SC - Re: table eating utensils

[RuddR at aol.com]

Stefan quotes and writes:

>  > << The fundraiser also featured no silverware, as they thought 
>  >  medieval man ate without utensils. >>
>  > 
>  > Actually, they did eat without utensils other than a knife until 
> relatively 
>  > late in period. This is the reason why you only use your right hand to 
> serve 
>  > yourself food with (your left being used for personal cleansing).
>  
>  Hmm. Yes, I believe this left-handed thing was a tradition in the Middle 
> East.
>  Do you have any evidence that this was ever done with any consistancy in
>  the non-Moslem parts of Europe?

I have recently been looking at medieval illuminations of diners at table, 
trying to answer this very question.  For the most part, diners are eating 
with their right hands, but every now and then, with their left hands (see: 
http://www.50megs.com/matterer/medpix/gallery1/mpix18.htm).  In some pictures 
the diners are reaching into the dishes with one hand while holding morsels 
of food in the other 
(http://www.50megs.com/matterer/medpix/gallery4/mpix115.htm).  So it seems as 
though the Islamic stricture against eating with the left hand did not apply 
in medieval Christendom.  Perhaps the custom of public hand washing before 
dinner had something to do with this.

Rudd Rayfield