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Written by Evolution never stops and is evident in the smallest and often most inconspicuous ways as revealed in Consider the Fork
Bee Wilson, has recently published a book titled, “Consider the Fork” which examines ways in which the humble fork has contributed to mankind’s every changing evolutionary development and in this instance, more specifically the overbite.
The fork has been around for about 250 years and has changed the way we eat moving from larger to smaller chunks of food per mouthful.
This has initiated a change in the alignment of the upper and lower rows of teeth, where the bottom row fits underneath the top row.
Before the knife and fork became essential eating tools the teeth would be the primary movers when it came to breaking down food. When we ate bread or cheese it would have been clamped between the jaws and pulled apart or sliced with a knife from there.
The fork began life as an implement of ridicule when eating with your fingers was far more appropriate, this lasted until the late nineteenth century, except for the Italians who found the fork quite useful for eating spaghetti and accepted it a little earlier.
Research has also discovered that the Chinese developed an overbite about 900 years earlier than in Europe, around the same time that they began to use chopsticks.
Order your copy:
In South Africa from kalahari.com: Consider the Fork
In the US & International on Amazon: Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat
Via: The Atlantic
