Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1894 — A Great Carving Fork. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Great Carving Fork.

Every one who visits the old castle of Pau, in France, is shown the oldest and biggest carving fork in the world. It is the one once used by King Henry the Fourth, of'France, King Henry of Navarre, as he is better known, and is a great two ] r >nged affair of st' 1 strong enough and la - ge enougti to hold up a baron of beef. In King Henry’s day tjjiat giant fork was considered a great curiosity and remarkable piece of table furniture, for, excepting in Italy, forks were very 1 ittie used, and in some parts of Europe not known at all. It was just about the time of Queen Elizabeth of England that an English gentleman traveling through Italy wrote to a friend he had found the Italians using little silver forks at their meals. He thought it the queerest custom, and laughed at the way Italians; had of cutting off a piece of ineut . every person for himself, from one dish on the table, and eating the meat with a fork from his own plate. -

Just about that time some Italian forks were brought to France and England and certain persons began to use them at the table, but it was considered a very unfashionable and silly habit. All her life Queen Elizabeth ate with her Augers, picking out nice bits of meats or vegetables from the dishes about her and putting them directly into her mouth. When in those days people wished to eat their food very hot, so hot they could scarcely bear to put their hands to it, buckskin gloves were worn at the table to protect their Angers; Although in some places the use of forks was forbidden by law, as a useless affectation and luxury, and though on the stage some very sharp jests were made at the expense of those who ate with forks, from the Afteenth century they began to grow in fashion. Even the i only two or three forks were owned in a family, and by aid of a knife and Angers the people of simple ways and means ate their meals. It was when a countess or a prince died and the list of their possessions left by will was published, one reads they bequeathed to their heirs one, two, or maybe three gold or silver forks. As time went . on. however, even the plain people used forks of steel and iron at table. Odd forks they were, with two long prongs set wide apart and short bone handles, for forks of silver were a sign ol riches in'a family. Not a great many forks came over in the Mayffower, but plenty of knives, both silver and steel, and our Puritan ancestors thought it not in the least vulgar to eat their food with a knife until somebody added a third prong to the forks in use. It is only in the last seventy-Ave years that all forks have been made with four prongs, and every one has learned to consider it a sign of bad manners fora boy or girl to shovel pease into his or her mouth with a knife, as, no doubt, Queen Elizabeth and King Henry did about four centuries ago.

ANCIENT FRENCH AND ITALIAN FORKS.