A STORY ABOUT FORKS

In 1608 an Englishman whose name was Thomas Coryate visited Italy. He liked the country and noted down every interesting thing he found. But there was one thing which he found more interesting than the others. In his diary Thomas wrote, "When the Italians eat meat, they use small forks. They do not eat with hands because, as they say, people do not always have clean hands."

Before leaving for England, Thomas Coryate bought a few forks.

At home Thomas gave a dinner party to show the invention to his friends. When the servants brought the steak, he took out a fork and began to eat like they did in Italy.

Everybody looked at him in surprise. When he told his friends what it was, they all wanted to take a good look at the strange thing. All his friends said that the Italians were very strange people because the fork was very inconvenient.

Thomas Coryate tried to prove the opposite. He said it was not nice to eat meat with one's fingers because they were not always clean.

Everybody got angry at that. Did Mr Coryate think that people in England always had dirty hands? And weren't the ten fingers we had enough for us?

Thomas Coryate wanted to show that it was very easy to use the fork. But the first piece of meat he took with the fork fell to the floor. His friends began to laugh and he had to take the fork away.

Only fifty years later did people in England begin to use forks.