invention of the fork

The word fork comes from the Latin 'furca' for "pitch fork." The two-prong twig was perhaps the first fork. In Egyptian antiquity, large forks made of bronze were used at religious ceremonies to lift sacrificial offerings. One of the earliest dinner forks is attributed to Constantinople in 400 A.D.; it can be seen in the Dumbarton Oaks collection in Washington, D.C. By the seventh century, small forks were used at Middle Eastern courts; one such fork, a small, gold, two-pronged tool, came to Italy in the eleventh century in the dowry of a Byzantine princess who married Domenico Selvo, a Venetian doge. After witnessing the princess use the fork, the church severely censured her, stating that the utensil was an affront to God's intentions for fingers. Thereafter the fork disappeared from the table for nearly 300 years.


The English were slow to adopt the idea; as Jonathan Swift put it in 1738, "Fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives." The English considered eating with forks effeminate and regarded them as jewelry. Used only on special occasions, an elaborate knife-and-fork set was considered an ideal gift for a bride. The first English monarch to use a fork was James I (1566-1625), son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Forks are not recorded among the utensils brought to America in 1620 by the first Colonists. Gov. John Winthrop of Massachusetts introduced the fork in 1630, but it did not come into general use until the 18th century.