[Sca-cooks] Knives - sharp side in?

[Volker Bach]

Am Freitag, 11. November 2005 04:38 schrieb kingstaste at mindspring.com:
> I was getting ready for a class tonight at Viking, and the Class Manager
> had set the table.  The Culinary School Manager came in and asked him if he
> had taken Dining Room in culinary school yet, and proceeded to correct his
> table setting.  In the process, I heard "in the middle ages they put it
> that way to assure the other person you wouldn't stab them".  "What?" says
> I.  He repeated: "the practice of placing the edge of the knife facing in
> towards the plate dates from the Middle Ages, and it was meant to reassure
> your dining partner that you were not going to slice or stab them".  He
> said he was taught this in Culinary History at Johnson and Wales.  I said
> that I had never run across that particular one in all of the dining
> etiquette books I had read from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.  I thought
> I would run it by here - anyone heard of this one?

Heard, yes, but I believe the concern over the health of fellow diners goes 
back to the Early Modern pertiod, rather. After all, it is in the seventeenth 
centuries that table knives lose their stabbing point. From all depictions I 
recall, medieval table settings even in the wealthier households were not 
governed by any such rules until very late. Most interestingly, what you most 
commonly see is a single knife lying on the table that seems to be for 
communal use. We can assume the diners also brought their own smaller ones, 
but these are not usually visible (IIRC Tannhäuser suggests putting it away 
when not using it). 

Wjhy would I want to stab anyone at the dinner table in a society where it is 
still legal to kill people in open hand-to-hand combat?

Giano


	

	
		
___________________________________________________________ 
Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - Jetzt mit 1GB Speicher kostenlos - Hier anmelden: http://mail.yahoo.de