THIS form of feeding I understand is used in all places of Italy, their forks generally being for the most part made of iron or steel, and some of silver, but those are used only by gentlemen. The reason of this their curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means endure to have his meat touched with fingers, seing all men’s fingers are not alike clean. Hereupon I myself thought good to imitate the Italian fashion by this forked cutting of meat, not only while I was in Italy, but also in Germany, and oftentimes in England since I came home: being once quipped for that frequent using of my fork, by a certain learned Gentleman, a familiar friend of mine, one Mr Laurence Whitaker,* who in his merry humour doubted not to call me at table furcifer,* only for using a fork at feeding, but for no other cause.*
abridged
* Laurence Whitaker (?1578-1654), a barrister, who had been secretary to Sir Edward Philips, Master of the Rolls, and was subsequently appointed Clerk of the Petty Bag (1611–1614). Whitaker went on to sit in the Commons as MP for Peterborough and later Okehampton, and was clerk extraordinary of the Privy Council (1624-1641).
* ‘Fork-bearer,’ from Latin furca, a fork, and fero, carry or bear. Forks for personal use were not unknown in England. Piers Gaveston (?-1312), Edward II’s close friend, kept three silver forks for eating pears (Rymer’s ‘Foedera’ vol. 3). But at a common board, one was expected to use one’s fingers — a practice not only potentially unsanitary, but hazardous and indeed painful when eating pasta in a hot sauce.
* The use of table forks in England became, for a time, a symbol of the growing popular frustration with the remoteness of the royal Court. Nicholas Breton (1545-1626), in the character of a plain-speaking Countryman, upbraided the Courtier for his gold-leafed habits of thinking and eating. “Though your wits have good inventions, yet you cannot write without a golden pen, which indeed, best fits a fine hand. But for us in the Country, when we have washed our hands, after no foul work, nor handling any unwholesome thing, we need no little Forks to make hay with our mouths, to throw our meat into them.”