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Welcome to Becoming Sage, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary!
Welcome back to Becoming Sage! This is the first episode of our second season. After a few months of break this summer, we are back to bring you more history where the ordinary becomes extraordinary! This episode is about the history of utensils. We will take a look at four main eating utensils that dominate the culinary world. First off is the most versatile of the classic eating instruments, the knife. The knife needs no introduction. It is one of the earliest inventions of mankind, finding its furthest back ancestors in prehistoric times. The first cutting tools that we call knives were usually crafted out of flint or obsidian, well before we even developed the ability to use metals. They had a variety of uses beyond eating, such as cooking, crafting other things that people needed, and combat. It wasn’t until much later that knives became a tool for the dinner room, and were instead used mostly for cooking. Forks have a similar history. The first forks have actually been found all over the world from Ancient Greece to Ancient China to Ancient Egypt. These fantastically simple utensils were actually first used for cooking and carving, not eating. It wasn’t until many centuries later that wealthy Byzantine families used a smaller version of the large cooking forks to eat. There are still lots of different kinds of forks today. We have everything from Oyster and Fish forks to Cheese, Dinner, and even Ice Cream forks. They all have their own use and even number of tines. Fish forks are large with three to four tines while deli forks are small and only have two tines. The popularity of the fork in European culture is largely because of the Silk Road which spread forks from China to Venice. Its prominence was cemented because of Catherine de Medici, Queen of France during the mid-16th Century. She promoted the fork and other parts of Italian cuisine at French dinners that she hosted after her husband’s accidental death. All Italian things were highly fashionable during the Renaissance. As Europe started to shift into a more cleanly mindset the fork became more popular. There was some pushback from men as they saw forks as being too feminine, but when they started making them with ruffled cuffs, opinions changed. Middle and lower-class individuals took some time adapting to the new standard, but just like most other things, they adopted the upper class’s habits during the Industrial Revolution. Forks soon swept knives under the rug as the most common utensil whilst the Victorians created countless varieties. Unlike the carefully crafted fork, and even the sharpened knife, the spoon didn’t need crafting. Spoons could be made out of things that were found out in the world like seashells with coastal civilizations. Most of the first examples didn’t even have handles. The exact time and place of spoon invention isn’t concrete and nobody is completely sure about when or where they come from. Despite this, the first archeological evidence actually comes from Ancient Egypt where they were used for religious reasons. The Ancient Egyptians made their spoons out of lots of different materials such as ivory, wood, and flint. In terms of using them for eating, wood was the most common form of construction. It was widely available and incredibly inexpensive. During the Roman and Greek eras up until the Middle Ages silver and bronze spoons were used by the wealthy. The first written accounts of spoons being used are actually from the 13th Century in England. A record includes them as an itinerary item from King Edward the First’s wardrobe. Similarly to the Egyptians, the English used spoons as religious items, and similarly to the Greeks and Romans, they were used as a status symbol. There are even remnants of spoons being used as status symbols in today’s speech. A classic saying is to “be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.” This means that someone was born wealthy and didn’t have to struggle because it was easy for them to rely on generational wealth. Much like forks, there are a wide variety of spoons from the largest serving spoon to the smallest coffee spoon and the longest and most slender handle with the soda spoon. Knives, spoons, and forks have all been a part of cuisine from many different corners of the world. Spoons and knives were even used in the Western Hemisphere prior to European colonialism and exploration. Chopsticks are a classic utensil in Asia. Thought to be from China originally, many other east asian cultures have adopted them including Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Around 1200 BCE chopsticks found their creation in inland Yellow River Valley China. Interestingly enough, this is also where some of the first writing instruments were developed. You can find more on that topic from one of our episodes on pens last season. Ancient Chinese chefs figured out that it was more efficient to cook smaller pieces of meat, rather than one large slab. By cutting meat during the cooking process, it removed the need for knives at the dinner table. Thus setting the stage for the massively popular chopsticks. Similar to the fork’s Catherine de Medici who helped bring them to the forefront of European fashion, chopsticks had their own popularizer. Confucius. That’s right, the Ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius helped popularize chopsticks. Not only was Confucius a vegetarian, but he thought that pointed ends were too violent for meals that were supposed to be happy. Roughly a thousand years later, around the year 500 CE chopsticks became a common household item and had spread to many of the aforementioned eastern Asian countries. Disposable chopsticks are a relatively new invention that actually originated in Japan in the year 1878 during the Industrial Revolution. Since then disposable chopstick sets have swept the world. Before they became so popular, wealthy diners had the option to choose from a number of costly materials such as jade, ivory, or coral to make their chopsticks, while the truly rich ate with silver. Kind of like how the Romans and Greeks used silver spoons as status symbols. To the users of these silver chopsticks, it wasn’t so simple. It was actually believed that chopsticks made of silver would turn black if they came into contact with poison. Every year China uses tens of billions of disposable chopsticks and 10 to 20 million trees every year just to produce chopsticks. There have been efforts by the Chinese government to cut down on disposable chopstick use through taxation, but they are still a major environmental concern for China, among other things. Thank you for listening to Becoming Sage. My name is Elan Baumgarten. Don’t forget to listen to our next episode, Saturday at 8 AM Pacific Time with your friends and family. Once again my name is Elan Baumgarten and this is Becoming Sage, a podcast where the ordinary becomes truly extraordinary!