Knife and Fork, Which Hand?

05-08-2020 2:27pm

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Can't tell if this is a p**s take or not, but if someone judged someone based on what hand they held their knife or fork I think it says a lot more about them than it does the other person.

You're quite right. It's simple stuff.

To put it plainly, watching an adult who can't use a knife and fork correctly is like watching somebody fail a basic development test for children.

Square block into a round hole etc. Some might think the hole should be square in the first place. The rest of us just see a bit of a dim-wit.

stoneill · 05-08-2020 2:51pm

The silence of etiquette :
Knife and fork crossed on the plate: I am not finished
Knife and fork together at 12 to 6: I am finished and it was good
Knife and fork together at 3 to 9: I am finished, it was not good.

kowloonkev · 05-08-2020 3:01pm

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Can't tell if this is a p**s take or not, but if someone judged someone based on what hand they held their knife or fork I think it says a lot more about them than it does the other person.

I would be fairly identical to that, I would try and follow the 'etiquette' in certain company or if you are somewhere fancy but it is definitely a big act, at home I will use the side of a fork to cut a lot of things! I've never really understood the whole table etiquette and why it exists.

The thing is it may not be very noticable on its own if one uses the fork and knife in the wrong hands. That is one small thing. But combined with the other bad habits they will almost certainly have it becomes obvious that they are untrained in how to behave at the dinner table.

Why does table etiquette exist? That's an interesting question, but you may as well ask why does height or weight exist? Dining etiquette would be on a scale or standard. It's just that you are probably in the normal range of table manners and you're complaining about those with higher standards, but forgetting those with lower standards who may also annoy you. For example if you were eating dinner with a work colleague would you think it appropriate if he slurped his drink, licked his plate, or stuck his finger into your soup? Would you enjoy other people's children running around the restaurant screaming their adorable little heads off? What if these people in the underclass of dinner manners were to say to you they never understood table etiquette or why it exists?

boardlady · 05-08-2020 3:55pm

o1s1n wrote: »

I had good table manners drilled into me as a kid by my grandmother. Eating with cutlery in the correct hands, using the correct cutlery for the correct food etc.

I wouldn't say I'd 'look down' on someone for using a fork in their right hand or tilting a bowl the wrong way when eating soup, but my brain would still interpret it as bad manners.

I'd have to agree too. The manners were so drummed in that I would notice the lack of 'training' when someone else is eating. I'd like to think i'm not so shallow as to judge the person's overall merit based on their eating habits ...

We had a special woman come to our school who used to teach us a variety of social and etiquette 'skills'. Amongst teaching us the proper way to eat at a full table service, she covered BO, make up (for the girls), keeping good fingernails, drink and drugs and sex! She was amazing in fairness - and i'm only 47 so not a hundred years ago either ..

05-08-2020 4:54pm

boardlady wrote: »

I'd have to agree too. The manners were so drummed in that I would notice the lack of 'training' when someone else is eating. I'd like to think i'm not so shallow as to judge the person's overall merit based on their eating habits ...

We had a special woman come to our school who used to teach us a variety of social and etiquette 'skills'. Amongst teaching us the proper way to eat at a full table service, she covered BO, make up (for the girls), keeping good fingernails, drink and drugs and sex! She was amazing in fairness - and i'm only 47 so not a hundred years ago either ..

It's no different to someone who keeps their fingernails dirty, picks their nose, spits or wouldn't know how to polish their shoes or wears dirty clothes to work. Similarly, people who chew their food open-mouthed, who cough or sneeze unguarded, fail to hold a door open for the person behind them, skip queues or push past people. Every one of these things is a sign of an inadequate education or inability to show consideration for others and to have a minimal level of awareness about how they hold and present themselves to the world.

Shallow? Pffft. Virtue signalling aside, you already judge others on the basis of how you were taught to behave. You might like to think otherwise but that's simply not possible. If you notice it and can't equate some cultural factor to their oftentimes reprehensible conduct, you will absolutely judge them. I do and I make no apologies for it.

It's always amusing how those who think things like table manners are worthless rarely understand that they're not the ones to make that call. Do what you will at home (apparently to the detriment of ones children) but behave like a poorly educated, uncultured dimwit and the people around you may well decide to treat you as a more contemptible specimen than those who know how to use a knife and fork, as an example.

It's often said that it costs nothing to have good manners. I'd say it only costs a little time and effort to pull yourself up out of the slop tray, especially when even YouTube will provide ample opportunity to learn how you should behave at mealtime, as a supposedly intelligent and capable adult.

Giblet · 05-08-2020 6:23pm

JayZeus wrote: »

You're quite right. It's simple stuff.

To put it plainly, watching an adult who can't use a knife and fork correctly is like watching somebody fail a basic development test for children.

Square block into a round hole etc. Some might think the hole should be square in the first place. The rest of us just see a bit of a dim-wit.

I do better than you in life, and I use a knife in my left hand.

You follow the queen, I follow my own beat. Hence why I do better than you.

Dravokivich · 06-08-2020 2:43pm

Deleted User wrote: »

It's called a fish knife. It has a blunt edge so it won't cut through any fish bones.

Unless the fish has been cooked so long that its tough, a fish knife should easily cut through the fish.

You should try holding one of these opposite hand so.

3154rkSlDcL._AC_SY400_.jpg

ShatterAlan · 06-08-2020 2:56pm

Depends on what I'm eating. If cutting is required like for a fryup or sunday roast / xmas dinner then it's fork in left, knife in right all the way.

If it's a meal that requires no or very little cutting like a shepherds pie, curry, pasta bolognese then I'll discard the knife and just use the fork in my right hand.

Spaghetti......fork in right, spoon in left.

Chinese food....chopsticks.

Burger and chips........eat it all with my hands, MAN!

Gwynplaine · 06-08-2020 2:56pm

Doesnt matter really, whatever you're more comfortable with. But, do not put the knife in your mouth.

The Bishop Basher · 06-08-2020 3:03pm

o1s1n wrote: »

I had good table manners drilled into me as a kid by my grandmother. Eating with cutlery in the correct hands, using the correct cutlery for the correct food etc.

I wouldn't say I'd 'look down' on someone for using a fork in their right hand or tilting a bowl the wrong way when eating soup, but my brain would still interpret it as bad manners.

Same as this, we were taught good table manners growing up and I’ve passed them on to my own kids because I know it’ll stand to them in the future and anyway, why not.

I personally couldn’t give a rashers how anyone else eats as long as they’re not speaking with their mouth full or spitting all over my food and I’ll often just eat with a fork or whatever when at home but most of us will have been at meals where it does matter to some extent and it quickly becomes apparent when someone hasn’t been taught the basics.

ShatterAlan · 06-08-2020 3:34pm

JayZeus wrote: »

No, you’re not. You’re supposed to use an appropriate knife and simply coordinate your hand movements. The knife does the cutting. If you need to use your ‘strong hand’ you have some physical impediment or need to stop using a butter knife to eat your dinner with. Or tell cook to stop overdoing the roast.

I would think that you would use your dominant hand for the cutting. It takes slightly more dexterity to cleanly cut a piece of meat to the size you require as opposed to just sticking a fork in a piece of food and conveying it to your mouth.

Do you use your weaker hand to hammer in a nail, screw in a screw, hit a tennis ball with a racquet?

Richard Hillman · 06-08-2020 3:43pm

Cannot use my left hand at all. So fork right hand, knife left hand but when it need to cut something I switch hands.

neris · 06-08-2020 3:47pm

fork in the right hand and knife in the left.

ShatterAlan · 06-08-2020 3:59pm

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Can't tell if this is a p**s take or not, but if someone judged someone based on what hand they held their knife or fork I think it says a lot more about them than it does the other person.

I would be fairly identical to that, I would try and follow the 'etiquette' in certain company or if you are somewhere fancy but it is definitely a big act, at home I will use the side of a fork to cut a lot of things! I've never really understood the whole table etiquette and why it exists.

If I see someone holding a spoon using their fist rather than their fingers I immediately think "monkey". Likewise someone holding their knife in their fist like they're holding a dagger with the blade emerging from the little finger side of the fist, hacking away at a slab of meat like a fucking neanderthal

ShatterAlan · 06-08-2020 4:13pm

JayZeus wrote: »

It's no different to someone who keeps their fingernails dirty, picks their nose, spits or wouldn't know how to polish their shoes or wears dirty clothes to work. Similarly, people who chew their food open-mouthed, who cough or sneeze unguarded, fail to hold a door open for the person behind them, skip queues or push past people. Every one of these things is a sign of an inadequate education or inability to show consideration for others and to have a minimal level of awareness about how they hold and present themselves to the world.

Shallow? Pffft. Virtue signalling aside, you already judge others on the basis of how you were taught to behave. You might like to think otherwise but that's simply not possible. If you notice it and can't equate some cultural factor to their oftentimes reprehensible conduct, you will absolutely judge them. I do and I make no apologies for it.

It's always amusing how those who think things like table manners are worthless rarely understand that they're not the ones to make that call. Do what you will at home (apparently to the detriment of ones children) but behave like a poorly educated, uncultured dimwit and the people around you may well decide to treat you as a more contemptible specimen than those who know how to use a knife and fork, as an example.

It's often said that it costs nothing to have good manners. I'd say it only costs a little time and effort to pull yourself up out of the slop tray, especially when even YouTube will provide ample opportunity to learn how you should behave at mealtime, as a supposedly intelligent and capable adult.

"oftentimes"

"OFTENTIMES" ?

You bottom-feeding Cromagnon

ShatterAlan · 06-08-2020 4:18pm

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Cannot use my left hand at all. So fork right hand, knife left hand but when it need to cut something I switch hands.

If you can't use your left hand at all then how do you hold a knife in it?

Coyote · 06-08-2020 4:21pm

07-08-2020 5:57pm

In Japan it is considered rude NOT to slurp when you eat soup, and they are a much more civilised society than our own.

spurious · 07-08-2020 6:51pm

Fork with the tines pointing downwards too. No stabbing vertically with fork and hacking around it.

True story - we used to bring children out on trips and noticed even in an 'eat all you want it's on the place we are visiting' situation, many would choose sliced bread and ham. Some discreet enquiries found they did not know how to use a knife and fork 'like posh people'. We threw it in as an optional 'class' in one of the weeks we used to suspend the timetable and cover all sorts of bits and pieces not actually on the curriculum.

iamstop · 07-08-2020 9:17pm

I most of Asia (where they don't use chop sticks) it's a spoon and a fork.

07-08-2020 9:25pm

spurious wrote: »

...Some discreet enquiries found they did not know how to use a knife and fork 'like posh people'. We threw it in as an optional 'class' in one of the weeks we used to suspend the timetable and cover all sorts of bits and pieces not actually on the curriculum.

That's quite sad. I guess they might eat a lot of things like pizza and chips, and don't use any cutlery at all except spoons.

Fork in left, knife in right. Unless its something like pasta or rice, then it's fork in right for shovelling it in.

07-08-2020 10:23pm

spurious wrote: »

Fork with the tines pointing downwards too. No stabbing vertically with fork and hacking around it.

True story - we used to bring children out on trips and noticed even in an 'eat all you want it's on the place we are visiting' situation, many would choose sliced bread and ham. Some discreet enquiries found they did not know how to use a knife and fork 'like posh people'. We threw it in as an optional 'class' in one of the weeks we used to suspend the timetable and cover all sorts of bits and pieces not actually on the curriculum.

Could have used a class like that when I was a child! That said, my parents both have good table manners. I think they were just a bit laissez faire in their parenting regarding the subject.

07-08-2020 10:29pm

Right handed.

Fork in right, knife in left.

When I try it the other way around it's like trying to write with me left hand.

Leg End Reject · 07-08-2020 10:39pm

Fork in left, knife in right.

If I'm just using a fork for pasta or cake etc., or a dessert spoon I use my right hand.

Tines down and I follow the crossed cutlery with tines down when not finished/side by side with tines down rule when finished.

In private I eat like a savage.

Potential-Monke · 08-08-2020 1:06am

Formal settings have forks left, knives right, soup spoon furthest right. Desert fork/spoon above. Wine/drink glasses to the upper right, bread plate/knife to the left or upper left. If one is not partaking in a certain course, the waiter should remove the applicable cutlery/crockery/glassware.

But if I make something at home that only requires a fork, ie: pasta bake, I use my right (dominant) hand to eat, otherwise fork left/knife right. You use the fork hand more to hold food to be cut and bring it to your mouth, leaves the right (dominant) hand free for the "harder" cutting, or to pick up your drink so you don't spill it with your weak hand.

Lefties... well... like ginger kids, we tolerate them, especially if they conform to normality as best they can.

When I couldn't get a job after the leaving cert in 2001, I did a FAS course on Restaurant Skills. I'm a certified waiter, got me a few jobs. In this course, we were shown the only proper way to set a table/take orders/serve orders/etc. Every restaurant you go to has the cutlery set this way, or if they're bad at their jobs, haphazardly thrown down in some form. The containers some places uses with the cutlery upright in them melt my buzz.

davedanon · 08-08-2020 1:28am

ShatterAlan wrote: »

I would think that you would use your dominant hand for the cutting. It takes slightly more dexterity to cleanly cut a piece of meat to the size you require as opposed to just sticking a fork in a piece of food and conveying it to your mouth.

Do you use your weaker hand to hammer in a nail, screw in a screw, hit a tennis ball with a racquet?

It's not always that cut and dried. I'm left-handed, but my right arm is dominant. I write with my left hand and kick with my left foot. I throw and catch with my right hand. I play tennis and table-tennis left handed, but my tennis backhand is two-fisted because my right arm is stronger. I'm a right-handed (ex-stupid game) golfer, and if I hurled it'd be right-handed. But I'm a left eye focuser with my camera, and anything really delicate and precise gets done with my left hand.

The fork goes in my left hand, and it stays that way. I do not get the American thing of switching hands at all.

Atlantic Dawn · 08-08-2020 1:45am

Why if you were right handed would you use your left hand to eat with? Makes no sense at all, like being right handed and using your left hand to write because you want to staple the page you are writing on with your right hand.

Potential-Monke · 08-08-2020 2:21am

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Why if you were right handed would you use your left hand to eat with? Makes no sense at all, like being right handed and using your left hand to write because you want to staple the page you are writing on with your right hand.

Take steak for an example. The weak hand (in most cases, the left) is simply used to hold the meat in place. The dominant hand (in most cases, the right) has the "harder" task of using force (depending on the steak) to cut where you want. The left hand has the simple job of hold and bring to mouth, the right hand has the harder job of cutting with accuracy.

Try cutting a slice of bread off an uncut loaf with your weak hand compared to your strong hand (unless you're ambidextrous, in which case you're an alien and this doesn't apply).

But again, eating cereal, soup, etc, the right hand is used because there's no need for the left (which is why the soup spoon is on the right).

kowloonkev · 08-08-2020 6:19am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

In Japan it is considered rude NOT to slurp when you eat soup, and they are a much more civilised society than our own.

Don't know about that. Half of them don't even want to go outside and look at their psycho soldiers.

08-08-2020 8:35am

If using a knife then it’s fork left hand and knife right hand. If eating with a fork only it’s fork in right hand.

Quantum Erasure · 08-08-2020 8:41am

two fork in right!

ShatterAlan · 11-08-2020 5:34pm

davedanon wrote: »

It's not always that cut and dried. I'm left-handed, but my right arm is dominant. I write with my left hand and kick with my left foot. I throw and catch with my right hand. I play tennis and table-tennis left handed, but my tennis backhand is two-fisted because my right arm is stronger. I'm a right-handed (ex-stupid game) golfer, and if I hurled it'd be right-handed. But I'm a left eye focuser with my camera, and anything really delicate and precise gets done with my left hand.

The fork goes in my left hand, and it stays that way. I do not get the American thing of switching hands at all.

I must say that you are a multi-talented freak, dave.

I have a similar friend who is also left-handed but like you does a variety of tasks with his right hand, such as throwing a ball etc. Writes with the left, plays pool left-handed but plays guitar right-handed. Quite interesting really.

ShatterAlan · 11-08-2020 5:39pm

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Take steak for an example. The weak hand (in most cases, the left) is simply used to hold the meat in place. The dominant hand (in most cases, the right) has the "harder" task of using force (depending on the steak) to cut where you want. The left hand has the simple job of hold and bring to mouth, the right hand has the harder job of cutting with accuracy.

Try cutting a slice of bread off an uncut loaf with your weak hand compared to your strong hand (unless you're ambidextrous, in which case you're an alien and this doesn't apply).

But again, eating cereal, soup, etc, the right hand is used because there's no need for the left (which is why the soup spoon is on the right).

Precisely. The left hand is employed for the easier task. The right hand, the more difficult, dexterous task.

raclle · 11-08-2020 5:39pm

ShatterAlan wrote: »

I have a similar friend who is also left-handed but like you does a variety of tasks with his right hand, such as throwing a ball etc. Writes with the left, plays pool left-handed but plays guitar right-handed. Quite interesting really.

Im the exact same. When gripping a hurley ive my left hand on top and right underneath but swing left. Its strange and ive never been able to play naturally

Stevieluvsye · 11-08-2020 5:49pm

raclle wrote: »

Im the exact same. When gripping a hurley ive my left hand on top and right underneath but swing left. Its strange and ive never been able to play naturally

Snap

I'm left handed but play pool snooker with right, throw with my right, played cricket as a right handed batsman but could also play left handed

Fork left, knife right

Canard · 12-08-2020 1:32pm

I don't really get the argument for fork in the left hand when you're right handed. Maybe it's because I don't tend to eat tough foods, but the cutting motion is more simplistic to me than trying to bring the fork to my mouth with my left hand without food falling off. I suppose eating cereal/soup with my right hand has also gotten me into the habit of using that hand for it. No idea why people act like it's bad manners... once I'm not making a mess, who cares!

CrankyHaus · 12-08-2020 1:51pm

Canard wrote: »

I don't really get the argument for fork in the left hand when you're right handed. Maybe it's because I don't tend to eat tough foods, but the cutting motion is more simplistic to me than trying to bring the fork to my mouth with my left hand without food falling off. I suppose eating cereal/soup with my right hand has also gotten me into the habit of using that hand for it. No idea why people act like it's bad manners... once I'm not making a mess, who cares!

Bad manners is scooping it into your face with your hands and then belching.
People judging you for the hand you hold your knife and fork in is just snobbery; get that right and then you'll find something wrong with your posture, your clothes, your accent instead.

Ekerot · 12-08-2020 3:15pm

Knife left, fork right. It was always just the way that worked for me and I never tried to change it. It felt comfortable and easier to do/
My mother always pestered me trying to get me to do it the opposite way, but it only pushed me away further in the long run.
Who cares really? It's not like you're gonna focus on the other persons utensil skills when they're eating.

Alejandro68 · 12-08-2020 7:22pm

I am guilty of using my fork to cut and eat my food. That is when people know I am uncivilized and not a native.

Knife and Fork, Which Hand?

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