To be surprised at friend eating so oddly?

[Notfootball]

Went out for dinner with some friends tonight and one of them was loading up her knife and eating from it as though it were a fork. Do other people do this? Is this normal but no one told me?

I was answering your question re using fork in the wrong hand and left handedness also being wrong.

I think I'm quite ambidextrous though,I'm less left handed than others I've met iykwim?

Exactly Alis, it's just what feels natural for you.

I write with my right hand but am pretty much ambidextrous with everything else.

Except eating. If I was forced to use the correct hands, like children were in the past, I would eat like some sort of savage!

As long as you chew with your mouth closed, eat slowly and carefully, don't talk with your mouth full, keep your elbows off the table and don't masticate at volume you are more than welcome at my table.

For those you can't visualise it, my friend was treating the knife like a fork and vice versa, and using the fork to push the food onto the knife then putting it in her mouth. It was weirdly impressive that she could balance so much food on the knife. Impressive but so wrong.
Feel like I'm going to have to ask her about it but nicely. Any ideas for a sweetly worded text?

I'm right handed and hold my cutlery in the wrong hands. I do not "tear" my food, I cut it with the knife. To me, it makes more sense for me to use my stronger hand to bring food to my face. If I use them in the right hands, I inevitably end up stabbing myself in the face

To me it makes more sense to use the dominant hand for the knife (right) and so I end up using the non dominant hand to get the food to my mouth - not always a good idea for me as my non dominant hand is OK with 'dry/solid' food, really not so 'able' with 'wet/messy' food. Sometimes if I'm eating a part of the meal that doesn't require a knife, I will swap my fork to my dominant hand. It may be considered impolite, but it's an improvement on 'wearing' my dinner. It has nothing to with not being taught correctly and everything to do with struggling with my non dominant hand. Get over yourselves would be my advice

peaceandlovebunny the poem is by Ogden Nash, who also wrote:

Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.

I still can't understand why your friend would suddenly start eating like this - very peculiar! If it was something she'd always done, you'd assume she was never 'taught' that it's impolite (and dangerous) but as it's a new thing... very odd!

Something along the lines of 'I noticed you favouring your 'x' hand last night at dinner and thus needing to use your knife to eat from - have your hurt yourself? Are you OK?' ?? OR 'Why the hell were you eating off of your knife last night?' Depends on your friendship really...

yes please do ask her

Horrible guzzly guy is Warner Valentine. I call him the very hungry caterpillar. He munches his way across the country in a terribly revolting way.

Your friend, has she had a stroke? Could she have developed alzheimers? Using the cutlery incorrectly is the kind of thing my mum would do...

Sorry to hark back to the beginning of the thread but I was told by my Italian friend the correct way to eat pizza is with your hands. He was quite bemused at us cutting our slices up and eating with a knife and fork!

My DH likes to spend quite a long time cutting all the food on his plate into little squares. Then he puts down his knife and eats all the little bite-sized squares, just as if his mummy had just cut up his dinner for him. It makes me want to kill him.

This would not be an issue for my dss (26yrs) because he eats every meal just using a fork. A roast dinner with a large piece of beef hanging from the fork whilst he bites chunks off.
My other 2, dss and dsd, have impeccable tables manners. Same mother but one of them lived with her, 2 with us guess which one was brought up by dh ex

Reallynottally, I have sent the text along the lines of what you said, thanks. Just waiting...

MrsGP, your DSS sounds like my DSS! I can't look at him when he's eating and I remind him by pretending to tell my others to use their knives properly.

My mum used to get very worked up about how I held my knife and fork. I'm left handed and hold it how it feels comfortable. I don't care if it's wrong to someone else. I let my kids get on with it, and as long as they cut their food up and eat nicely, mouths closed, no licking knives or plates then I'm happy.

Notfootball which version?? LOL

Sort of mixed up both versions and full of concern.

No reply yet?? What is she doing?! If only she knew we were waiting here with baited breath keystrokes.

When I eat breakfast at work I cut up my food and butter my bread and then swap my fork into my right hand just so I can eat with one hand, leaving the other free for me to browse my iPhone whilst I'm eating.

All the rules of etiquette I'm breaking just make it taste better

I draw the line at eating off or licking knives however. Makes me shudder. Pain and blood don't work at the table.

Actually it's not so much "etiquette" as how it looks. Eating with your knife and fork held with the handle in the palm and not shovelling is just neater and less awkward or prone to look like shovelling or have food drop off the utensils.

As eating should be a sociable comfortable occasion but also at times a chance to network or informally interview /be interviewed it IS important. So instilling good table manners right from young just makes it easier for later life.

No way would I make a left hander swap over if that's the way he eats, my BIL eats "back to front" but you don't notice as he holds his K&F "properly"