiarly Calculated for the Use and Improvement of such as are unacquainted with the Learned Languages." Second Edition. Printed for Richard Ware. London. 1737.
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Baron Ludwig von Closen, in the French service in America. Rhode Island, December 25, 1780.
“Another peculiarity of this country is that in the majority of homes, even in rich ones, no napkins are used, and every one uses the table-cloth, of course the edges are worn out by this. Furthermore, almost all people here eat, just like the English, with their knives (which are rounded at the end) without using forks - and they have only two points." p. 109.
"The Journal of Baron von Closen"; translated and edited by Evelyn M. Acomb, William and Mary Quarterly, X (1953), pp. 196-236. The Revolutionary Journal of Baron Ludwig von Closen, 1780-1783. Translated and Edited with an Introduction by Evelyn M. Acomb. Published by the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1958, 392 pp.
https://loyolanotredamelib.org/.../Report30Schulzp107-111...
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Barthelemy Faujas de St. Fond, at the Duke of Argyle's at Inverary, Scotland, ca 1783-84.
“After breakfast, some walked in the parks, others amused themselves with reading and music, or returned to their apartments. At half past four, the dinner bell was rung, and we went to the dining room, where we always found a table of twenty-five or thirty covers. When all the company were seated, the chaplain according to custom made a short prayer, and blest the food, which was ate with pleasure. Indeed, the dinners were prepared by an excellent French cook, and every thing was served up in the Paris manner, except a few dishes in the English form, which made a variety and thus gave the epicures of every country an opportunity of pleasing their palates.
I was particularly pleased to see napkins on the table, and forks of the same kind as those used in France. I am not much disposed to risk pricking my mouth or my tongue with those little sharp tridents, which are used even in the best houses in England. I know that this kind of forks are only intended for seizing and fixing the pieces of meat while they are cut, and that the English knives being rounded at the point, may answer for some of the purposes to which the French forks are applied, particularly in carrying meat to the mouth; but I must confess that I use their knives very awkwardly in this way. It is well however to accustom oneself to the usages of different countries; and it seemed to me that at table, as well as in several other instances, the English calculate more accurately than we do. In England the fork is always held in the left hand and the knife in the right. The fork holds the meat down, the knife cuts it, and the pieces may be carried to the mouth with either. The motion is quick and precise. The manoeuvres at an English dinner are founded upon the same principle as the Prussian discipline. Not a moment is lost.
In France, the first manoeuvre is similar to that of the English: but when the meat is cut in pieces, the knife is laid down on the right side of the plate, and the fork is changed from the left to the right hand, with which it is lifted to the mouth; thus our table tactics are more complex than the English and require more time. The English method is certainly the best; but large knives with rounded points are necessary to put it in practice. And why not have them? There would then be an arm less in the hands of the vitious or the foolish.” p. 252-254.
Saint-Fond, B. Faujas; “Travels in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides...” Two Volumes. Volume 1. Printed for James Ridgeway. London. 1799. https://tinyurl.com/2p96r###
Date from an extract from the account of “...M. Saint Fond, a learned Frenchman, who travelled in England and Scotland in 1783[-]4, for the Purposes of Natural History...” At the Duke of Argyle's, at Inverary, Scotland. “Observations of a Foreigner on the Manners and Customs of Great Britain.” In “The Edinburgh Magazine, or Literary Miscellany, for April 1799”. Vol. XII. New Series. Edinburgh and London. 1799. https://tinyurl.com/ke92tnw7
“They are fully convinced that the English all eat with their knives, and I have often heard this discussed with much self-complacence by those who usually shared the labours of the repast between a fork and their fingers.” - Helen Maria Williams, an English woman writing of French customs and the impressions the French had of England, 1792-1795.
"The fact is, living in England is expensive: a Frenchman, whose income here supports him
[p. 57.]
[p. 58.]
as a gentleman, goes over and finds all his habits of œconomy insufficient to keep him from exceeding the limits he had prescribed to himself. His decent lodging alone costs him a great part of his revenue, and obliges him to be strictly parsimonious of the rest. This drives him to associate chiefly with his own countrymen, to dine at obscure coffee-houses, and pay his court to opera-dancers. He sees, indeed, our theatres, our public walks, the outside of our palaces, and the inside of churches: but this gives him no idea of the manners of the people in superior life, or even of easy fortune. Thus he goes home, and asserts to his untravelled countrymen, that our King and nobility are ill lodged, our churches mean, and that the English are barbarians, who dine without soup, use no napkins, and eat with their knives. - I have heard a gentleman of some respectability here observe, that our usual dinner was an immense joint of meat half drest, and a dish of vegetables scarcely drest at all. - Upon questioning him, I discovered he had lodged in St. Martin's Lane, had likewise boarded at a country attorney's, and dined at an ordinary at Margate." p. 58.
"A French man or woman, with no other apology than 'permettez moi,' will take a book out of your hand, look over any thing you are reading, and ask you a thousand questions relative to your most private concerns - they must enter your room, even your bedchamber, without knocking, place themselves between you and the fire, or take hold of your clothes to guess what they cost; and they deem these acts of rudeness sufficiently qualified by "Je demande bien de pardons." - They are fully convinced that the English all eat with their knives, and I have often heard this discussed with much self-complacence by those who usually shared the labours of the repast between a fork and their fingers. Our custom also of using waterglasses after dinner is an object of particular censure; yet whoever dines at a French table must frequently observe, that many of the guests might benefit by such ablutions, and their napkins always testify that some previous application would be by no means superfluous. Nothing is more common than to hear physical derangements, disorders, and their remedies, expatiated upon by the parties concerned amidst a room full of people, and that with so much minuteness of description, that a foreigner, without being very fastidious, is on some occasions apt to feel very unpleasant sympathies. There are scarcely any of the ceremonies of a lady's toilette more a mystery to one s*x than the other, and men and their wives, who scarcely eat at the same table, are in this respect grossly familiar. The conversation in most societies partakes of this indecency, and the manners of an English female are in danger of becoming contaminated, while she is only endeavouring to suffer without pain the customs of those she has been taught to consider as models of politeness." p. 257-59.
Williams, Helen Maria; "A Residence in France during the years 1792, 1793, 1794, and 1795: described in a series of Letters from an English Lady..." Two Volumes. Vol. I. John Gifford, editor. J. Plymsell for T. N. Longman. London. 1797.
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ca 1832.
"...in our own memory, men and women both ate with knives, for, as then, silver forks were little known..."
A review of "Domestic Manners of the Americans", by Mrs. [Frances Milton] Trollope. An extract from this work follows.
"For many of Mrs. Trollope's sorrows, we can have but little sympathy. The want of the arts and the graces, which embellish life, are set down as the source of all her woe: the afflictions which prey sorest upon her, are six in number - viz. servant girls persist in calling themselves helps; 2, Men smoke and spit; 3, Colonels keep stores, and majors gin-shops; 4, Men, when they sit, put their feet on the backs of the chairs; 5, Gentlemen and ladies eat with knives; 6, The whole United Provinces agreed in calling the authoress "The old woman." Now, had Mrs, Trollope chosen, she might have found much of the same sort of thing in her native land: here, labouring men persist in calling their masters their employers; here, many men of rank and education both smoke and spit; here, members of parliament are tailors and brewers, and editors of periodicals; here, in our own memory, men and women both ate with knives, for, as then, silver forks were little known; and here, not only ladies in years are called old, but we have heard, without either sense or propriety, ministers of state and reverend bishops called old women." p. 187.
"The Athenæum: Journal of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts. Jan - Dec. 1832. Printed by James Holmes. London. 1832.
The passage relevant to eating that earned Mrs Trollope such a censorious review is from her relation of her trip up the Mississippi in January, 1828.
“The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table, the voracious rapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured, the strange uncouth phrases and pronunciation; the loathsome spitting, from the contamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect our dresses; the frightful manner of feeding with their knives, till the whole blade seemed to enter into the mouth; and the still more frightful manner of cleaning the teeth afterwards with a pocket knife, soon forced us to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels, and majors of the old world; and that the dinner hour was to be any thing rather than an hour of enjoyment.” p. 24.
“By Mrs. Trollope”; “Domestic Manners of the Americans”. 4th edition. Gilbert and Rivington. London. 1834.
https://archive.org/.../b29350384_0001/page/24/mode/2up...
Image: In this composite view of the men on both sides of the table, one conveys food to his mouth with a fork, while the other uses his knife. This suggests the ongoing change in habit from using the fork to hold the food while being cut, but conveying food on the rounded end of the knife; to the more modern custom of using the fork.
William Dent, "The Constitutional Society", 1783. Lewis Walpole Collection, Yale University Library.
https://findit.library.yale.edu/catalog/digcoll:552798
