Who invented the fork and knife?
Fork, Knife, and Spoon Spoon, Knife, and Fork There was a time when people of the Western world dined without that useful set of tools, the knife, fork, and spoon. Families did not have matching implements to set at the place of each person at the dining table as families normally do in modern times. A knife with one sharp edge and a comfortable handle designed just for cutting meat and vegetables or spreading butter and jam was unknown to them. They did not have a fork with four pointed prongs curved conveniently to spear food and carry it to the mouth. Nor did they have spoons of different sizes for soup, dessert, tea, and coffee. Until late in the 1600s, when Benjamin Franklin’s father was a young man, Americans and Europeans nearly always used their fingers at meals as people in the Near East still do. The steel daggers they carried for defense cut their meat, and round-bowled spoons with a pencillike handle helped them eat stews and soup. This hard-to-hold spoon was called a table
