I only use my knife when I need it.

Never rest my elbows on the table

Would never think twice about using bread to pick up some extremely good sauce from a plate. It's so much better than picking up the plate and giving it a good licking.

I use a knife and fork to eat pizza because I hate getting my hands messy. I'd eat everything but fruit that way if I could.

nytraveler, you are a wise woman to have broken the leash from that P-MIL

A lot of these things have changed over time, from what I vaguely remember about, say, mediaeval instructions on table manners (i.e., before the widespread use of the fork); and they have been class markers, of course, and differences between what you would do <i>en famille</i> and out at a formal event. I like StCirq's idea of using tablecloths as a marker for the boundary between the two.

Cutting everything up first seems, if anything, a bit childish to me, even if you're doing it for yourself. But cutting up large fruit, for example, just seems like a thoughtful thing to do for guests (and children) - especially if the original fruit is all different shapes and sizes.

I once read a description of Joyce Grenfell invited to dinner with a student club at Sydney in Australia after she'd given a talk there. She had been brought up with Edwardian high society manners (her mother was Nancy Astor's sister), and all the students watch transfixed as she ate a pear by holding the top with a fork and then expertly twirling it against the knife so that the skin came off in a single perfect ribbon, before she cut it to pieces to eat.

What an interesting thread! I had no idea how many ways I have apparently offended people over the years!

The first time I dined alone at a NICE restaurant was in Philadelphia. I was very uncomfortable about the idea of dining alone in an upscale establishment, but it seemed better than the alternatives that were available to me on that particular evening. The hostess and waiter made me feel very welcome. As I had requested, they seated me at a quiet table with lighting that was discreet, but bright enough to allow me to read.

I ordered a salad and duck with plum sauce, naively assuming that what I had ordered was a duck breast and that it would be sliced. So, while eating my salad, I was horrified to see someone being served a plate with a half-duck on it. OMG, how could I possibly manage to discretely and politely deal with that!?!

Even as I began to panic, I noticed that a couple seated in my line of vision was being given their entrées, and each was having the duck. This couple had caught my attention earlier because their dress and manners seemed so elegant. Such good fortune – I could discreetly watch what they did!

You might imagine my dismay when each of them picked up the half-duck with their bare hands and began gnawing away. Seriously! Within moments, their faces (from forehead to chin and cheek to cheek) and their arms (from hands to elbows+) were covered in sticky sauce.

What a freeing moment! I realized that NOTHING I could do would be THAT far out of the realm of (my idea of) acceptable behavior. I might not know the BEST way to approach my food, but I would at least be discreet and as polite as I knew how to be!

When I travel, I try to make sure I know if there are any strongly held norms that govern dining ettiquette (e.g., the placement of chopsticks in Asia or the use of right/left hands in predominantly Muslim countries); other than that, I count on (and have been treated with) gracious tolerance, and I proceed with blissful ignorance of my improprieties.

"knife clutched in a fist"

Little children or poorly trained adults perhaps, I don't know anyone over 5 who does this.

And you haven't even yet talked about properly eating (long) pasta with fork and spoon...

>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.

The same applies to Germany, by the way.

a spoon! (think "handbag" and Oscar Wilde) what do you do with a spoon and pasta?

Unless you are in a fancy restaurant then using bread to mop up what's on your plate is perfectly acceptable in France. They even have a verb for it, called "saucer".

Cathiejoetown, I am of course labelling people who eat like that as "poorly trained adults", and I have seen it more then that once.. its not as uncommon as it should be.

I read that the custom of keeping your hands above the table is related to medievel times when keeping your hands in sight meant you weren't holding a weapon at the ready out of sight.

Justine I've seen that technique you described on several US tv shows. I've always been amazed by it.

<i>what do you do with a spoon and pasta?</i>

This is not a real question, is it?

Re: Pizza...

Where I grew up (Philadelphia, east coast, US, in the 1950s), you NEVER used a knife and fork on pizza -- that would identify you as a (gasp!) country bumpkin. East coast urban/suburban areas have large Italian-American populations, so, I learned by watching friends and neighbors in the local pizza joints.

(The exception being if it is way too hot and you don't want to wait to have a taste or two with utensils.)

Always pick it up. If the crust is very thin, fold it a little (U-shape) and that works without difficulty.

Another interesting item is spaghetti. I grew up twirling it with fork and spoon; now I twirl with just a fork. My wife (and her family, who came from small-town USA) eat spaghetti by cutting it with the side of the fork and shoveling. I have always (half in jest) given them a hard time about that.

Of course, I would never be so rude as to accuse house guests of being crude in their eating habits. And when I am in Europe, I use the knife-right-fork-left-at-the-same-time method.

SS

In France at least, I don't think people use a spoon to twirl pasta. I know that in my family we only ever used just a fork.

kerouac...

Ahh, yes...I recall now that on our trips to Paris, I did notice that they didn't twirl...and I pointed that out to my wife, which made her feel better about my past teasing.

SS

...and my wife (who is in the room with me now) just corrected me -- she always twirls pasta now -- hasn't use the cut and shovel method on pasta in many years...I feel like such a bonehead!!! :-)

SS

"And you haven't even yet talked about properly eating (long) pasta with fork and spoon..."

All manners are regional. This is apparently a Southern Italian custom, not a universal Italian custom, though it may have spread over the years. I have certainly seen Romans looking askance at people doing this.

I would use bread to eat the last of a delicious sauce, but I would break the bread into bite-sized pieces, put them on the plate, and eat them with a fork or spoon if it were something like mussel broth.

However regional, manners are important. It is widely believed that one of the reasons Lawrence Summers got fired as President of Harvard was his reportedly abominable table manners. I always had a meal with candidates for professional jobs and have turned down highly qualified people because I did not want them to represent us in public becaause of the way they ate.

My wife and son eat as if they were British, though they don't pile mashed potatoes on top of their meat and then push in the peas. My daughter and I eat American style.

The aim of all these customs is to avoid offending others (and protect one's necktie!) by conveying food to one's mouth in a way that minimizes the possibility of dropping food in one's lap or spraying it around the table by talking with one's mouth open.

I find it funny that having sorted out that we can all wear giant white sneakers and yoga pants in Paris that we should be worried about looking like Americans when we eat. Of course we look like Americans.

>>they don't pile mashed potatoes on top of their meat and then push in the peas. <<

But how does one get the peas on the knife, otherwise?

Patrick...haha...good point.
SS

So let me get this right, you stick the fork into the pasta and drive that into a spoon and swirl the fork around. Why not just use the plate, it's not as if the food is going to run away?

Still I (and ten other young men) watched a very attractive psychiatrist eat an un-peeled banana with knife and fork, but she was just messing with our heads.

>> it's not as if the food is going to run away? <<

Well, spaghetti does tend to have a mind of its own.

But seriously, the only reason to worry about table manners is if the person you're eating with feels they're eating not with you, but with the way you eat. And for most people there's no reason to feel that unless you're treating them to the sight of your chewed-up food, the sound of your digestion, or unwanted sharing of what you're eating.

Italians eat spaghetti just with the fork. It's a lot easier with fork and spoon but a spoon must be requested. Luckily they accept the use of the spoon by tourists - as I am hopeless with just the fork I need one.

I have met quite a number of young Americans who felt perfectly okay chewing their food with their mouths open. Now that was really disgusting and made me wonder about their education. Is that really common? Can't be, I hope.

To clarify...

I twirl spaghetti with just a fork (twirled on the plate) -- like Italians.

My wife, who use to cut-and-shovel, now twirls with a fork on the spoon.

...and there is always a bit of pasta dangling from the fork the needs to be helped up with the fork after the main batch is in the mouth...or it can be slurped.

...am I giving too much information?

SS

BTW...we're going to Venice in May...what's the local way of eating pizza there...knife-and-fork or pick-up-and-bite?

SS

<i>Luckily they accept the use of the spoon by tourists </i>

On the contrary -
In the 1950s with the advent of mass tourism to Italy, tourists were given (no kiddin'!) scissors to cut the long spaghetti into something they could eat with just the forks! Or they cut them in halves with the knife.

Whether or not you use the spoon is your business.
But it is the default silverware you will get - even in high-end Italian restaurants (outside Italy).

If you can do it with just the fork, fine. If not, use the spoon for assistance. But not in my presence, please:
I hate the fork and spoon method, as it often makes that screeching sound of metal against metal which drives me up the wall.

No one has mentioned the "correct" way to eat soup--is this just common knowledge? I was taught to move the spoon away from one's lap, so as to not to have any mishaps of spilled soup, yet I almost always see people moving the spoon toward their mouth (and lap).

I have read, traditionally, NO SPOON for spaghetti. The following thread somewhat confirms it.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...oon-Italy.html

kerouac: my inlaws are southern (Rhone valley) so not sure what your point was about rural vs urban fruit-cutting...unless your comment wasn't aimed at me?

FrenchMystiqueTours: I have never heard the verb "saucer" for the process of mopping up sauce with bread. Is it from any particular region? The only verb I have heard for this is "souper"...which means the Virginia "soppy" above makes perfect sense to me :p

PatrickLondon: let me refer you to the following poem regarding peas...! http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171639

Fourfortravel: I'm British, and was taught this also regarding soup, but this isn't something I've seen 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.>

Well I think the comments of French folk here simply debunk what kerouac says - seems my son was indeed correct - that many French and Europeans take umbrage with table manners of Americans - several posts from bona fide French folks above agree with this - my son grew up in France -kerouac grew up in the U.S. perhaps that is why he just does not get how the average bona fide French person thinks.

In the US pizza counts as a sandwich equivalent and is eaten with just the hands. In Itay I have often seen in eaten with knife and fork - but we use hands since it's always a casual place.

But I know eating with the hands tends to be less common in eutope.

We took a visiting German colleague out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant - and I can only assume his town didn't have one or he had never eaten there. And while we went merrily along eating the appetizers with our hands he tried to do it all with knife and fork. the curled lettuce leaf appetizers were almost as good as the ribs. then when we got the peking duck pancakes!!!

bdsb - Not being French I can't tell you if saucer is a regional word but my French wife assures me it is an actual word.

<<perhaps that is why he just does not get how the average bona fide French person thinks.>>

As in the "average bona fide French person>> doesn't know that <<A chacun son gout>> is correct.

The "French son" is somewhat the legend here on Fodor's for not having a clue about France or French.

As for "saucer," that's the word my French friends/neighbors use also. Along with "faire chabrol (or chabrot)" when soup's involved.

my French son says (yes we know he does not know anything about France!) that he never heard of either soucer or souper used to describe the mopping up on the plate with bread. He can think of no one word to describe it.

Saucer is proper French and definitely not regional.
"Souper" does not mean mopping up. It means "late dinner".
There is a special spoon called 'cuillère à sauce".

Saucer is proper French and definitely not regional.
"Souper" does not mean mopping up. It means "late dinner".
There is a special spoon called 'cuillère à sauce".

Let's talk about butter too.

Do you take some butter (with the butter knife, of course) and put it on your bread plate, then break up the bread and use the butter on your bread plate in smaller bits or do you take a whole chunk of butter and slather that on an entire piece of bread and then break up the bread?

If we're talking about France, it's not particularly customary to eat butter with bread. In America, where it is, I break the bread up first, and if I'm going to use butter, which I often don't, I butter the small bits.

I've never seen anyone served butter with the bread at a restaurant so it wouldn't even be an option unless you asked. And then you might get a strange look but I imagine they'd still bring you the butter.

I've witnessed Americans dining in France who were astonished that butter wasn't brought with their bread and called the waiter over to say he had "forgotten it." Yikes.

^^ He probably forgot to put ice in their drinks too. ;)

StCirq,

Since you bring up the expression à chacun sont goût, here's what I wrote to French friends (residing in France) and their replies:

There is an argument going on among English speakers who know French with the claim by one side that à chacun son goût is an archaic expression. Is that true?

<i>It doesn't immediately strike me as archaic, but I confess I don't recall hearing or reading it anywhere recently.</i>

Let's say that it either that (an archaic) expression or never much of a French expression. The 4 first pages of an "à chacun son goût" query to Google contain only English-speaking sites. The "Trésor de la Langue Française" does not have any occurrence of it in its corpus. "chacun ses goûts" is a relatively common expression, and most of the examples
quoted on sites for "à chacun son goût" are plain wrong.</i>

<i>The real expression is chacun son gout (without the a that makes it sound strange). Not archaic at all.</i>

<i>A chacun son goût is not really an archaic expression. I use it frequently.</i>

No it is not true….

<i>Je dirais plutôt: “à chacun ses goûts”, au pluriel donc. Assez peu usité, en somme, mais non pas à proprement parler archaïque. De la même façon, on utilise de moins en moins la formule: “Des goûts et des couleurs on ne dispute pas”...</i>

The only person to say that he uses the expression regularly is a former French cultural attaché.