Western food tableware is mainly knife and fork, the initial only knife, the early knife is stone or bone knife, until after copper smelting, with a bronze knife, iron appeared, then switch to iron knife. A single knife, unlike chopsticks, is not strictly a tableware, because it is versatile, used to slaughter, dissect, cut meat from hunters or cattle and sheep, and when cooked and edible, also serves as a tableware.

It was not until the 15th century that Westerners used double-pointed forks to improve their eating posture, because it was more elegant to put food into the import with a knife, and to put a fork over a piece of meat. Fork is the strict sense of cutlery, but the weakness of the fork is inseparable from the knife cutting in front, so both are indispensable. By the end of seventeenth Century, Britain began to use three pointed forks, and only four fork forks were found in eighteenth Century. So the Western knife and fork have been used for only 400-500 years.

Why does the West have no? This is related to Western meals and meat, and meat is also related to agricultural structure. Europe is mainly animal husbandry, and bread is a kind of non-staple food, which is directly held by hand. Staple food is beef and mutton. Cutting meat with knife is the most convenient way to import. Pastures and grasslands are large. Knives and forks are always hung on belts, where food is not fixed. After settling in cities, knives and forks enter the family kitchen without having to take them with them.

Western food, compared with Chinese food, is not only the difference between chopsticks and knives and forks, but also personal cultural taste experience.

The usage of knife and fork is from outside to inside side. When eating, they usually cooperate with the left and right hands, that is to say, one knife and one fork are used in pairs. Some exceptions are that when the soup is served, the spoon is placed on the right side - the spoon is held with the right hand.