What are the first things that you notice when you visit a restaurant that has a formal table setting? You see that each of the items on the table has its own specific place and comes to your aid during different stages of your meal. A closer look once seated reveals that while the plate is right in front of you (as it should be), the fork is laid to the left and the table knife and spoon are closer to your right hand (spare a thought for the left-handers in this right-centric world).
It is one of these pieces of cutlery that we are going to delve into. We are going to find out how the table knife came to be in the first place, and how it has gone on to occupy a pride of place in all things cutlery.
Before anything else, we predominantly used our hands to eat (its prevalent in our culture and many of us still use our hands to eat majority of the times). One of the first tools that were used for eating were knives.
Hands, then knives
The knife, however, didn’t find a place in the table in those times. In fact, with each one carrying their own blade, it was too personal, even precious, to be part of a set. People carried elaborately designed and decorated knives on their person.
Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, the Duke of Richelieu and Fronsac and commonly referred to as Cardinal Richelieu, was a 17th century French clergyman who wielded considerable power and influence. While Richelieu had a role to play in shaping the geopolitical events of Europe as Louis XIII's chief minister, it is his contribution towards the table knife that we will be focussing upon here.
Stickler for etiquette
A stickler for table etiquette, Richelieu was pained at the sight of people reaching across the table, stabbing at things and raising it to their mouths. Add to it the fact that he had to witness people use the sharp end of their knives as a toothpick, and he had had enough.
In an effort to discourage this behaviour of his guests, it is believed that he ordered all of his own knife edges rounded, and hence the knife could not be used to pick the teeth as they were blunt. Legend has it that the first such table knife was created on May 13, 1637.
Richelieu’s knife broke the tradition surrounding knife use and was soon a rage among the court. Once the who’s who of France started owning a set of these, it wasn’t long before the common people too took to it.
Ban becomes boon
And in 1669, 27 years after Richelieu’ death, King Louis XIV banned pointed knives altogether. While his decree was aimed at curbing excessive street and domestic violence, it had the unusual fallout of sharp knives being dulled and blunted to make table knives.
The table knife was found to be good for both pushing and spreading food and slowly it moved from France to other parts of Europe and then the rest of the world. The shape and form of the table knife changed with time, in order to allow it to scoop more food onto a fork and to make it easier to spread things onto a surface.
The next time you are asked to spread butter on your bread for your breakfast, make sure that you also spread this story about how the butter knife, or the table knife, came to be in the first place.
