French Table Manners Matter...
 

Recently whilst eating out in a restaurant my son said that in France it was considered to be rude to not use both your fork and your knife in combo when eating - to use just a fork, as many Americans do, was considered rude or crude - just not proper table manners.

I asked why was it rude and he said because of the way it messes up the plate, spreading food out around it rather than the French way of picking up food with both knife and fork in one motion.

So in France if eating with others try to do it the French way!

And the French also use bread as a mop - to mop up liquids and bits of food left on your plate.

Britons frown on only using a fork too, or they used to.
Here too (the Netherlands) when eating out it is normal to use both utensils. what you do at home is your own affair.

Well, using bread as a mop at a "white tablecloth" dinner is not considered particularly polite by many Americans, but I would not expect a French person in the US to desist.

Similarly, I have lived in France for 3 1/2 years, UK and R of I for total of 5 years without feeling the need to conform to the French, indeed European, knife and fork method. It doesn't seem to have hindered our social life as we dine with Germans, French, Dutch, English in their homes and ours. I don't think anyone has turned one of our invitations down due to my "rude, crude" manners.

My husband is English so I suppose he passes muster but I can tell you that sometimes watching him eat beans on toast in the English fashion isn't particularly appealing on several levels.

cathinjoetown - I have had the same experience - having had Sunday dinners with my French in-laws for years and always feeling free to use my own method of forking things into my mouth - but I never really realized that it was thought of as rude by at least some French, like my son - if I had known it was considered crude - maybe a better word than rude - I would have conformed to local customs as would be the polite way IMO to do.

Now Americans eating in a restaurant by themselves that is a different story.

It is not rude, but the others at the table might exchange wry glances if you cut your meat using two hands and then put the knife down to switch the fork to your other hand to eat. This totally contradicts the American reputation of efficiency.

And it realy seems wierd

Anything that is so tough that it slides food around on a plate when cut with a fork, should be cut with a knife and held with the fork.

Then we could discuss the manners connected with eating cheese.

Then we could discuss the manners connected with eating cheese.>

yes indeedy - like in a restaurant when the cheese plate comes after the meal you do NOT take one of each type!

On another site, they were just worrying about whether cheese is to be <i>placed</i> on the bread or <i>spread</i> on the bread. Naturally, everybody said "placed" which is generally true, but then there are the runny camemberts or munsters that you might have at home -- different rules!

I understand there used to be restaurants in the US during the depression where you had to eat in a hurry so the use of the fork let you focus on shoveling the stuff in as a fast as possible.

As the Swiss say there is nothing shameful about poverty :-)

kerouac or others - mi-mere - my son's grandma whose Sunday after Mass dinners I attended for years - IYO was I rude by not taking some of the cheese she would take out and urge me to take a piece of but which was sadly old stinking cheese?

I'd have thought it rather bad manners to take (or rather, appear to take) any notice of anyone else's table manners (spilling soup over your neighbours excepted). But then, things may be different in France.

No, you are correct, Patrick. The table manners of other people are invisible to everybody in France except for PalenQ's son, who regularly appears to steer him wrong.

I think he is just screwing with him. Family issues!

Well he did not say that French thought that foreigners could not be excused for their natural behavior and I am curious about kerouac who grew up in the States and went to USC I believe before going to France.

I wonder did he abandon his natural-born American table habits the second he landed in France or did he say at school cafeterias in the U.S. or on dates eat here the way the French do, subjecting him no doubt to intense schoo ridicule?

kerouac - if you did change over as I suspect, why? Is the French way a better way of shoveling food in one's mouth - it ain't to me - neither seems advantageous - what do you think or who do you think has the best method of stuffing one's mouth - you obviously having done both ways - this is a serious question.

I assumed that everyone ate the way I did, with fork in left hand and knife in right, being used together , but on my honey moon( 25 years ago) my ex and I took a cruise. We were seated at a table with three other young American couples. We all introduced ourselves and started to chat, they all seemed very nice. Then when dinner came I remember thinking " how can such seemingly civilized people eat like THAT" .. my goodness this pretty little thing from some southern State was holding her knife in her FIST and sawing her meat, it was funny, my ex and I just looked at each other..

That is when I learned that some people eat differently. It looks awkward and a bit , er, rough. We taught our children to eat as we do.

One thing I learned in France at a young age, when fruit is put out after dinner, one does not eat it with their hands if it is whole, you still cut it up and eat it with fork. In family situations you can pick up some cut peices, but you would still cut it into managable pieces first. You could cut a plum in half to remove the stone, then eat it half at a time for example. Perhaps my family was more formal then others, sometimes people look to their own experiences as being the only way, but in any culture or country even people within it vary.

I think justineparis has managed to understand exactly what my son meant - something most others have missed - that yes French at a dinner would look shocked to see folks eat like say Barbarians!

One other point: our French friends told us to keep our hands on the table when not eating, resting the wrists at the table's edge.

Yes, europeans use their knives and forks differently than americns. Neither one is right or wrong - just different.

However, I don't know any place where it is considered correct to mop you plate with a piece of bread - ick!

As for the fruit - in the US fruit is usually a snack - not a part of dinner (unless some sort of prepared fruit dessert) - so eating with hands and mouth makes perfect sense unless it HAS to be cut. (Are you supposed to eat grapes with a knife and fork too?)

I think that anyone who has lived a sheltered existence and is unware that table manners differ from country to country would be "shocked to see folks eat like barbarians". The national origin doesn't matter. People have different customs. Suprise!

Many Americans think that the style of eating with the fork in the left and the knife in the right at all times looks barbaric. I mean, really - 2 hands in your plate at all times? Cut-shovel-cut-shovel-cut-shovel... Civilized people cut, put the knife down, then eat with their fork. Repeat. We don't think we are barbaric - we think that "they" are.

I agree though - the most important thing about table manners is to make the other people at the table feel comfortable - be polite, don't judge others because their manners are different, etc.

surely mopping up the sauce with bread is a compliment to the chef, do you mean Americans don't do this?

Regarding a lot of his ideas, often your son sounds like he is 60 years old already, PalenQ. Do you think his mother brought him up this way?

As for knife and fork, since I was always left-handed, I always kept knife in right hand and fork in left hand, the European way. You are aware, I hope, that spies have been caught in the past by not knowing how to use their utensils.

The main issue I observe is people's inability to eat with their mouth closed. This seems a much larger issue than any other differences to me.

I agree there are differences that are neither bad nor better then another.. but sorry, the sawing of meat with a knife clutched in a fist just never looks civilized.

I also think more and more young people are not being taught table manners ( perhaps because fewer and fewer North American families make or have the time for proper sit down meals, something by the way is still important in many europeon countries, especially the Sunday lunch or dinner)

Keep your mouth shut when chewing.

Do not burp loudly at table. Cover your mouth if accidently about to.. with napkin preferred.

Cut food into small peices before shoving it in your trap.

Do not sniff at your food like a dog( picky children do this, fine, but when I see, and I have, adults do this I cringe)

Its not ok to say you "hate something"or " that stuff is gross" it IS ok to say "no thank you" , or perhaps something along the line of "its not a favorite of mine". Too many kids raised that its ok to be blunt and frankly, rude. If its not something you as an adult would say at a friends dinner party why is it ok for your child to say it at your dinner table?

Wipe your mouth with napkin, not back of hand.

Interesting thread.

French husband confirms that it is polite to keep your hands above the height of the table. Now that I think of it, I have also never seen my French in-laws bite into a whole piece of fruit...they always cut it first (but are not averse to picking up the cut pieces with their fingers).

The thing of using bread to mop up excess liquid is pretty much obligatory in their house as they do not change the plates between courses normally. However, the first few times I didn't realise this, as being British we always change the plates! So as a result she did end up bringing me an extra plate. As she is very kind this was not a problem, apart from my being slightly embarrassed. Now I try to remember so that when she does offer me an extra plate I don't always have to say yes. However, this is in a private household; I don't think any French person would consider it polite when eating out in public.

There are two things that my French in-laws do that I can't stand, though:
1. They lick their knives (EW).
and 2. They talk with their mouths full (double EW...and even my husband does it more when we are with them).

However, I wouldn't attribute these horrible habits to being French :p

kerouac--I'm a lefty too, so eating with fork in left made me "un-American" from an early age." I always thought right-handed people were REALLY strange since we set the table with the fork on the left. DUH.

The other things that always bothered me growing up in the US were that I could never rest my arms on the table, I could not use my knife to push my food onto my fork, and heck, I not even keep my fork in my hand between bites. OK--I understood the elbow thing. But why couldn't I keep my fork in my hand while I was chewing? European rules made SO much more sense.

However, I'm laughing about your refusal to mop up sauce with bread, nytraveler. I watch Parisians, Romans, you name it, wipe that sauce up the plate at the most upscale of restaurants. Yes, most do it with the fork; others just go right to it.

Eating fruit in France depends on the circumstances. City people do tend to cut up their fruit. You will usually not see the same thing out in rural areas.

My Dordogne neighbors don't tend to cut their fruit. But they do eat pizza with a knife and fork.

Alessandra, I am also a lefty and agree that it makes the most sense since that's where the fork lives.

I grew up in Virginia where folks routinely used their bread or their biscuit to mop the plate...the juice was called "soppy" and you "sopped" it up with the bread. Naturally, this practice was frowned upon by my mother and we were not allowed to do it EXCEPT when she was out playing bridge and my dad was in charge of dinner.

"But they do eat pizza with a knife and fork" there is another way?

Well, bilbo, judging by the number of people I see walking down the street here in DC cramming pizza slices in their mouths, I'd have to say yes. I much prefer to knife and fork, but I hardly ever eat pizza, so am not an expert.

Since I only like pizza with a super thin crust, eating it with a knife and fork is the only way that I could ever eat it.

Walking down the street and eating snacks is not quite so common in Europe, yes an ice cream cone, but most locals wouldn't be eating pizza and walking. They would picnic, sit on a bench, a patch of grass, a low wall, most anything other then running down the street eating something like that. Things are changing though..

I'm aware of that, but Americans don't typically use knife and fork with pizza when eating it in a restaurant, either.

My Dordogne neighbors don't tend to cut their fruit. But they do eat pizza with a knife and fork.>

And my in-laws eat a salad - the same ole salad everytime - pieces of leaf lettuce with a few tomatoes and onions, etc. - they eat that with a knife and fork even though the pieces are usually cut up small enough for just a fork to manage.

I often snickered to myself how my French in-laws were attacking their lettuce salad just like a thick steak (which I never saw them serve ever - usually meat was some kind of rump roads, chicken, etc. only doled out after some salad and veggies were served and then doled out by the piece - one for each person with gravy then ladeled over it.

and yes of course bread should not - in my in-laws case, ever be torn like we want to do to a baguette sometimes but neatly sliced before doling it out.

and yes they do use bread as a utensil and a mop to mop up their plates - I never ever failed to see my in-laws do that- at least in their homes. They often remarked 'a French person cannot each without the use of bread as a utensil!

Well this American grew up with parents who thoroughly schooled us kids in table manners. This was to prepare us for the fancy restaurant we'd dine in at our hotel in Bermuda. We were told if we had rude table manners at the restaurant that a man would walk up behind us and loudly ring a bell over our heads to alert the other patrons to the presence of rude diners. Needless to say it didn't take me long to not give a damn about whether I held my knife and fork properly, where my hands were, what I did with the bread or generally care what other people thought of my dining etiquette, as long as I chewed with my mouth closed. My French and Italian in-laws have never reprimanded me for my table manners. :)

No mopping up sauce with bread is NOT a compliment to the chef. It does make it look like the diner hasn't had a meal for several days and is going to eat everything not nailed down - possibly pulling leftovers from other people's plates.

the worst I have seen was a (potential) MIL who served ice cram for dessert in huge mounds, which naturally melted before they could be eaten. She then proceeded to lick the plate clean - leaving ice cream on her nose and around her mouth. And yes, she licked that off too. The only one I had seen do so before that was my dog - who had no excuse - not having hands/being able to use utencils.

I am actually a bit torn over the mopping issue, as when I eat at home with French friends, they all tend to use a piece of baguette to mop up any sloppiness. But not so much in restaurants, though I have seen in happen in both casual and fairly fancy places. My own instinct would be not to do it in a place with tablecloths, but for sure to do it at a beach-side place in Bouziques where the mussel broth was just amazing! I wouldn't care WHO saw me!