OLD HOUSEHOLD FACTS

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20820, 2 June 1939, Page 3

OLD HOUSEHOLD FACTS

Three-pronged forks were flrst used at table in Italy in the sixteenth century. Queen Elizabeth carried her knife and fork at her girdle along with her ear-pick and tooth-pick, back-scratched and tongue-scraper!

The first spoon was a shell. The term “spooning” is derived from the Welsh “love-spoons,”' which were exchanged between lovers and often inscribed with words ol' symbolic meaning such as “We two are one.” The original home of the rolling-pin is Somerset. The first rolling-pins were made of glass and covered with sentimental mottoes. Sailors present ’d them to their sweethearts, who hung them up by ribbons. Tradition claimed that if the* rolling-pin broke the ship would be wrecked. '

The hands of the clock arc Arahi in origin. For a long time the Arab told the time by thrusting a spear ii the desert sand and watching th<

shadow, our clock hands are minia lure Arab spears.

The kettle was not known in anti quity. it, is a comparatively modern invention like the teapot. The idea o the three-legged kettle was borrow.-, from the gipsy's three-legged k»* ll !.■

which they still use. The tea-boiler t thus of gipsy origin. The custom of giving cases of cut lery as wedding gifts dales from the sixteenth century, when knives were first used at table.