Evil forks

Stop! Before you pick up your forks and proceed to use it to convey food to your mouth there are a few facts you might want to know about it. Did you know that forks were once considered evil? Yep, the use of a common fork was considered an affront to God by the Christian Europeans. You won’t find that in the ten commandments, but the way forks were looked upon at that time they might as well have been included.

These Christians thought that using a fork was a a sinful affront to God. Their theory was. “God had already given humans ten forks in the form of fingers on their hands so using a fork was “an offense to the Lord and his divine gifts”. Not only did using a fork insult the fingers God gave us, but also the food that God had provided insinuating the food was not worthy of being touched human hands.

When a Byzantine Princess died from the plague it was said it was “God’s punishment for her custom of using a fork.” The belief that the use of a fork to eat with was sinful was why it took so long for these Christians to accept the use of a fork. While forks were used by the 17th century they were only used for cooking. It wasn’t until the 19th century that they were used for eating.

Everything has a history, some more bizarre than others. Who would have thought that a simple fork had such an interesting history.