In Medieval Europe, No Outfit Was Complete Without a Personal Eating Knife

[beat]

Steven Pinker talks about this in his book Better Angels of our Nature. Ending the habit of personal eating knives was part of the "civilizing process" that drastically reduced the murder rate in Europe, because people stopped walking around armed quite so much.

[thrower123]

My redneck is showing, but I feel a little naked if I go out the door without either my Leatherman or my Mercator in my pocket. I have even been known to pull it out and use it as an eating knife from time to time...

[simonsarris]

My foppish New-Englander is showing, but I always keep an Opinel No. 8 on hand as a picnicking knife, in case I need to cut cheese or salami that I buy, and my fiancee keeps one in her purse for the same reason. Highly recommended. (As is the fiancee carrying around purse salami, the original protein bar.)

In a pinch I might have to use it to break down a box, here and there.

[DoreenMichele]

[Insert joke about you obviously being my ex.]

My dad grew up on a farm. He was also career military, as was my ex who was not a redneck and did not grow up on a farm.

For some folks, guns and knives are meaningful tools and not everyone is a hot head who would readily knife someone.

I always find discussions of such subjects on HN uncomfortable. It's not a criticism of you. It's a criticism of "Why does anyone have to self deprecatingly identify as a redneck (or something) to admit on HN that this is a part of their life?"

[Steltek]

Howdy redneck, this New England yankee carries a Leatherman (Skeletool CX) everywhere. Do you think we can find us a midwest farm boy in here?

I've also used for food in a pinch (mostly cutting things up to share with others).

I see a lot of people carry pure folding knives (Spyder, etc). Honestly I use the screwdriver, etc at least as much as the blade. Not sure why anyone would forego a little extra utility.

[Raphmedia]

People judge you until it's useful. If I received a dime whenever I've used my pocket knife to cut steaks when everyone had only picnic plastic knifes I would be rich by now.

[gothroach]

Californian here, I always have a knife on me and find myself using it daily. Currently, I'm carrying an older CRKT Mt. Rainier.

[grawprog]

Ya pretty much this. Though i prefer my Buck knife myself. I've been carrying a knife almost constantly since my dad gave my first pocket knife as a kid. I can't even begin to count the number of times it's come in handy. I've used it for eating more than once for sure. I've even used it to trim my nails.

[Zak]

My Alaskan with connections to Colorado is showing, but I feel a little naked if I go out the door without my Spyderco.

I often joke that in Alaska, one would only leave the house without a knife if not planning to make it back. While that's not strictly true, visually scanning peoples' pockets even in cities and towns, a pocket clip for a knife can be seen more often than not.

I'm in Germany most of the time lately, but I still don't go out without a knife. The use cases are different, as is the knife I usually carry, but it sees about as much use.

[creep]

I always carry my gerber swagger (folding knife with a partially-serrated edge). I keep it in my wallet.

I don't know why. It comes in handy sometimes.

[grumpydba]

Fellow Parisian here. I used to carry a beautiful laguiole but I can't anymore.

With these terror attacks you are searched whenever you enter a big shop/mall/whatever so it's less practical.

[ur-whale]

I never leave home without my Sebenza 21.

Never had to struggle cutting a steak in restaurant.

[onetimemanytime]

Location, location, location...in the concrete jungles of NYC and major cities knives are out of place (other than self defense but then you have to deal with laws etc)

[uhtred]

Pretty sure I read somewhere that the reason we moved to having blunt knives and forks set at the table was because people used to frequently get into disagreements at the dinner table and stab each other, and so it became a requirement to leave one's dagger/sword whatever outside.

[stevehawk]

I bet "frequently" here is kind of like how people think the cowboys in the Wild West of the United States had "frequent" shootings, even though it didn't.

[paganel]

For what it’s worth I use my Tramontina kitchen knife [1] when eating, it’s not blunt at all, quite the contrary. I also never, ever start a fight or argument during eating, that is a thing my peasant grandma has taught me and my brother pretty well. Her reasoning was something like “if you start an argument during dinner you’re not enjoying the food that all of our family worked pretty hard to put on the table so by doing that you’re disrespecting them and most importantly you’re disrespecting their hard work”.

[1] https://www.mychefknives.co.uk/932-tramontina-knives

[aequitas]

I believe there is also an etiquette that tells to put a knife down with the cutting side facing inwards towards your plate (ie: not towards your enemy sitting next to you). As otherwise it might be seen as a hostile gesture/provocation.

[thaumasiotes]

What's a blunt fork? It would be incredibly easy to kill someone with any ordinary metal fork.

[Bayart]

In Medieval Europe ? My grand-father (who had been working an office job in the city since the 50's) always had his Laguiole along. He even used it in the restaurant. It was certainly standard behavior before WWII in rural areas.

[jimjimjim]

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." -- William Gibson.

[jetrink]

George Orwell mentioned the practice in a letter in 1936.

> The trouble is that the socialist bourgeoisie, most of whom give me the creeps, will not be realistic and admit that there are a lot of working-class habits which they don't like and don't want to adopt. E.g. the typical middle-class socialist not only doesn't eat with his knife but is still slightly horrified by seeing a working man do so.

[mcantelon]

The knife is considered the most important tool of all time... perhaps not to eat with, but handy in general:

https://www.forbes.com/2005/08/31/technology-tools-knife_cx_...

Socialization seems to be turning knives into taboo things to carry and use out of the kitchen.

[canhascodez]

Knives are generally useful, but not specifically useful. They are often a good substitute for a more appropriate tool. One can use a knife as a can opener, or to cut down a sapling, or to dig a foreign object out of a wound. It may be that a knife is the most generally useful tool of all time: if one can only have one tool, it should almost certainly be a knife. Part of that generality includes misuse, and people tend to have more specifically-useful tools (such as can openers, saws, and surgical implements), which tend to be both less useful and less misuseful (because that's a perfectly cromulent word, no matter what spellcheck says).

[SketchySeaBeast]

Knives, much like fire, are both hugely important, but they have their places. Bringing either onto a flight seems unneeded.

[sparrish]

But not a single image of said knives.

[JohnJamesRambo]

Yes, what a wasted opportunity! From googling, maybe something like this?

http://www.ragnarsmarket.co.uk/product/medieval-eating-knife...

or

https://myarmoury.com/review_tod_15c_eating.html

[ilovecaching]

Man I would love to go back to everyone carrying a belt knife. They're so useful. In my state in America it's actually illegal to conceal a fixed blade knife longer than a few inches, but perfectly fine to belt carry (open carry).

I often carry a swiss army knife, opinel, or bushcraft knife with me.

[INTPenis]

You don't have to go that far back. My grandma carried a knife to church. She was from rural Croatia.

My father still carries a knife, and he still uses it for eating fruit.

[DoreenMichele]

During the Middle Ages, forks weren’t really part of the picture in Europe.

Supposedly, Catherine de Medici brought the fork from Italy to France and popularized it:

https://www.cooksinfo.com/catherine-de-medici

http://www.courtneyprice.com/fork-you-said-catherine-de-medi...

https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/when-was-the-fork-invented

[newnewpdro]

I find myself using the chop sticks kept in my backpack far more often at restaurants than the pocket knife.

[vorpalhex]

chopsticks are useful too, especially when you can't easily wash your hands and want to eat something a bit messy, but they only work for food well cut up in advance...

[schnevets]

I believe Henry Petroski's Evolution of Everyday Things begins by describing Western eating utensils. It also goes into similar stories about sandpaper, paperclips, and other everyday items. Great read if you enjoyed this article.

[btilly]

I rather think that causation goes the other way.

If you enjoy that, then you'll enjoy this article. However I enjoyed this article but still rate that book as the most boring book that I've ever managed to finish.

[Theodores]

The first person to paint true to life peasants was Pieter Bruegel. Until the renaissance people painted for kings, queens and the church. Bruegel is therefore an excellent source for being able to determine if this story is true.

If you look at his paintings then only the men are carrying knives. None of the women are. Why is this and can someone prove me wrong? I am not that familiar with his work and have not checked everything he painted yet I have not seen women with knives in his art.

[stcredzero]

I should think a peasant woman of the time would wear a knife concealed beneath her skirts.

[qualsiasi]

In my country (Italy) AFAIK you're not allowed to carry a knife (any size, even the smallest) in any public place (pub, restaurant, post office, ..). Even on the streets or driving the law enforcement officers could ask you for a sound motivation to carry it.

[tomcooks]

You can carry a folding, non locking knife anywhere in Italy

[samstave]

A personal eating knife seems like the perfect accessory to my utilikilt!

---

Also when did atlasobscura become the new hotness?

[TeMPOraL]

> Also when did atlasobscura become the new hotness?

Links to it pop up regularly on HN, and have been for some time. Usually there's something interesting on both ends.

[TheAlchemist]

I highly recommend the book mentionned in the article - 'Consider the Fork', for those interested in cooking.

A great book with many interesting topics (the personnal knife is just one of them) !

[kaddio]

What would be the fastest way to kill someone with a push-pin? Asking for a friend.

I can think of puncturing their eyes or their genitals if I wanted to make the thing painful, but that wouldn't kill them any faster I reckon.

[sctb]

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18356812 and marked it off-topic.

[SEJeff]

Likely via the carotid artery or perhaps the femoral artery if you were up close and very personal, but this is mostly an exercise in futility.

[abdulhaq]

Place it gently on the forehead then smash it in with a clawhammer

[krapp]

Hide it in their food?

[zwieback]

The two medieval monks can explain what's going on in that picture:

http://the-toast.net/2015/02/11/two-medieval-monks-invent-di...