Why do forks have 4 pointy end things?!
Why do forks have 4 pointy end things?
Answers:
They are called tines, and not all of them have 4.
So you can pick up the food.
to pick up your food. 4 is better than 2 .
so its easy to grab hold of food.
Five pointy end things would look silly.
Fork ~ Also, fork out or up. 8^)), sorry...
A utensil with two or more prongs, used for eating or serving food.
It is a commonly believed myth that the table fork was introduced to the West during the Middle Ages, as the Romans used forks for serving.
Tables are often set with two or more forks, meant to be used for different courses; for example, a salad fork and meat fork. Some institutions wishing to give an impression of high formality set places with many different forks for meals of several courses, although many etiquette authorities regard this as vulgar and prefer that the appropriate cutlery be brought in with each course. ( I should think so. J/S)
http://www.answers.com/topic/fork...
After a quick scan of the information available it appears, to this contestant, that the 'reason' for having four tines instead of any other number is probably designated according to the size of the item 'going to the gob'. As in the cocktail fork, very small & short, narrow tines. Salad fork, most have three tines with a broader head but still shorter tines than the standard 'four tine' fork. Ah, main course. Large items , meat, potatoes and such, requiring a longer, more substantial tine with a full head. And then the long awaited dessert fork; well what's for dessert? If it's ice cream a fork just will not help. [Sorry the ADD kicked-up a bit] Dessert, again a more delicate, smaller design than the main-course-four-tine model of current reference..
Hope this helped. Because it IS imoprtant to ask these questions. J/S 8^{I)
Some forks have 4 pointys and some have 3 and some have 5 ! You wanna fork ?
Each for every corner of the Earth - west, east, north and south
Well, what else would you poke your food with? How do you jab a spoon in a steak? You would, instead, use the force of the almighty fork. :D
Forks have either 2, 3, 4 or even 5 tines. It depends on the style of the silverware you're using. Four is most common, simply because it is what people tend to purchase most often.
to spear food.
Those pointy end things are called tines. They have them so you can stab into the bits of food and pick it up. Why 4? That I don't know.
The pointy end things are called tines. They are there to poke the food. Three seems to be too few, not wide enough to eat from. Primitave forks had 2 or 3 tines and over the years, the English or French Im sure, came up with 4.
The French use the fork 'upside down' meaning, they poke the food with the back of the fork showing, then cut it and scoop other food from the plate on to that, then shovel it all in their mouth.
Try to find a fork with 3 tines and eat with it, its kinda dumb-espicallly for salad...cant pick up as much. I prefer the standard 4.
To Stab your food with.
not all fork have 4 points. there's a smaller fork whick only have 3 (and i think they're so cute!)
most anything less is a spoon???
well to help you pick up food, otherwise it would just be a spoon right??
check out this website if you want the real 411 on forks http://www.hospitalityguild.com/history/...
Not all forks have four tines. I've seen some older forks that have only three.
Kitchen forks trace their origins back to the time of the Greeks. These forks were fairly large with two tines that aided in the carving and serving of meat. The tines prevented meat from twisting or moving during carving and allowed food to slide off more easily than it would with a knife.
Early table forks were modeled after kitchen forks; two fairly long and widely spaced tines ensured that meat would not twist while being cut. This style of fork was soundly designed, but small pieces of food regularly fell through the tines or slipped off easily. In late 17th Century France, larger forks with four curved tines were developed. The additional tines made diners less likely to drop food, and the curved tines served as a scoop so people did not have to constantly switch to a spoon while eating. By the early 19th Century, four-tined forks had also been developed in Germany and England and slowly began to spread to America.
We can thank the Victorians for the different forks. They made a different fork for each different food. There are place forks, carving forks, meat forks, cold meat forks, lemon forks, luncheon forks, fish forks, salad forks, pickle forks, olive forks, cake forks, butter forks, strawberry forks and the list goes on. There is even a fork for ice cream.
Besides eating with a fork, it also holds the food while you cut the food with the matching knife.
4 pointy things are the most common.
I guess because they don't have five; they're called "tines", by the way ;-)
If it had a flat long end it would be a knife and if it had a bowl shape it would be a spoon ............ it's so dimbo's can tell the difference.