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Article: The perfect setting: Tableware's history traces royal customs.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- September 5, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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If you've ever sat at a fancy dinner table and felt intimidated by the array of forks and unfamiliar stemware, consider yourself lucky. At least you don't have to feel intimidated by your tablemates wielding daggers to stab at the main course.
Had you dined elegantly in the Middle Ages, you and the other guests would have been spearing meat from the center of the table with your knives, the very same knives you might have used that morning to fend off an enemy.
Lucky for us, fine dining has become considerably more refined since then.
The elements of an elegant table and the way they're arranged have evolved through the centuries. To us ...