Forks and fingers

In 1608, an Englishman, Thomas Coryate ' by name, visited Italy. When he came back to England he brought little forks the Italians used to eat meat with. His friends looked at the forks and laughed. They thought the Italians were fools because the forks were very inconvenient.
Thomas Coryate argued with them and explained to them that it was not good to eat meat with one's fingers because people didn't always have clean hands.

Everyone was indignant at this.
"Do you think that people in England don't wash their hands before eating?" one of his friends asked.
"Aren't the ten fingers given to us by nature enough for us?" asked his second friend.
"Must we add two artificial fingers to eat meat?" asked the third.
Then the host decided to show how easy it was to use the fork. But the first piece of meat he picked up off his plate slipped off the fork to the tablecloth.
His friends couldn't stop laughing and joking about it, so the poor host had to put his fork back into his pocket.

There is a story about why people began to use them. The story says that forks came into use when people began to wear lace-trimmed collars. These collars hindered them when they ate. They held the chin up in the air and kept one from bending his head. It looked as if the head was on a big round plate.
With such a collar it was obviously more convenient to eat with a fork than with one's fingers.