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The
BBC reports:
"Poland
'taught the French how to use a fork', a Polish deputy minister has said, amid
a continuing row over a cancelled defence contract.
Deputy
Defence Minister Bartosz Kownacki also accused the French of lacking 'class'
after losing the multi-billion dollar contract to build 50 Airbus Caracal
helicopters for Poland.
A Law
and Justice party spokeswoman said the remarks were 'unfortunate'.
Poland
is to buy US Black Hawks instead. Airbus has threatened to sue.
Speaking
on TV, Mr Kownacki accused France of responding by withdrawing the offer of
free accommodation and a car for the Polish delegation at a defence fair in
Paris next week.
'They
are a people who learned to eat with a fork from us a few centuries ago. So
maybe this is why they are behaving in this way now,' he said.
MPs
from the opposition Civic Platform party called for him to be fired."
Wikipedia
gives a history of fork use, including this excerpt, which you can read in full
here:
"The
first recorded introduction of the fork to Western Europe, as recorded by the
theologian and cardinal Peter Damian,[9] was by Theophano Sklereina the
Byzantine wife of Holy Roman Emperor Otto II, who nonchalantly wielded one at
an Imperial banquet in 972, astonishing her Western hosts.[10] By the 11th
century, the table fork had become increasingly prevalent in the Italian
peninsula. It gained a following in Italy before any other Western European
region because of historical ties with Byzantium, and continued to gain
popularity due to the increasing presence of pasta in the Italian diet.[11] At
first, pasta was consumed using a long wooden spike, but this eventually
evolved into three spikes, a design better suited to gathering the noodles.[12]
In
Italy, it became commonplace by the 14th century and was almost universally
used by the merchant and upper classes by 1600. It was proper for a guest to
arrive with his own fork and spoon enclosed in a box called a cadena; this
usage was introduced to the French court with Catherine de' Medici's entourage.
In Portugal, forks were first used at the time of Infanta Beatrice, Duchess of
Viseu, King Manuel I of Portugal's mother[13] around 1450. However, forks were
not commonly used in Western Europe until the 16th century when they became
part of Italian etiquette.[14] The utensil had also gained some currency in
Spain by this time,[15] and its use gradually spread to France. Nevertheless,
most of Europe did not adopt use of the fork until the 18th century.[6]"
My
comment: "Poland taught France how to use a fork" is unhelpful
boasting.
Thanks
to Otto for sending this in.
Read
the full BBC article here
Ill-mannered, and, in my opinion, poor politics. The Biblical standard is always to try to be at peace with others insofar as it depends on us. No need to have said this.
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