* When the English travel writer Thomas Coryat introduced forks to England in 1608 after observing their use in Italy, he was nicknamed “Furcifer” and mocked for being effeminate; ironically, he would later die of dysentery, which might have been prevented by the fork’s widespread adoption. Several decades later, in 1633, John Winthrop, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, is believed to have owned the only fork in America, but forks were slow to take off there as well, largely because clergymen demonized them as sinful, fearing both their resemblance to the devil’s pitchfork and their implication that God’s food was too unclean to touch with fingers.