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.

I couldn't stop watching a man at the table next to me last week. He filled his mouth with pasta and the fork went back for more and he kept filling his mouth while his mouth was full! I thought he was going to choke. Disgusting.

Seems most people don't know not to use your cutlery while you are eating. Wait till you've finished then put food on your fork.

When I was in uni halls of residence 30+ years ago there was a student there who would line his soup, main course and pudding up and take a mouthful of each in turn. He was from a different culture and it's fair to say Scottish food must have been totally alien to him. It was kind of off-putting everyone else but not actually bad manners.

It’s a shame that your food and the company at your table wasn’t diverting enough for you not to stare in avid attention at other people.

Did he not have a father to teach him?

I do like how you actually demonstrated it's about class, and don't even realise how.

No @Malasana he never knew his father, he was raised by his very prim and proper mother who judges everyone else to a very high standard but not her own son.

Ah I just wondered because all too often it’s the mother who gets the blame for stuff like this.

Table manners are very important in our house. If you want to be successful in life, you’re probably going to have to attend events with dinner, and we want our boys to be socially mobile as much as they want.

I will say though that my teenage son CONSTANTLY has to be reminded to chew with his mouth closed and this has been the case for years! He eats like a starved Labrador at home but I strongly suspect has beautiful manners when he isn’t with us! My younger son eats beautifully. Both though are very good at sharing food at the table and not taking the last of something etc. It’s a work in progress 😂

Me too - if I tried the "proper" way people would be horrified. Food everywhere.

I went on a date with a guy who “shovelled” food into his mouth just using a fork … there was no second date !

Both my parents and grandparents were very strict on having good table manners.

I’ve always been pleased they were as I’ve never been worried about eating in public or wondering what different cutlery etc is used for.

It’s now the same in my family home and I’ll admit I love my dining table at Christmas/Dinner Parties when it’s all beautifully laid out out with appropriate cutlery for the courses, napkins (linen of course 😃) and tableware.

My DC and DSC have good table manners (even if they grumbled occasionally at having - oh horror - to sit at a table to eat and use appropriate cutlery, using the appropriate hands).

But now even they have seen the light as young adults and when eat out/in company and are pleased they know the drill.

Like the OP I really dislike poor table manners.

I can get over the American style of eating tbh or even holding a knife like a pencil (but why???? The point here isn’t so much manners as the correct way of holding it allows you to control the knife better and cut more easily). I grates me a bit but different strokes and all that.

It’s the hoovering food, mouth open, licking cutlery/plates or giving it to your dog to do so, dogs in restaurants full stop, bending head to plate rather than cutlery to mouth, shoving huge portions in the mouth so a person looks like a open mouthed hamster, being rude to restaurant staff, noisey sucking/chewing, belching, grabbing food to excess - that won’t be eaten - in buffets, slathering food in salt before even tasting, dropping food on the floor/letting your children throw food around and not picking it up, screaming children running around and last but not least asking for bloody tomato ketchup in a Michelin Star restaurant to put on a diver sourced scallop.

Thank you!

Manners are not about which way around you use the knife and fork. How could that be considered rude? 🤷🏻‍♀️ As long as you eat neatly, what’s the problem? I’m multi handed and use my fork in the right and knife in the left.

My children have been taught to use cutlery, not to talk with their mouths full, to use a napkin and not wave their food around etc… but I couldn’t care less which way around they eat. Whatever is more comfortable for them is fine by me.

Held their cutlery the wrong way round? Maybe they were left handed! I’m not sure why you were watching them instead of your own dinner but isn’t it bad manners to point out bad manners? Up market pub indeed LMFAO 🤣

No issues with people using the fork and knife in opposite hands ... DH does (as do some friends). I can only think it was when they used to sit down at the table for meals when little and he mirror-copied what his mum/dad was doing as they were sat opposite him.

People eating with the mouths open is my bug-bear - it will put me off eating!

that is so off putting

Many years ago a new boyfriend and I had a buffet breakfast in a hotel and when he had finished eating his bowl of cereal he picked the bowl up and started noisily slurping the milk repeatedly. I was horrified, people were staring, and all I could think of was what would my mother say if I brought him home! Instant turn off and we finished a few weeks later.

We stayed at a really nice (historical) hotel recently which was an expensive anniversary treat. It's also a wedding venue so the hotel was very busy with wedding guests booked in who definitely did not know how to behave with manners. I'm not posh and I'm not a snob but I do know how to behave and how to dress according to the environment and venue but some of these guests were something else.
Some came down to breakfast in very short pj's which covered virtually nothing with bare feet that they 'rested' on various chairs and tables, many just stood up and shouted conversations to people they knew across the other side of the restaurant, threw food on the floor and one actually had breakfast wrapped in a king size duvet telling the lovely staff to f**k off when they tried to stop them entering the restaurant area. I spotted one of the wedding party was holding their knife like a dagger and stabbing their breakfast like they were trying to slaughter it or subdue it before eating. Nearly all of them were between the teen and late 20's age bracket. All the 'older' people loudly filled up nice damask napkins with booty off the breakfast buffet 'for later'. Hardly any of the guests said please or thanked the waiting/restaurant staff either.
I found the whole thing quite fascinating to watch (apart from feet & almost bare bums on the furniture) but I can only imagine this is normal behaviour for them. Normal but almost resentful too, like they felt they had to 'show their authentic selves' to excess while sat in a beautiful place eating lovely food.
It's not just people like this who show bad behaviour either. There was a group of well-to-do blokes on a golfing break who were either being very rude to the staff or joining the wedding party pilfering the breakfast buffet!
I do wonder when this lack of manners or consideration started.

Oh God that is depressing. The thing with wearing pjs everywhere is so odd. It seems to be acceptable dress even outside now. It's just so rude and slovenly.

Thanks. So are you saying it's lower-class to have good table manners?

My father was from a working class background. I think he felt his lack of the sort of background he would have liked so he drilled good manners into us. My mother had been to boarding school and couldn't have cared less. OH went to boarding school and has awful table manners because they didn't teach him at school and maybe when he was home his parents didn't correct him.

The entire concept is mostly nonsense. It isn't good anything for people to do what you prefer and want others to do, and bad if it doesn't conform. It's just about trying to be better than others, and finding ways to demonstrate this and feel superior.

Unpleasant and a mark of bad upbringing.

Disagree. It's mostly about consideration for others.

I hate bad table manners and I can’t stand noisy eaters or those who eat with their mouth open. It’s not a washing machine, I don’t need to see the contents.

DGS is 2.5 so he’s still learning although his manners are good. If he forgets and eats with his mouth open, he’s told to close it, and he’s learning to use cutlery, but that’s a work in progress atm.

No, it's about showing you are civilised.