nona1

Why? What a great big faff. Why can't you just stab that cut off piece of meat with the fork that's already in your left hand? How is it easier to stab it with the other hand? (or can you only do it with your 'strong hand' so lefties do the opposite, cutting with the left hand, then swapping the fork from right to left to stab the food?) It must take you twice as long to eat a meal, surely?

nona1

Well anyway, on the whole, hide/keep your hand on show business, if you hide your hand on your lap in Europe, everyone will assume you are doing something very unsavoury with it!

Robespierre

I believe the discussion is about what constitutes acceptable table manners in various cultures, not what is "right" or "efficient."

As far as swapping hands taking longer - I believe the time at table is mostly consumed by chewing and swallowing (and, in many households, by polite conversation).

pjsparlor

I know there is a correct way in France to let the server know you are still eating or done eating on how you place your knife and fork on the plate. Please refresh my memory. thanks PJ

lawchick

If you're stil eating and she tries to wrestle the plate from you, you can say "back off bit£H" - if you are finished, you can burp loudly and she'll get the message.

RM67

Think it's crossed knife and fork to show you've finished - I had a French waiter do this to my plate once in Paris (I'd already left the cutlery side-by-side as we do 'en Angleterre' to show we're done).

He did it quite bad temperedly, but his mate serving at the next table winked at me so I don't think it was the worst of faux-pas! Anyway at least I'd held my fork tines down in my left hand, knife in the right as God intended, so didn't get pulled up on that one 8-)

BTilke

nona1, I am an American left-hander living in Europe. Eating European-style was the way I always ate, as did the other lefties I know. The only difference was that in the U.S. I sometimes ate with the fork tines up, sometimes down, depending on the food. It took me all of 3 seconds to adapt fully to the European style when we moved overseas. It's really a non-issue, or non-starter, as Tony Snow would say.

maitaitom

I guess I was too busy on my last trip to Paris smiling and changing hands while eating to notice any of this nonsense. We even had a couple of wisecracking, smiling waiters on our trip (obviously nouveau French, not those old, staid French folks you guys are talking about).

Outside of the "fork Nazi" at Le Tastevin on Ile Saint Louis, the trip went off without incident. Well, I guess you shouldn't beat up blind guys at the metro, but in my defense, it was dark out.

Sue_xx_yy

(Quote from Margaret Visser: The Rituals of Dinner, 1991).

&quot;There was a fashion in Europe during the nineteenth century for downplaying the knife* to such an extent that one was not only to use it as little as poosible but also to put it aside when it was not in use. You cut up your food with the knife in the more capable hand and the fork in the other; you then put down the knife, being careful to place it with the blade's edge towards the centre of the plate, not facing neighbours. Then the fork changed hands, and was used to take the cut food to the mouth....Eaters adhering to this fashion thought that people who ate with both hands holding onto the cutlery were gross and coarse. [<i> ed: There's just no pleasing anyone...</i>] What Emily Post calls &quot;zig-zag&quot; eating was <b> still customary among the French bourgeoisie in the 1880s, when Branchereau describes it. </b> [bold added by yours truly.] He says, however, that the English are successfully introducing a new fashion: they hang onto their knives, and take the food to their mouths with the left hand which is still holding the fork....&quot;

&quot;...[the fork with the tines held down] encourages the mouth to take the food off it quickly and close to the lips - it is quite difficult to push the fork, with its humped tines, far into the mouth. [<i> note: the book earlier explains how table knives and forks evolved from being weapons, and how polite dining behaviour required one to downplay the less genteel role of forks and in particular, knives....</i> ]&quot;

...&quot;...the former way of eating [zig zag] was not dislodged in North America as it was in the rest of the world. It has been suggested by James Deetz that the old way was more deeply entrenched in America because forks arrived there relatively late....&quot;

Skeptics who doubt that the French ever ate the 'American' way can check the source for themselves. The 'Branchereau' Visser refers to is Branchereau, L. Politesse et convenances ecclesiastiques. Paris:Vic, 1885.

Point of all this ramble: Good luck trying to fit in with the culture, artlvr, because it's a dynamic thing, subject to change.

lawchick

As I mentioned in my post earlier - some French ( the ruling classes)still use the zig zag method.

bilboburgler

Chartely

Yes as a Brit I was taught to keep the elbows down and the hands in the lap when not eating/drinking.

Also taught not to eat/drink in the street. Not to drink from bottles or containers (still find this a dsigusting habit but we all have our crosses to bare), 'cause I know how clean containers and bottles are! Not to run with scissors or ask people how much they earn (and was horrified at a bus stop in a snow field in US by a guy in queue asking what my take home pay was) and no I didn't ask him how big his *** was as a response.

I tell you this world is a pretty strange place

Sue_xx_yy

lawchick

My apologies to you lawchick, I should have acknowledged your post. In underscoring a point you'd already brought up, I just wanted to emphasize how (relatively) ephemeral some customs are.

This issue doesn't overly bother me much - good thing, since I use continental style and my husband uses American. (By the way, the term 'bourgeoise' was in the original quote and I kept it in, as to me it is not a derogatory term, or even necessarily a political one: in this context I took bourgeoisie to mean simply 'average Joe(s).')

It wouldn't occur to either myself or my husband to ask the other to change. Manners to me is a type of body language, and not without importance where many issues are concerned, but in this case there is no clear message to send, it has been too muddied over the years. An issue like this is like the spelling of some words, say, 'colour' - I'm not about to demand that others follow the UK spelling, simply because I do, nor would I change myself if asked by anyone other than a publisher: sometimes, both versions of something can be correct, even within one and the same culture. And as the history of dining shows, both versions of eating style have been correct within European culture at one time or another.

I think Robes got it right the first time. We are, to use Mark Twain's words, innocents abroad. We can't be expected to master nuances, nor should visitors to our own shores be expected to do so.

Josser

I was amused once when we went to a Tai Restaurant in the US.
Each place had a set of chopsticks.
I asked for a spoon and fork and asked the waiter why they provided chopsticks when people in Thailand eat with a spoon and fork.
He shrugged and said that Americans expect chopsticks with any Asian food and he thought that it was also true for Australia.
It was amusing to think that the chopstick wielders thought that we were the people being incorrect.

RM67

Have to say, that I think asking someone's salary (or other personal information) is nothing to do with regional customs or 'nuances' - it's just plain bad manners!

vjpblovesitaly

“I don't believe this! Do you mean there are actually people that drop the knive in their right hand after cutting meat, then put the fork in their right hand and use it to eat? No joke, I've never seen grown ups eating like this. Maybe I never cared to watch.”

I actually know two people in their mid- to late-30s who cut all their food into little pieces and then eat it.

lawchick

Strangest way of eating I saw was when I met some ex colleagues from Ireland for dinner in Belgium. They had with them a new South African guy.

We went out for Moules Frites. The moules as is usual came in an enormous pot with some wine/juice etc in the bottom. He spent the first half hour diligently removing each moule from its shell and put all the &quot;naked&quot; moules back in the pot, threw in the frites and then ate it all with a spoon.

Bizzaro

Nikki

I am left handed and was never taught to switch hands when eating. In fact, I never noticed that other people did this until a boyfriend pointed out to me when I was in high school that I ate &quot;like a European.&quot;

And no, Ira, I am not under 30.

laartista

I'm right handed and cut with my left. My mother is European and was taught to turn my fork tine down in right hand, cut with left and turnfork back over, all in one smooth move.

lucielou

Goodness! I'm amazed that this is carrying on so long, surely if you have good table manners at home, then you will continue to have them when you go abroad.

koukoutzaki

Do people really notice or care how other diners eat? So long as you don't throw food, surely it doesn't matter that much.
Having said that, it does make me laugh when i see tourists trying to dissect lobsters with a knife and fork.