We have all read stories about contemporary wine fraudsters who pour new-ish wine into very old bottles and cleverly send them at auction, reaping vastly inflated prices. Few of us sympathize with the well-heeled oenophiles who fall prey to the scams.

The fork's journey to the table as a 'civilized' dining tool is fraught with politics, religion, snobbery, and a whiff of salaciousness. Forks are not needed to dine neatly: indeed, food falls from forks more frequently than from fingers. Different cultures have devised different table etiquettes to fit with their preferred tools, and different cuisines privilege fingers,…

Annibale Carracci's Bean Eater (ca. 1584) is a portrait of a man frozen in time. We have interrupted his meal in mid-bite; he looks either startled or suspicious, and most commentators find him to be a rude fellow, one who "greedily scoops" a bowl of beans with "loud table manners" (whatever that means), casting an unwelcoming scowl at the viewer. For art historians, Carracci's rough brushwork…