A STORY ABOUT FORKS The table fork was introduced to Europe in the eleventh century when the Doge of Venice, Domenico Silvio, married a princess from Byzantium. This Byzantine princess brought a case of two table forks to Venice as part of her luggage. The princess shocked the court and the churchmen by refusing to eat with her hands. “God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks – his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to replace them with artificial metallic forks when eating,” wrote one of the churchmen.

By the beginning of the 17th century, the fork was already known in England, although it was rare and viewed as an Italian influence and fantasy of higher society, while in Italy even the merchant classes were using forks regularly.

In 1608 an Englishman whose name was Thomas Coryate visited Italy. He liked the country and noted down every interesting thing he found. But there was one thing which he found more interesting than the others. In his diary Thomas wrote, “When the Italians eat meat, they use small metal forks. They do not eat with hands because, as they say, people do not always have clean hands.”

Before leaving for England, Thomas Coryate bought a few forks. At home Thomas gave a dinner party to show the invention to his friends. When the servants brought the steak, he took out a fork and began to eat like they did in Italy. Everybody looked at him in surprise. When he told his friends what it was, they all wanted to take a good look at the strange thing. All his friends said that the Italians certainly were crazy people because the fork looked very inconvenient. Thomas Coryate tried to prove the opposite. He said it was not nice to eat meat with one’s fingers because they were not always clean. Everybody got angry at that. Did Mr Coryate think that people in England always had dirty hands? And weren’t the ten fingers we had enough for us? Thomas Coryate wanted to show that it was very easy to use the fork. But the first piece of meat he took with the fork fell to the floor. His friends began to laugh and he had to take the fork away.

Only fifty years later did people in England begin to use forks. Throughout the next two hundred years, the table fork spread all around Europe and into the lower social classes.

1. The table fork was first introduced to Europe because
the Doge of Venice married a Byzantine princess.
the churchmen didn’t allow the Doge of Venice to eat with his fingers.
the Doge of Venice believed that the Byzantine princess refused to eat.
the Doge of Venice didn’t want to eat with his fingers.

2. When the princess started eating with the fork the reaction of society was
negative.
natural.
neutral.
positive.

3. Thomas Coryate brought the forks to England because
he believed it was not nice to eat with fingers.
he liked that the forks were small.
he wrote that they were made of metal.
he wanted to surprise his friends.

4. Everybody looked at Thomas when he began to eat like the Italians because
everybody thought it was an amazing invention.
nobody had seen a fork before.
nobody ate meat with hands in England.
his friends believed that it was bad manners.

5. The guests of Mr. Coryate thought that Italians were
hungry.
strange.
surprised.
inconvenient.

6. Mr. Coryate’s friends
didn’t pay any attention to the forks.
began to eat meat with forks at once.
didn’t like the forks at all.
became ashamed of eating meat with their hands.

7. The guests were angry with Mr. Coryate because they
had always had dirty hands.
had always used fingers for eating.
thought that ten fingers weren’t enough for eating.
had always had ten fingers.

8. When the piece of meat fell to the floor the guests
understood that the steak was too tough.
wanted to find out how to use the fork.
became very angry with Mr. Coryate.
found the situation very funny.

9. People in England began to use forks
as soon as forks were brought to England.
before Mr. Coryate’s journey to Italy.
at the same time as Italians did.
decades after forks were brought to England.

10. In the course of two centuries
people understood how to use the table fork properly.
Italian merchants started using table forks regularly.
table forks became a usual thing for everybody.
the table fork was introduced to higher society.