Do you know how to hold a knife and fork?

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.

jimgoose

Wibbs wrote: »

...people playing "grownup" and better than thou.

Well put. I prefer to hark back to the day when the real quality - the King and his various Barons - were illiterate and hacked at their meat with short-swords and all this "manners" crap, as well as things like reading and writing, were the preserve of priests, advisers, footmen and various other parasitic toadies scrabbling to out-sycophant each other. :pac:

Bootros Bootros

mrolaf wrote: »

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

That's american etiquette. Your parents would be laughed at in Marthas vineyard

This difference in style proves it's just an affectation.

Boskowski

I'm not in the US. So why would I care what they do there. And I don't care what they do in the hills either. I don't need to downgrade myself just because others think it's snobbish. The question was asked and it's now debated. Just because some havent a clue or are unable or don't care it doesn't mean the people who do are snobs. Each to their own.

PS: Hint - this forum is called the gentleman's club isn't it. That implies some sort of sophistication I would have thought.

jimgoose

Bootros Bootros wrote: »

That's american etiquette. Your parents would be laughed at in Marthas vineyard

This difference in style proves it's just an affectation.

I worked with an American fella for a while years ago known as Alabammy Hal. Best RF engineer I ever met, he could smell an EDGE carrier in the middle of a pig-farm. Watching him eat a rib of beef was mesmerising - he'd break off one rib-bone and use it as a spoon fer his taters'n'gravy. :pac:

Bootros Bootros

Boskowski wrote: »

I'm not in the US. So why would I care what they do there. And I don't care what they do in the hills either. I don't need to downgrade myself just because others think it's snobbish. The question was asked and it's now debated. Just because some havent a clue or are unable or don't care it doesn't mean the people who do are snobs. Each to their own.

PS: Hint - this forum is called the gentleman's club isn't it. That implies some sort of sophistication I would have thought.

I'm challenging the "sophistication". It's a serious Ms bucket issue. If different cultures have different rules then the rules are not designed to stop slobber or else they would be consistent.

Or to put it plainer: the dull and unsophisticated worry about these trivialities.

pug_

Boskowski wrote: »

I'm not in the US. So why would I care what they do there. And I don't care what they do in the hills either. I don't need to downgrade myself just because others think it's snobbish. The question was asked and it's now debated. Just because some havent a clue or are unable or don't care it doesn't mean the people who do are snobs. Each to their own.

PS: Hint - this forum is called the gentleman's club isn't it. That implies some sort of sophistication I would have thought.

Unless I'm missing something I don't believe anyone has suggested you or anyone else who uses the "correct" method of handling utensils change what they're doing in any way.

What I disagree with is a superior judgemental attitude towards those that don't. There is limited practical advantage, despite what others here seem to think, and complaining about a lack of country wide uniformity is, at best, pointless.

Everyone can point out exceptions, but the vast majority of people are perfectly capable of eating food without encroaching on others personal space or otherwise disturbing others around them while eating, so why look down on them? For me the act of judging others for something so minor is disrespectful to a persons dignity and says a lot about their own character and attitude towards others.

Boskowski

That's fair enough and I wouldn't look down on anyone. It's just I presumed that the gentlemans club would be about the finer things in life to a degree. I thought it's not called the blokes den for a reason. Why are so many coming in here dismissing table etiquette? I wouldn't even call it uppish at all more like a normal life skill like looking and dressing somewhat well etc

Malari

Boskowski wrote: »

That's fair enough and I wouldn't look down on anyone. It's just I presumed that the gentlemans club would be about the finer things in life to a degree. I thought it's not called the blokes den for a reason. Why are so many coming in here dismissing table etiquette? I wouldn't even call it uppish at all more like a normal life skill like looking and dressing somewhat well etc

I have to say I'm quite surprised at the response too! I'm not a bloke or a gentleman, by the way, but it's something most of my friends are pass-remarkable about too. It's just part of basic table manners, I would have thought.

Boskowski

Exactly. If you consider yourself a gentleman there are just certain things that are part of the parcel.

I'm not saying I wouldn't eat my pizza from the hand occasionally or wolf into my barbecue ribs. It's where and when that matters. Its the answers along the lines of 'I can't do it, I never learned it and who cares anyway' suggesting they wouldn't be able or bothered even if the occasion requires it. I would have expected that in AH but not in the Gentleman's Club.

Ave Sodalis

I think people are taking the name "Gentlemen's Club" a little too literally...