英語知識小品【38】人們何時開始用叉進餐』

38．When People Began to Eat With the Fork


「Fingers were made before forks．」When a person gives up good manners，puts aside knife and fork，and dives into his food，someone is likely to repeat that saying．


The fork was an ancient agricultural tool，but for centuries no one thought of eating with it．Not until the eleventh century，when a young lady from Constantinople brought her fork to Italy，did the custom reach Europe．


By the fifteenth century the use of the fork was wide-spread in Italy．The English explanation was that Italians were averse to eating food touched with fingers，「seeing all men's fingers are not alike clean．」English travelers kept their friends in stitches while describing this ridiculous Italian custom．


Anyone who used a fork to eat with was laughed at in England for the next hundred years．Men who used forks were thought to be sissies，and women who used them were called show-off sand overnice，Not until the late 1600's did using a fork become a common custom．


38．人們何時開始用叉進餐


「手指比叉子先造出來」，當一個人毫不顧及體面，把刀和叉放在一邊，用手抓食物的時候，有人很可能會重複這句俗話。


叉子本是一種古老的農具，幾個世紀以來，從沒有人想到用它來吃東西。直到11世紀，君士坦丁堡的一位年輕貴婦把她用的叉帶到義大利，用叉進餐的風俗這才傳入歐洲。


到15世紀，叉子已在義大利廣泛使用。英國人的解釋是，義大利人不願吃手指碰過的東西，因為「他們發現，並不是所有人的手指都是乾淨的」。英國的旅行家們敘述這個可笑的義大利風俗時，總是使他們的朋友們笑得前俯後仰。


以後幾百年中，凡用叉進餐的人在英國均遭嘲笑。用叉的男人們被認為是脂粉氣太重，女人們則被指摘為賣弄、炫耀和過分講究。直到17世紀後期，用叉進食才成為一種風俗。

Then do you know when Chinese begin to have meal with the chopsticks?