A dinner knife used to be razor sharp. But one event turned it into a cultivated tool that became part of dining.
Food is a joy! Food is a pleasure… And if you were born with “blue blood” 400 years ago, you could live in pleasant gluttony… After all, banquets used to have 5-7 courses. Appetizers began, which were often oysters, lobster or a thick broth. Then followed the main course in the form of pheasants, quails, ham with garlic, beef or truffles… Vegetables – asparagus, artichokes or peas with sauce – were served alongside this – and, of course, dessert could not be missing! This used to be fruit, pastries or whipped cream…
A knife instead of a toothpick
To eat such portions of food was quite “stupid”, but the former eaters were so trained that they did not mind. It was worse with dining. Instead of cutlery, a classic sharp knife was generally used to cut giant portions of meat. According to historians, the knife wasmultifunctional tool – it performed the function of a fork, but also a toothpick, because it often happened that the meat stuck in the teeth and could not be pulled out. But the knife was also a tool of emotions. It was enough for the diners to drink the wine and the blade was already flying through the air, or stabbing into the table and destroying the tablecloths.
Stop the barbarians!
And exactly such behavior irritated the famous Cardinal Richelieu in 1637, who was a frequent organizer of opulent banquets. The distastefulness of the dining of some of the guests whipped him to the point that he got up, took a knife from each of them and shortened the tip with his own hand. Thirty years later, this “invention” was also introduced by the “sun king” – Louis XIV. – who banned the use of sharp dining knives in his yard.
Brawls on the decline
The measure brought several improvements. Not only did fights at feasts decrease significantly, but forks also began to be used when dining. After a while, napkins were also added to them… France thus became a powerhouse of etiquette. Cultivated eating behavior is in turn a matter of fashion, which was gradually taken over by England, Italy, Germany and later also by the Czech Republic.
The first blunt knives appeared in Bohemia in the 17th century, at the court of the Valdštejn family, and later the trend was adopted by other nobility. At that time, modern dining was in the style of Versailles… Over time, French etiquette spread among the bourgeoisie and the common people. Today, the rounded knife is a popular piece of cutlery used all over the world. It is a multifunctional tool not only for slicing meat, but also for spreading spreads on bread. Thank you, Cardinal Richelieu!
