89 Knives, Forks, and Spoons

Imagine sitting down to dinner in the early days of our country. In front of you at that time would be a large plate made of pewter. Alongside the pewter plate would be only a knife and a spoon. What? No forks. Yes, no fork. Why? The first fork was brought to this country by Governor John Winthrop in 1630. It took many years before the average family had forks.

Even when forks were introduced, they were not wildly used. They were thought to be effeminate. This was true especially among men. Tough men continued to pick up food with their fingers. Even the clergy jumped to the side of such men. They argued that it was almost a sin to eat with a fork. After all, they said, fingers were made before forks. Also, forks were an unnatural substitute for the God-given fingers.

Nevertheless, forks slowly gained acceptance. The earliest ones had only two tines. The tines were not delicate. They were long and looked more like a weapon than an eating utensil. For a better idea of what they looked like, do this. Open your kitchen drawer and take out the fork used in carving a big turkey or roast beef. This is a throwback to the early table forks. And these carving forks, in turn, were a throwback to a vicious twin-pointed battle spear.

The forks we now use have either three or four tines. Such forks came into use only about a century ago. You may wonder, how such a simple utensil took so long to develop. After all, hundreds of complex inventions came along before the fork. Why didn’t people’s ingenuity come to the fore a lot sooner? We don’t know. What’s your guess?

89 刀、叉与勺

想象一下在我国早期时代坐下来吃晚餐的场景。那时，你面前会有一个大的锡制盘子，锡盘旁边只有一把刀和一个勺子。什么？没有叉子。是的，没有叉子。为什么呢？第一把叉子是由约翰·温思罗普总督在1630年带到这个国家的，过了很多年普通家庭才拥有叉子。

即使叉子被引入后，也没有被广泛使用。人们认为用叉子是女性化的表现，这种看法在男性中尤其普遍。粗犷的男性继续用手指抓取食物，就连神职人员也站在这些男性一边，他们争辩说用叉子吃饭几乎是一种罪过。毕竟，他们说，手指是在叉子之前被创造出来的。而且，叉子是对上帝赋予的手指的一种不自然的替代物。

尽管如此，叉子还是慢慢被接受了。最早的叉子只有两个齿，这些齿并不精致，又长又像武器，而不是餐具。要想更好地了解它们的样子，你可以这样做：打开你的厨房抽屉，拿出用来切大火鸡或烤牛肉的叉子，这是早期餐叉的复古款式。而这些 carving 叉，反过来又是双尖战斗矛的复古款。

我们现在使用的叉子有三个或四个齿，这种叉子大约在一个世纪前才开始使用。你可能会疑惑，这么简单的餐具为什么花了这么长时间才发展起来。毕竟，在叉子出现之前，已经有数百项复杂的发明问世了。为什么人们的创造力没有更早地发挥出来呢？我们不知道，你的猜测是什么？