History of Eating Utensils

The Anthropology Department at the California Academy of Sciences houses the Reitz Food Technology Collection. This collection was assembled by a successful businessman, Carl Reitz, in the food industry. he assembled over 1,400 items and was the inventor of this collection. He was fondly interested in the food industry and this led him to travel around the world to collect all sorts of objects used in the industry including the objects related to production, processing, storage, presentation, preparation and serving of food.

Eating utensils including tableware and portable eating sets forms a major portion of this collection. Reitz Collection is a display of variety of forms of eating utensils and this document the history and evolution of common utensils as forks, knives, spoons and chopsticks.

Since then eating utensils came into use and the way these came into use is the result of centuries of experimentation. Following are the few milestones from over the years.

1st Century
spoons are been used since the Paleolithic times. Coastal peoples have access to an abundance of shells. A stick fastened to the shell allowed for a longer reach and then hollow horns of sheep and goats functioned as vessels for liquid, giving a way to the development of Spoon. The word spoon came from the Anglo Saxon word spon, meaning a chip or splinter of wood.

In the century the Romans designed two types of spoons that had far reaching influence. The first, a ligula, used for soups and soft food and the second, cochleare, used for shell fish and eggs.

The scramasax, a sharp-pointed knife made of bronze or iron, with a wooden or shell handle, acts as weapon, eating utensil, and all-purpose tool for its owner, who is never without it. A folding pocket knife, perhaps the consummately portable multipurpose tool, was first made in the 1st Century by the Romans to be used on journeys of exploration or conquest.

Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages highly decorative spoons made of rare stones and metals came into use. Among the nobility, male diners bring their personal knives to eat with. Silver spoons were used as a sign of royalty in this period.

Middle age also contribute to the introduction of forks. Royal courts of the Middle East began to use forks at the table for dining.

11th Century
The Venetian Doge, Domenico Selvo, marries a Greek princess. The princess brought to his court the practice of eating with forks.

15th Century
Catherine de Medicis of Italy brings fork when she marries Henry II of France. In one of the French book, it was stated that different customs have evolved in different European countries. For eating soup, Germans use spoons and Italians use forks. The French, too, were slow to accept forks, because using them was thought to be an affectation.

Spoon smade of tinned iron, brass, pewter and other metals were also put into use. European nobles often carried utensils with them when traveling because many inns did not provide guests with cutlery. Knife and fork sets that fit into sheaths and attached at the belt became popular.

16th Century
An Englishman named Thomas Coryate brought the first forks to England after seeing them in Italy during his travels in 1608. Slowly, forks were considered to be the prized possessions made of expensive materials intended to impress guests.

King Louis XIV of France bans pointed knives--at the table or as weapons--as a measure to reduce violence, further insuring the predominance of blunted knives at the table.

17th Century
In late 17th Century France, larger forks with 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.

18th Century
In England, forks have two tines and are not so helpful for scooping up bites of food. Knives there have begun to be fashioned with wide, almost spoon-shaped tips. Throughout Europe, the fork has achieved the form which is now most familiar, four curved tines.

The Japanese were also the first to create disposable wooden chopsticks, called wari-bashi, which appeared in 1878.

19th Century
By the early 19th Century, multi-tined forks had also been developed in Germany and England and slowly began to spread to America. Additional tines were being added to forks in Europe, and knives began to lose their curved, bulbous curved tips.

From then the use of eating utensils was widespread and later the use of these utensils became a necessity rather than just being a sign of royalty.