Table Manners

[PistachioTiramisu]

We were having a drink at a fairly upmarket pub yesterday evening. Two young men - around 20 - came to sit at a table next to us and ordered roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. I watched in fascinated horror as they proceeded to 'devour' their food. They both held their cutlery the wrong way round and like daggers, they attacked the meat over and over with their forks, then tearing it on the plate. Finally, instead of putting food on their forks and bringing fork to mouth, they bent over and shovelled the food into their mouths from the plate. Do people not learn table manners any more? It seems to me that all the niceties of life are being eroded to the lowest common denominator. So sad.

You'll be told you're unreasonable but absolutely not.

I have an especial dislike of people eating in restaurants (and I don't care if it's McDonald's or Nando's or The Ivy, the point remains) with their coats on. Aren't you getting your cuffs in the sauce? Shudder.

I wholeheartedly agree OP.

Threads about this subject often include comments saying, “Who cares?” and “Mind your own business”, but watching people with poor, or no, table manners eat is quite revolting.

I don’t think it’s generational. My PILs, now in their 80s, have appalling table manners. Both from large families and very deprived backgrounds. I doubt they were ever taught.

I brought up my son to use his fork and knife correctly and he went to a private school (where there are rules in the dining hall). He still eats like he’s starving and that someone might swipe his plate away! I’m constantly reminding him to wait til everyone’s served, to stop eating like a pig, and to pace himself! You’d think he had been brought up with cavemen. I think because he lives alone he’s got into bad habits, but I assure you he was brought up well!

Table manners are the hill I will die on. My children are young adults now and they know how to behave at a table. My husband is a lost cause and I blame his mother entirely for his terrible table manners

I agree with you, OP. But you’ll get the usual comments on here basically saying as long as the food reaches its destination, it doesn’t matter.

There are few things worse than bad table manners. My sons used to have a few friends (all from resolutely MC families) who ate like pigs at a trough. Inhaled their food like it was a race. Mouths open, chomping, slurping, crouched over the plate. Utterly repulsive.

This isn't AIBU but YANBU! Since both men had identically bad manners, one must suppose they're brothers who grew up with - I dunno, blind parents? Mumsnetters who claim to take pride in not caring? Or they share some deficit in fine motor control? I'd be fascinated, find it difficult not to stare, and would really want to ask!

This isn't about about generational decline but about which part of society a person runs with. Increasingly, various establishments are available to more people from various parts of society. This means that is not a given that establishment A has one set of etiquette and establishment B another.

This reminds me of a man I had the misfortune to witness at a restaurant recently. His manners were so poor that you couldn't help but notice him, much as I tried to ignore his behaviour. He too held his cutlery as if he were a toddler, in clenched fists, and he was sort of hunched over the plate and shovelling food in. Revolting. You're right, OP, people should know basic table manners.

I'm slightly obsessive about this with my own family. It turns my stomach when people eat food that requires cutlery with their hands.

Thankfully I didn't see it because I had my back to the individual concerned but my OH was appalled by a man who would take a mouthful of food, chew it for a while and then spit what was left back out on to his plate!

It's really not about social class. Plenty of public-school products stick their faces in their plates, and many deprived parents make extra efforts to teach their children manners. My paternal grandparents, who were from very lower class families, wouldn't have known about all the different courses and associated place settings, but they certainly ate politely.

Presumably the posh kids do know the finer points of formal dining - so is their piggery an affectation?

OMG. Why??? I realise you don't know, but can't help wondering! Equally, how's he managed to get away with it? I'm imagining he must be so terrifying that nobody dares to criticise.

Dh and I were seated next to a family of 6 the other night, really nice fish place, pretty expensive, the whole family used their mouths like cement mixers, think shell fish, calamari, lobster etc all churned up and slurping, dear god it was vile.

Parents, please teach your children manners

There seems to be an increasing trend for knife to be held in left hand, and fork to be held in right upright in a pencil grip. Hard to describe, but I’ve seen lots of people doing similar.

It's the "shovellers" who get to me.

Yes! But WHY? It makes it so difficult to control your knife and fork to enable you to eat properly!!

Yes indeed! Why has it changed? Too many instances to be a coincidence. Looks horrible, ungainly, untidy. Is it a TikTok thing?

My carer is right handed but eats with his knife and fork in the wrong hands. He does the 'hold the food with the knife and separate it by dragging the fork' but he does put the food in his mouth with the fork and chew with his mouth shut.

Once when we were having a discussion about this I asked him which had he had the knife in to butter bread, and it was the right hand.

Could this come from seeing Americans on film & TV. They cut their food up, then put the knife down and swap the fork to their dominant hand to eat. We only see them doing the fork-stabbing (and fork waving for emphasis) part on screen, not the preliminary cutting.

We’ve always spent a lot of time in the USA. Our kids when small were always being told off for gawping at the cack-handed way virtually all Americans attempt to use cutlery.

They still enjoy the show, but they do it discreetly now.

I will say, though probably shouldn't, that he was a foreign gentleman. I don't know where from though.

Don't watch them then?

You funny! 😄

… as it’s tricky if they’re sitting opposite you and you’re trying to have a conversation with them (as good table manners would dictate).