While lying face-down in the parking lot outside the SFR offices, weeping openly about how it’s tough to come up with interesting food-based newsletters week after week, the paper’s art director (his name’s Anson Stevens-Bollen, and if you’ve ever seen any art in the paper it was probably something he designed/drew/created, so you know he’s a GENIUS) had a fun thought.
“Why don’t you talk about the fork,” he said.
“Oh, you beautiful idiot,” we replied. “We talk about ourself all the time!”
“No, I mean the literal fork. The utensil. Why won’t you talk about the fork?”
Knowing that Anson is really more of a spork guy (true fact), we hemmed and hawed our way through a series of pathetic excuses about why that wouldn’t work. Then, it hit us: Why don’t we do that? And you know what that means—A TOTALLY REAL AND IN NO WAY JOKEY HISTORY OF THE FREAKING FORK!
If we go back in time, and we mean way the eff back, there are examples of forks dating to thousands of years BC. We’re talking bone forks and such found in China and elsewhere that prove stabbin’ food has always been in style. This makes us wonder whether there’s some kind of weird fork collector out there who is all like, “I simply must add that fork from 2400 BC to the collection!” And while we know some of you are likely mulling over sending us emails about how they mainly use chopsticks in China, just don’t.
If we can put on our junior etymologist cap for just a moment, a cursory bit of word origin study finds that the word “fork” is derived from the Latin word “furca,” which is what Latin speakers called the pitchfork. Looking at it through the Anglo-Norman French lens (as we almost always do), we arrive at “furke,” which is where that “k” comes from. Neat! We also like that its ultimate origin is shrouded in mystery—just like us.
Speaking of Latin, we can trace back bronze and silver forks to Rome, which might tell us a lot about how rich people always have fancier flatware than seems necessary.
Looking to the Middle East, forks may have become commonplace by the 10th century, particularly as metal and metal work became more ubiquitous. According to our research, though, it might have been more common for folks to carry around a couple of knives—one for cuttin’ and one for stabbin’ food.
By the following century, there are records of Byzantine fork fans bringing golden forks to Italy with them to show off, but also because they’d grown accustomed to a tine-based food delivery system. We speak, of course, of Maria Argyropoulina, granddaughter of Romanos I Lekapenos, duh. Turns out that her marriage to the son of some freaking Venetian Doge was a pretty big deal, forks or no. So anyway, these fork feelings kind of spread throughout Europe, but it wasn’t until the 18th century that they were what we might call in wide use.
Later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, forks were still not quite as commonplace in the, shall we say, whiter cultures of England and the early American colonies. This is where it gets kind of interesting, though, as food/knife/fork writer Chad Ward has said that the way Americans still eat to this day can be traced back to these colonial times. See if you can keep up. So, it turns out that as the colonists were, ummm, doing colonist stuff, a new type of blunt-tipped knife became closet to ubiquitous in the would-be states. Like their Middle Eastern brethren, these new Americans had grown accustomed to stabbin’ food and eating it right off the knife. Unable to keep doing that, they adopted a methodology that found them stabilizing their meat with a spoon in the left hand and cutting meat into manageable pieces with a knife in the right, then switching the spoon into the right hand to scoop up the food. Now that we think about it, we’ve done this in our lives kind of a lot, and there’s even a term for it from none other than etiquette maven Emily Post: “the zig-zag.” Neat! Or, y’know, mildly interesting, anyway. What’s that, you say? That was about knives and spoons, not forks? This interview is over!
Apparently there are now more than 35 types of forks, which seems like a weird thing, but there you go. We mean, of course, like, salad fork, desert fork, shrimp fork, road fork, mega-fork, pork fork, Mindy and Mork fork and so on. The most common fork is that mid-sized four-tined number you probably have at home right now. We’re not for sure how our fork forebears founded four for forks, but it is what it is and you’re just going to have to live with it, because otherwise, baby, you’d be in trident town.
And just think, if all this history had never happened, we wouldn’t be here forking it up with you now. We’d probably be called The Stabbin’ Knife, and that just doesn’t have a nice ring to it. Still, we could say things like, “Knife to see you!” or, “Truly, these are the days of our knives.”
This is not, as we thought, about a literal fork lying in a road, but don’t let it bring you down.
Also
-We’d talked about a Santa Fe Bite rumor previously, but history’s greatest villain, Teya Vitu of the Santa Fe New Mexican, now reports that the Eckres—who originally owned the joint back when it was Bobcat Bite and through all of its weird iterations—totally did sell to Armando Rivas and Angela Mason. We wish them well and we’re about to go mental on a burger even though we don’t eat read meat.
-Our boss, being an idiot, wrote a whole-ass piece about Bread Shop last week wherein he referred to co-owner Jacob Brenner as Jacob Brennan, which is really bogus of him. We’ve also tried the sandwich over there, though, so we kind of get why he made such a monumental boner. Man, we’re really entering our own personal season of sandwiches lately.
-Creative Santa Fe, being the local nonprofit that’s all about creativity, has partnered with Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen for the upcoming Dine Out For A Change dinner on March 16. Twenty percent of that night’s sales will go to CSF’s Catalyst Fund, being that fund that’s all about catalysts (naw, just kidding, because in 2022, the Catalyst Fund helped out with the Santa Fe Reads Festival as part of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read initiative. This panned out in the fork of 58 community programs that reached 2,777 participants, not to mention nearly 2,000 books distributed to area students). You literally just go to dinner on March 16 and it helps people. Nuts, right?
-Word on the street is that Baca Street Railyard eatery Cafecito (home of just, like, the best-ass croissant) now has a robot that buses tables. We haven’t seen it with our own eyes, but we wanna. Granted, we have mixed feelings about a job not going to a human person, but we also really like that croissant. Our boss went bonkers for it in 2021, even. Anyway, we’ve got our fingers crossed that the robot is basically Bender from Futurama, but we know that’s a long shot.
-Stalwart New Mexico winery Gruet announced not one but two new wines earlier this week—the Blanc de Blancs and Pinot Meunier sparkly wine...guys. They sound delicious, and you should try them. Or not, we’re not your mom. Hey, though, there’s a Gruet tasting room in Santa Fe. Word? Word.
-If you missed it in the print edition this week, Iconic Coffee Roasters has quietly opened a new outpost in the former Discount Tires location on Cerrillos Road. Here’s what we know: It’s called Iconik Red, not a lot of people know about it just yet because it’s in the midst of a soft opening, we bet it’ll start to get busy before you know it. Stop by—we think it’s their nicest location yet.
-It’s early yet, but we wanted to let you know about the upcoming 7th Annual Great New Mexico Food Truck & Craft Beer Festival going down in Albuquerque on March 25 at Balloon Fiesta Park. Despite laughing out loud at how long the name of the event is, we hear it’ll feature over 50 vendors and all the trucks and beers and foods that entails. We’ll remind you again, but you can get tickets here.
-If you’re looking for a fest that goes down sooner, how about the National Fiery Foods & BBQ Show March 3-5. It’s all about the things its title suggests, so...yeah. Even better? If you get to the thing below about how eating spicy foods makes you hotter to people, you’ll see why you should maybe go.
Speaking of Futurama...
SHOUT-OUT FROM A READER!
OK, look, we’re not gonna keep this box here if y’all are gonna not be shouting things out. Did you have killer service someplace? A surprisingly excellent experience? Tell us whom and/or what you love and let’s highlight some people and places that deserve it. We mean it. Do it now. Send us shout-outs now (shouts-out?)! RIGHT NOW!
More Tidbits
-A Japan Airlines passenger flying from Indonesia to Tokyo was served a rather bogus vegan meal on a recent business-class flight—one single banana. While we might usually revel in the hilarity (not because of vegan stuff, so take it easy, vegans who email us), this seems pretty wack for someone who likely spent soooo much money on the flight. Come to think of it, we’re not sure what the vegan story is in Japan, though, so maybe they’re just not knowledgable about it. Either way, they should do better, even if bananas are super good.
-Food & Wine-dot-com would like you to know that maple syrup season came early this year, but it’s actually not a good thing. According to syrup...harvesters (farmers?), changing weather could signal poor conditions in the future, which would not be great for their kids or their kids’ kids. Climate change is wack.
-In good news for most New Mexicans, Delish-dot-com’s Mackenzie Filson posits that people are somehow more attractive to potential mates when they have a love of/high tolerance for spicy foods. Apparently, a researcher by the name of Jenni Miska recently published a paper titled “Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice: Food Flavors, Attraction, and Romantic Interest” which found that even just eating hot food in front of hot people makes other people look hotter. Hot!
-Meanwhile, Eater-dot-com has a pretty interesting fine dining forecast which cites West Africa as the next big thing for upscale restaurants. We don’t doubt it—pretty much anything we’ve had from any African country has been pretty amazing.
-The Pittsburgh Post Gazette recently reviewed Peeps-flavored Pepsi, and we salute their succinct evaluation of, “Oh!” We haven’t had the stuff, nor will we, but we figure there are surely people out there who, upon hearing of such a drink, thought, “FINALLY!”
A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence
In the print edition of SFR this week, learn about how Santa Fe’s Travel Bug has way more going on than just suitcases.
Number of Letters Received
24
*So, you’re NOT down with Girl Scout Cookies?
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)
“UNSUBSRIBE!”
*You have to click the thing, and also—with the caveat that we find grammar and spelling snobs unbearable—you are missing a “C” in there.
Actually Helpful Tip(s)
“35 years ago this week I ‘found’ my engagement ring in a box of Samoas. Still goin’ strong—the marriage, not the old box of Samoas.”
*Not a tip, obvs, but we love the story from reader MG W. Thanks for sharing the story!
Stick an us in you,
The Fork
P.S. You didn’t think we’d omit this timeless and tineless tune, did you?
