# How did forkless ancients eat pasta? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 1, 2001, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-forkless-ancients-eat-pasta/74492 "2001-08-01T16:14:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-forkless-ancients-eat-pasta/74492/21 "2001-08-02T16:27:59Z")
In Japan I have seen them eat noodles by lifting a small dish to the mouth and then using chopsticks to push them toward the trapdoor. Whilst doing this they also suck the soup/sauce up making a good old slurping noise. They did have porcelain spoonlike thingies for liquids a long long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![don\_willard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@don\_willard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_willard)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-forkless-ancients-eat-pasta/74492/22 "2001-08-02T18:27:23Z")
Yes, from memory. But I think a dame is addressed as Dame, as in Dame Edith, rather than her having the dame title but being addressed as Lady Edith. Her mother, Lady Ida, was the daughter of a Marquis or Earl, so his daughters were entitled to be called Lady (and his sons Sirs). I don’t think the children of baronets (as Sir George was) were entitled to any special address, but evidently baronets were to the Sir address. There is an amusing anecdote here with Lady Ida. I believe it was a journalist who referred to her as Lady Sitwell. However, the daughter of one of the upper titled noblemen always retains her first name with the Lady address even though she marries somebody. At least that is what I have figured out in my researches… If a commoner had wed Sir George she would have been known as Lady Sitwell. Lady Ida used to refer to her husband, whom she often despised, as “the lowest,” with double entendre intended: a) baronet is the lowest title b) she hated him, so he was low. Another example is that although the daughter of the Duke of Southwald, Lady Marjorie on UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS married a commoner, though respectable and evidently eligible for her as the son of a minister, she was always called Lady Marjorie and referred to and addressed as Her Ladyship and Your Ladyship, respectively, and never called Lady X (I can’t remember her husband’s name). Toward the end of the series, I believe Mr. X WAS made a knight, but by that time it didn’t apply to Lady Marjorie, as she had sunk on the Titanic! I believe it is correct to call someone like Lady Marjorie Mrs. X when necessary, but I’m not sure. I dont’ know the rules at all for continental nobles. Anyway, there definitely is a whole history of the fork. Sir George had a different file for each of his interests, which are described by his unloving son Osbert in mocking detail in his large autobiography. He describes the file for the fork, so there must be quite a bit of collected data on that instrument. If anybody knows anything about the fork, they probably used Sir George’s book published or not as a source. Sir G did write a book that was published, on gardens, another one of his interests. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-forkless-ancients-eat-pasta/74492/23 "2001-08-02T18:33:26Z")
Another good history of the fork is in Henry Petroski’s _The Evolution of Useful Things_. That’s definitely in print and available on Amazon, et al. [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679740392](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679740392) ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-forkless-ancients-eat-pasta/74492/24 "2001-08-02T19:09:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Oystaman \* > \*\*and why is it called a “fork” Where did that word come from? \*\* [list][list][list]Who the **fork** knows?[list]:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2001, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-forkless-ancients-eat-pasta/74492/25 "2001-08-02T19:17:21Z")
After that last remark I know you won’t take me serious, but what kind of sauce did the Romans use? Could the lack of a fork be the reason for meatballs instead of meat sauce? And to anyone that read the book on forks, which came first? The **table fork** or the **pitch fork**? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-forkless-ancients-eat-pasta/74492.md?page=1)