Don’t speak with your mouth full and keep your elbows off the table. For many of us, eating with a knife, fork and spoon is entirely natural. You might have been spoon-fed your first baby food, but since then you have become a skilled cutlery user – spiking, mashing, slicing and prodding without a second thought. For centuries, people carried their own cutlery with them; only from around 1800 did hosts begin to provide it for their guests. Table manners became a key part of the social education of upper-class youngsters. A method was discovered in the 19th century of applying a thin layer of silver to an object, making it cheaper to manufacture silverware. It was now possible to mass-produce less expensive cutlery, which in turn triggered a huge increase in the variety of implements on offer: serving spoons, fruit spoons, salt spoons, cake forks, sugar and teaspoons, to name just a few. It was considered terribly important to use each piece of cutlery correctly. Around 1900, for instance, it became the norm in the Netherlands to put your spoon down with the convex side up after eating your soup, to peel oranges and tangerines with a dessert spoon, and to eat your main courses with a knife and fork. Provided you kept your elbows tucked in, of course!