There's a short piece (scroll down to "Evil Tines" in the most recent Smithsonian, May 2006) about forks. Certainly, it's short-
it could not have been an epic tom about forks. Or mightn't it? Says that forks only became commonplace
starting about 200 years ago. Prior to that, some kind of church dictates were in opposition to
"forks." (And again, I say, "Church, FIND A CAUSE.') The article goes on to describe how forks were "a European affectation" not embraced in America until
1820 or so, when Rockefellers, Carnegies and Morgans made them fashionable. -You just know they
wanted to keep the help in thrall and guessing, mh-hmm. Ultimately, there were something like 150 different
varieties of forks included in a single dinner service flatware pattern.
As I see it, the Smithsonian article is not inconsistent with processes described by philosopher Carolyn Korsmeyer, whereby styles and habits of the "elite"
are augmented once the masses aquire them. Korsmeyer describes how pieces of meat in the time
before refrigeration were a luxury, even for royalty. When the common people (the-m-asses) began to include
meat at meals, the well-to-do found it fashionable to dine on aged meat. (Not dried, mind you. This was meat left to sit,
lying around in the summer: rancid-ass, skeevy, measly meat is what they ate!) They could afford to have enough
of it. They didn't have to eat it all at once.*
That'll show them peasants!
So, back to forks: Then, in 1925, Hoover had to go and ruin that separation of fork users from opposable-thumb and prehensile-tail gruel eaters
by citing a silver shrotage and limiting total pieces in any pattern to 55.
(IMHO, that 150 forks-assortment would make for good wedding gift revenge! - You'd be able to pick out the set of four
"Belgium Octagon Screwpine Leaf remover Forks", and though suffering the cost, you'd relish the fact that the happy
couple would need to be lucky enough to receive a set of welder's tongs, masks, and asbestos gloves
among their gifts in order to smelt and make practical use *your* lovely selection. Too bad, if
they didn't have those items listed on the registry.
