Do you know how to hold a knife and fork?

v638sg7k1a92bx

Is this an Irish thing? I notice this every time I go out for dinner with friends or colleagues that they cannot hold a knife and fork. People holding their knife and fork in the most unusual ways, and it's not gender specific. One girl I know holds her knife and forks like a dagger, I tried to replicate it when I was at home and it was so awkward.

Is it not basic social skills, were lads on here not shown how to use a knife and fork when they were children?

Wibbs

Yep, I can. Then again I'm in my 40's and my oul fella was born in the teens in the last century into a very "middle class" background where such things were social death if someone didn't know the "correct" way.

As for it being a basic social skill? TBH and IMHO - and given I grew up in this kinda thing - that's more snobbery and aspirational type thinking(and my dad though similar). If someone can get the food into their mouths without firing it across the table at others(me using chopsticks) then game ball I say. That goes for the different cutlery for different courses/foods guff too. An entirely Victorian obsession with minutia and complexity. I mean, they had feckin brushes for removing crumbs from the table.

So yea I know the etiquette and all that guff, but TBH I'd just as happily chow down using a dagger and a spork, or my fingers. The rest IMHO is more about people playing "grownup" and better than thou.

Ave Sodalis

If I can get food from the plate to my mouth without making a mess, I'm using a knife and fork properly. Although, in saying that, I generally don't use a knife unless I have to because I'm quite accident prone and have ended up stabbing my own hand with one before.

Bored_lad

Yes I know the correct way and was thought it when I was young and I think its something important that everyone should know and is an essential everyday skill.

Bootros Bootros

There is sane etiquette and stupidity. Eating with your mouth open is bad. Waving a knife around
Bad. Not holding it perfectly. Ok.

strobe

Marlee Shy Cuttlefish wrote: »

Is this an Irish thing? I notice this every time I go out for dinner with friends or colleagues that they cannot hold a knife and fork. People holding their knife and fork in the most unusual ways, and it's not gender specific. One girl I know holds her knife and forks like a dagger, I tried to replicate it when I was at home and it was so awkward.

Is it not basic social skills, were lads on here not shown how to use a knife and fork when they were children?

Does the food not get cut up and then placed in their mouths so they can eat it? Do they suffer many lacerations? Do they continually drop their pieces of cutlery on the floor and have to go get another one? If not I can't see how their way of doing it is "the wrong way" really, just a different way, surely, if it accomplishes the same goal?

Bootros Bootros

There's also an American way where it's impolite to not swap hands.

peter_dublin

This is a major hate of mine, my five year old can do it, I have colleagues who seem to think a fork is akin to the bucket on a loader, they lower their head and scoop the food in. Animals....

shalalala

It irks me when people cannot use their knife and fork and it plain pisses me off when people LICK their knife!!!! Animals

cnocbui

I find one in one hand and the other in the other works well.

But, yes.


I always eat my peas with honey;

I've done it all my life.

They do taste kind of funny

but It keeps them on my knife.

JaseBelleVie

Yep. Was part of growing up for me to learn proper etiquette and everything. Knew how to properly use knife and fork by the time I was 5 or so.

I'm still learning how to use chopsticks, though. I usually give up in disgust and switch back to a knife and fork fairly rapidly.

shalalala

I love using chopsticks. I am not the best but a man that can use them without being pretentious is pretty attractive to me

v638sg7k1a92bx

Wibbs wrote: »

Yep, I can. Then again I'm in my 40's and my oul fella was born in the teens in the last century into a very "middle class" background where such things were social death if someone didn't know the "correct" way.

As for it being a basic social skill? TBH and IMHO - and given I grew up in this kinda thing - that's more snobbery and aspirational type thinking(and my dad though similar). If someone can get the food into their mouths without firing it across the table at others(me using chopsticks) then game ball I say. That goes for the different cutlery for different courses/foods guff too. An entirely Victorian obsession with minutia and complexity. I mean, they had feckin brushes for removing crumbs from the table.

So yea I know the etiquette and all that guff, but TBH I'd just as happily chow down using a dagger and a spork, or my fingers. The rest IMHO is more about people playing "grownup" and better than thou.

I grew up in a working class background and I was shown to use a knife and fork at an early age. It's one of the most fundamental life skills that we use on a daily basis. Would a carpenter hold a hammer upside down to drive a nail, he would eventually achieve his goal but with hugely diminished returns. As far as other posters who are of the opinion that once you achieve the objective of getting the food in your mouth with minimal amount of mess then it doesn't make a difference, I think this is also a local mentality along the lines of "ah sure it looks fine" or "we were only a few days late but it got there in the end".

Boskowski

Yes, something I grew up with and while probably not terribly important I still notice when others can't do it. It is the best way of holding knife and fork, too. When people use more improvised styles it just looks - I don't know - a bit agricultural.

But its not in the same league at all to chewing with your mouth open. A colleague of mine does it - smack, smack, smack - and it's really irritating.

Boskowski

shalalala wrote: »

I love using chopsticks. I am not the best but a man that can use them without being pretentious is pretty attractive to me

I knew it had to be good for something.

How you doing?

Greenmachine

Greenmachine: Fork in left hand, knife in right to cut. Then switch to eat. I though I was a bit of a savage. I just couldn't grasp bringing a fork to my mouth with left hand, but I have nothing most others do the same.

Ave Sodalis

Marlee Shy Cuttlefish wrote: »

As far as other posters who are of the opinion that once you achieve the objective of getting the food in your mouth with minimal amount of mess then it doesn't make a difference, I think this is also a local mentality along the lines of "ah sure it looks fine" or "we were only a few days late but it got there in the end".

Huh?



I'm actually kinda surprised at the amount of people who think it's important. I can honestly say I don't understand what's so important about it. Obviously I'm not talking about people who shovel more food all over the table and floor than onto themselves but surely after that, eating is eating and how that happens is just being pernickety. I think if someone took offense or got annoyed at the way I was holding my fork, I'd laugh them out of the house. Why does it matter to anyone else? It's not disgusting, it doesn't affect other people, nor does it cause any harm to the person doing it. So why do people care?

Wibbs

Marlee Shy Cuttlefish wrote: »

I grew up in a working class background and I was shown to use a knife and fork at an early age. It's one of the most fundamental life skills that we use on a daily basis. Would a carpenter hold a hammer upside down to drive a nail, he would eventually achieve his goal but with hugely diminished returns.

But that's the thing, unless one holds ones cutlery in some mad daft position, the vast majority of people will be well able to feed themselves efficiently. It's not equivalent to holding a hammer upside down. It's much more about the etiquette involved and more, the etiquette of "fitting in" to a recieved idea of "proper deportment". It is not about the efficiency of consuming food. An eleventh century lord would get through a leg of pork using his fingers and a knife far faster than an early twenty first century person using the "correct" knife and fork technique.

Slippin Jimmy

I can't hold both at the same time. If I am eating off a fork it is with my right hand. When cutting I hold the fork in my left hand and cut with my right. Other than that the knife just rests on the plate.

Zaph

Greenmachine wrote: »

Greenmachine: Fork in left hand, knife in right to cut. Then switch to eat. I though I was a bit of a savage. I just couldn't grasp bringing a fork to my mouth with left hand, but I have nothing most others do the same.

I've noticed that lots of Americans eat that way as well. To me it's not really a case of the person being a savage, more that I see it as an incredibly inefficient way to eat.

HalloweenJack

I think I use my right-hand to do cut and lift and I always thought that I did it because I'm right-handed. I don't remember anyone ever showing/teaching me how to do it "properly". I'd also be of the school of thought that as long as it gets from the plate to the mouth, it doesn't matter which hand you're using.

PS. Anyone else had to demonstrate cutting and eating with their hands in the air so they could answer the question? If one of my flatmates walked by right now, they'd think I'm a right nutjob, cutting and eating non-existent food.

RDM_83 again

Boskowski wrote: »

Yes, something I grew up with and while probably not terribly important I still notice when others can't do it. It is the best way of holding knife and fork, too. When people use more improvised styles it just looks - I don't know - a bit agricultural.

But its not in the same league at all to chewing with your mouth open. A colleague of mine does it - smack, smack, smack - and it's really irritating.

Same as it just seems easier and quicker unless your eating something that doesn't require cutting to do it the proper way and I have fairly poor manners unless I concentrate on it.

My pet hate is cutlery that far too small, I don't have particularly massive hands but some stuff is ridiculously small and awkward to hold

LostinBlanch

Wibbs wrote: »

Yep, I can. Then again I'm in my 40's and my oul fella was born in the teens in the last century into a very "middle class" background where such things were social death if someone didn't know the "correct" way.

As for it being a basic social skill? TBH and IMHO - and given I grew up in this kinda thing - that's more snobbery and aspirational type thinking(and my dad though similar). If someone can get the food into their mouths without firing it across the table at others(me using chopsticks) then game ball I say. That goes for the different cutlery for different courses/foods guff too. An entirely Victorian obsession with minutiae and complexity. I mean, they had feckin brushes for removing crumbs from the table.

So yea I know the etiquette and all that guff, but TBH I'd just as happily chow down using a dagger and a spork, or my fingers. The rest IMHO is more about people playing "grownup" and better than thou.

Well you've bought into the whole thing. The earliest etiquette books were for young squires aspiring to become knights who had to learn things like use your trencher (bread) to mop up your soup, and don't sh*te on the stairs. [This was medieval times remember]

If you actually look back historically at "modern" etiquette (the type you refer to) it first came into etiquette about the time of the French Revolution. Louis XIV was trying to keep different factions at bay The old guard i.e. nobility, the merchant (and professional) classes and the working class. The middle classes were elevated and coming into the noble territory and they could do f**k all about it. Duelling was made illegal so the easiest way for the nobility to make the middle classes feel they didn't belong was to invent "etiquette" as the proper way of people acting in court. Make them know their place if you will.

Of course it kept on changing. There's a story of an English noble visiting Paris who spent six months learning French etiquette from the latest book only to arrive and find that it had substantially changed from the etiquette he learned from the latest book!
Later on it crossed the English Channel and became Victorianised to make the lower classes feel uncomfortable know their place.

And then it made it's way to Chez Wibbs.

Luke92

I switch up hands when using a knife and fork. When cutting its fork in left hand and knife in right hand. But when it comes to picking up food with the fork, its fork in right hand and knife in left hand.

Just don't feel comfortable doing it any other way. So if I'm comfortable and I can get the food to my mouth without it ending up on my forehead, I'm doing well.

What is the right way?

Bootros Bootros

Zaph wrote: »

I've noticed that lots of Americans eat that way as well. To me it's not really a case of the person being a savage, more that I see it as an incredibly inefficient way to eat.

That's the "correct way" in the US. I can't post like so do your own research.

I don't really think as Wibbs says it matters except for lower Middle class Mrs Bucket types.

Provided you don't slobber.

smash

When I'm at home I usually cut up my food, put the knife down and then use the fork with my right hand because I'm right handed. But out in a restaurant I'd always be a lot more mannerly.

Zombienosh

shalalala wrote: »

It irks me when people cannot use their knife and fork and it plain pisses me off when people LICK their knife!!!! Animals

licking knives creeps me out.

Field east

LostinBlanch wrote: »

Well you've bought into the whole thing. The earliest etiquette books were for young squires aspiring to become knights who had to learn things like use your trencher (bread) to mop up your soup, and don't sh*te on the stairs. [This was medieval times remember]

If you actually look back historically at "modern" etiquette (the type you refer to) it first came into etiquette about the time of the French Revolution. Louis XIV was trying to keep different factions at bay The old guard i.e. nobility, the merchant (and professional) classes and the working class. The middle classes were elevated and coming into the noble territory and they could do f**k all about it. Duelling was made illegal so the easiest way for the nobility to make the middle classes feel they didn't belong was to invent "etiquette" as the proper way of people acting in court. Make them know their place if you will.

Of course it kept on changing. There's a story of an English noble visiting Paris who spent six months learning French etiquette from the latest book only to arrive and find that it had substantially changed from the etiquette he learned from the latest book!
Later on it crossed the English Channel and became Victorianised to make the lower classes feel uncomfortable know their place.

And then it made it's way to Chez Wibbs.

The origins of etiquette may have come from France and the UK may have adapted/added /amended same over time. One should be free to eat using whatever method one wants to use in association with whatever tools they find most comfortable to use.
But is the whole idea of etiquette, deportment and mannerisms in general not about an attempt to put a structure on how we relate to each other in every situation and in the most sustainable and as pleasing a way as is possible ? Is it not about the ' development of guidelines ' for society to consider following. Human nature is always striving to better itself and broadly likes protocols, certainty, procedures, etc.

So getting back to the knife and fork eating in general and socialising around same. Let's take the following scenario-
(1) young man invites young lady, on first date, to dinner in a restaurant and wants to impress her in whatever way he can. What impression do you think the young lady might get if the man shovelled the food into his mouth, held the cutlery like you might hold a dagger when using it, eat with your mouth open with and mouth contents for all to see, slurps his soup, gets quiet drunk, unruly /domineering behaviour towards staff,, talks with his mouth full of food, finishes eating before the lady, eating very fast, man decides what table they should sit at- unless there is something special about the table, man also decides which chair to sit on, he sits down before she sits down, he belches , etc etc,
Will she say to her friends the following day that she had a most wonderful experience or he is not for me or I am a bit lukewarm about him. Not all of the above behaviours may be necessary to impress or unimpress.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the three but I will leave it up to all posters treating this thread as a serious one to decide where they 'sit' on the most mannerly and inoffensive way to hold your knife and fork, using bad language, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Are we all not trying to improve ourselves? After all we secretly admire a person with 'class' - but in the pub we would be deriding them re 'who do they think they are.'

My mother was always trying to do the best for us - used to say ' what you do at home you will do outside ' so knife licking , etc, etc etc, was not allowed.

PS I hold my knife and fork by putting my index finger down the shaft of each and

---

. - just as my mother demonstrated. I am glad of her wisdom and I , as a result ,do not feel better or worse than anyone else . If I had a choice two restaurants to eat in , I would eat in the one where , I feel, people eating there eat , converse etc , in a way acceptable to me and not in the other one where there is a lot of loudness , knives/ forks being held everyway, food being stuffed in, etc, UNLESS THE FOOD WAS Of MUCH BETTER QUALITY. Others might be happy doing the opposite - what might be right for you might not be right for me and visa versa

CINCLANTFLT

This is all very interesting... I eat with knife in the left hand, fork in the right... But my better brought up wife tells me I am a savage...

walshb

I am quite awkward when holding my fork. When eating with a fork I look very awkward.

pug_

I really dislike this kind of snobbery. As others have said once nothing is being done to distract you, gob open making noise, food flying etc. then why choose to take offence and judge others for holding the fork upside-down or in the wrong hand?

As a kid I was shown how to eat "correctly" but somehow over the years I got into a habit of swapping hands as soon as I started to eat, holding the knife in my left hand and the fork in my right. This type of thing is barely noticeable unless you're looking to find fault, and for me the type of person who will judge another based on a mirror image of the "correct" way to hold utensils is just what I would call a common, garden variety snob.

smash

CINCLANTFLT wrote: »

This is all very interesting... I eat with knife in the left hand, fork in the right... But my better brought up wife tells me I am a savage...

I bet you wear your watch on your right arm too!!!! You disgust me! :pac:

Pat Mustard

I hardly notice how other people hold their knives and forks except when I see someone holding them like knitting needles. Just looks mental.

Playboy

Someone once told me that having good manners and etiquette was a gesture of respect and consideration to the people you are with. I think there are degrees of applicability when it comes to table manners and etiquette though, for instance eating with your mouth open is rude and annoys other people but using a knife and fork in non traditional way shouldn't really upset anybody. I learned the correct way growing up and practice it but I wouldn't get upset if someone in my company wasn't doing the same

walshb

I don't think there's a perfect way to hold a knife and fork. Whatever feels most comfortable works for me. I'd me more tuned in to how I eat. Not too fast, mouth closed etc. Basic manners is more important. The knife and fork holding can be worked on and improvised with.

hardCopy

If I'm eating something "dry" like a steak or chicken breast I'll do it the polite way, fork left, knife right. But if I'm eating something soft or saucy like pasta or stew I'll just use the fork in my right hand like a spoon/shovel with occasional use of the knife if I need to control a wayward noodle of spaghetti or break up a large piece of meat.

I don't have the coordination to do a scooping motion with my left hand and can't see any other way to eat saucy dishes.

pwurple

Playboy wrote: »

Someone once told me that having good manners and etiquette was a gesture of respect and consideration to the people you are with. I think there are degrees of applicability when it comes to table manners and etiquette though, for instance eating with your mouth open is rude and annoys other people but using a knife and fork in non traditional way shouldn't really upset anybody. I learned the correct way growing up and practice it but I wouldn't get upset if someone in my company wasn't doing the same

The reason it matters is the way your elbows end up. I've seen people eat with their elbows almost parallel to their shoulders, it's just annoying to sit next to them. If you use the knife and fork correctly you're far less likely to elbow a waiter in the eye, or knock over glasses of water, or jab your companion in the ribs.

Boskowski

hardCopy wrote: »

If I'm eating something "dry" like a steak or chicken breast I'll do it the polite way, fork left, knife right. But if I'm eating something soft or saucy like pasta or stew I'll just use the fork in my right hand like a spoon/shovel with occasional use of the knife if I need to control a wayward noodle of spaghetti or break up a large piece of meat.

I don't have the coordination to do a scooping motion with my left hand and can't see any other way to eat saucy dishes.

Pasta is eaten with the spoon in your left and the fork in your right. Or just fork in your right.
Stew. Spoon in your right.
Only when using knife and fork the fork goes to your left.

Tony EH

sup_dude wrote: »

Huh?



I'm actually kinda surprised at the amount of people who think it's important. I can honestly say I don't understand what's so important about it. Obviously I'm not talking about people who shovel more food all over the table and floor than onto themselves but surely after that, eating is eating and how that happens is just being pernickety. I think if someone took offense or got annoyed at the way I was holding my fork, I'd laugh them out of the house. Why does it matter to anyone else? It's not disgusting, it doesn't affect other people, nor does it cause any harm to the person doing it. So why do people care?

It's just another way to try and separate oneself from "the masses". :rolleyes:

A holier than thou attitude for the dinner table.

Utterly meaningless in the grand scale of things.

spurious

Deleted User wrote: »

What is the right way?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyuC950XCTI
That's the continental (or European) method. It is where you keep your fork in your left hand and eat from it.

People can say all they want that it's snobbery etc., but in certain situations, there are certain conventions for adult members of society. An adult attending a formal dinner and shovelling their food into their craw may as well be before the beak with their hands down the front of their tracksuit - it's much the same.

Boskowski

This. There are certain conventions that just have to be followed if you want to appear civilised.
You wouldn't have your finger up your nose during a formal meal (or any meal) or let one rip, would you?

Tony EH

There's a huge difference between passing wind at the dinner table or picking snot out of your nose and holding one's fork "correctly".

Tabnabs

Soup; you drink it off the side of the spoon, never "eat" it by placing the spoon in your mouth. When finishing the bowl, tilt it away from you, not towards. This originates from the days of the ocean liners when a sudden roll of the ship could put hot soup in your lap...

Also, bring the food to your mouth, never the other way round.

Dial Hard

Arra, sure why bother with knives and forks at all? Using your hands achieves the same purpose and doesn't impact on anyone else, so where's the harm???

The other fella

Nobody thought me the "correct" way of doing it but i havent starved to death just yet so i must be doing something right.

Bootros Bootros

Tony EH wrote: »

It's just another way to try and separate oneself from "the masses". :rolleyes:

A holier than thou attitude for the dinner table.

Utterly meaningless in the grand scale of things.

It's very semi detached small town English Suburb too isn't it? Even the U.S. does things differently and nobody could accuse Asians or Southern Europeans of giving a sh1te.

Bootros Bootros

Dial Hard wrote: »

Arra, sure why bother with knives and forks at all? Using your hands achieves the same purpose and doesn't impact on anyone else, so where's the harm???

I do that with pizza.

Only morons concern themselves with the "correct way" to hold a knife. Of which there are more than one examples in etiquite. As for people who are all elbows the etiquite is to keep hands high as far as I recall from my childhood. So that elbow rubbing ismore likely to happen for "correct usage".

The OP is worried about how the knife is held not anything else. Hold it in a way which cuts the food and doesn't harm you or someone else.

mrolaf

I can only hold my fork in the right hand and I use it like a shovel too, parent always gave out

jimgoose

Tabnabs wrote: »

Soup; you drink it off the side of the spoon, never "eat" it by placing the spoon in your mouth. When finishing the bowl, tilt it away from you, not towards. This originates from the days of the ocean liners when a sudden roll of the ship could put hot soup in your lap...

Also, bring the food to your mouth, never the other way round.

Aye. And never place a fork on the table with the prongs curving up. They don't do that in Buckingham Palace and I'll kick anyone's hole what does it in my house, so I will.

Bootros Bootros

Boskowski wrote: »

This. There are certain conventions that just have to be followed if you want to appear civilised.
You wouldn't have your finger up your nose during a formal meal (or any meal) or let one rip, would you?

Except that's just not true. As it happens I generally do the "continental style" as described in that video by keeping my hands low, and cutting with the right and using the left to fork. Who knows if I hold the knife exactly right though.

But that's uncivilised in the US where you should transfer the fork to the right to eat . And not possible with chopsticks. Nor for most Pasta type meals.

It's all right handed too so lefties are shagged.

Travel past the semi-detached suburbs and people just tuck in across Asia and most of the world.