I come from a culture where table manners are non-existant because growing up we didn’t have a kitchen table. Much of my family don’t have a table in the kitchen, or if they do it’s used for shelving and nobody ever sits there to eat, etc.
I always knew that “proper table manners” existed because I heard about them on the TV, but my family always ate on the couch or in our bedrooms. Always.
Anyway, here in college I eat at a table. And somebody the other day politely whispered to me that cutting your food with a fork isn’t polite, that you should use a knife in the left hand and hold the food down with the fork in the right hand.
This seemed really strange to me, so I asked the person why, and got a blank stare.
So now I’m asking C&Fers. Why is it not polite to cut your food with only a fork? And why does it matter which hand the fork is in?
I’m not totally sure why, Cran…I’d be as stumped as you.
People look at me funny anyways when I eat, because I hold my fork in my left hand and my knife in my right; it’s something that I picked up while living in Canada that just became habit over time, now I cant eat with my fork in my right hand!
Once I had a lovely elderly neighbor who’d been born and raised in England but moved to the U.S. when she married her husband (just after WWII, I think). She stood in church one day and told us this story as an example of not judging others. She said that one night she’d gone to a church dinner and, as she’d been raised, ate her vegetables with her knife. A woman sitting across from her stared and finally told her that you don’t eat vegetables with a knife, but with a fork. Olive looked at her sweetly and said, “Go to hell.”
Some table manners are common sense courtesy (you cited an example) and some are a bit archaic (no elbows on the table). Complaiing about cutting your food with a fork seems a little picky, especially in an informal college environment.
So, you could probably find a little guide to table manners via Google?
I’m with Tyler – I’ve never been in a situation in which it’s been considered impolite to cut food with a fork. I also eat with the fork in my left hand and the knife in my right – I’ve heard this called “Continental style.” Many Americans cut with the fork in the left and the knife in the right, then put the knife down and eat with the fork in the right.
Table manners are pretty simple. Don’t eat most foods with your hands (things like bread are always okay; also pizza, fried chicken (not that you’d eat that, Cran), stuff like that). Don’t reach across people to get the salt; politely ask for it to be passed. Put a napkin in your lap, use it when something dribbles down your chin. Don’t make armpit farts, especially if the guy you know is gonna laugh at them has a mouthful of milk.
perhaps it’s just me, but I’ve always thought it to be bad manners to correct other’s behavior in public (unless it was something life threatening, of course)…
Manners will differ between social classes, and also situationally.
I once heard a story of a man who’s girlfriend was raised wealthy, and
was adament about the manners she had learned. This was fine when
they were at fancy resturaunts, but once they were at a sports bar,
and she freaked out when he ate his chicken fingers with his hands.
He left her.
College is where people start to learn about others’ differences in
upbringing and culture. It might be a good time to inform your friend
that it might be in his/her best interest to relax…
The big ones most people agree on, when at a fancy resturaunt, are:
put the napkin in your lap, no elbows on the table, put your bread on
the little bread plate. If it’s really fancy, like a sitdown wedding
reception, then when a woman stands up to leave the table, all the
men should rise until she has departed (I have NO idea why that is).
I don’t know why the fork hand matters, but I think I remember that
it is the opposite hand in the US and the UK.
Yeah, because let’s face it, stuff like social norms and etiquette, manners and courtesy are all just mere facade, nothing more than a worthless veneer. Best to ignore all such things. Clearly, it’s only anal dweebs who expect people over the age of 8 to have a basic grasp of such archaic nonsense as table etiquette.
After all, it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of people will regard you as a social cripple for the rest of your life, and that you’ll stand out like a sore thumb any time you get invited to a reasonably civilised social gathering (or, huh, a real restaurant, not one of those Taco Bell or McDonald’s things).
You just keep telling the rest of the world that their manners and etiquette are chud, and it’s their problem. Tell 'em all to “go to hell.” You’ll fit right in I’m sure.
Well, Gary, I do think there’s a big difference between standard table courtesy (such as chewing with your mouth closed, asking to have stuff passed to you rather than reaching across someone’s plate, etc) and more archaic table manners, such as which direction do you put your fork and knife on the plate to signal you are finished with your meal, and which diretion do you put it to signal that you’re merely taking a pause in eating to converse with the person next to you (or which position is appropriate to signal that you’d like seconds without having to specifically request them).
Personally, if I went out with a group of people at a restaurant, and they were aghast and considered me a social cripple because I cut a piece of food with my fork, then yes, they ARE being too anal, and yes, it is THEM with the problem, not with me. The essence of table manners is to get the food from your plate to your mouth in an inoffenive manner. All that other crap is frippery.
The way I learned it, at one time left-handedness was a sign of the upper classes. Table etiquette was learned by the lower classes to emulate their superiors. Thus we hold the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right hand to cut food. If the act of eating with the fork in the left hand is too difficult for you, it is okay to eat with your fork in your right hand. Switch fork hands back and forth between cutting and eating. Don’t cut up more food than you can immediately eat - in other words, don’t cut up your entire plateful of food, just enough for the next forkful or two. Slow down, and enjoy your food. It aids in digestion.
Etiquette is about not grossing out others you are sharing the table with. It is rude to watch others eat, and worse to comment openly about it, unless the two of you are alone, and your companion is trying to helpfully correct a flaw you may not be aware of. It is more rude to comment out loud at table about a neighbour’s boorish table manners than to be the boor.
This whole table etiquette business is a simple case of taking a basic principle of politeness and carrying it to the nth degree; totally anal past a certain point. What your personal point of tolerance is is up to you. If you start in on me while I am enjoying an excellent trough, expect me to reach across the table and smack you upside the head.
