to think mixing up your food on a plate is bad manners?

[Moonatic]

This is dh I'm talking about. Made a pastry-topped chicken and leek pie at the weekend. Served with sweetcorn and carrots. Before eating it, he cut his whole serving into small pieces (size of a penny), then mixed it up. I got really annoyed, as dis the kids and asked him not to eat that way, because it was really bad manners. He said it wasn't. Who is right?

To add: this was just one example. If it's mixable, it gets mixed up. Cottage pie, fish pie, lasagne, pasta, curry and rice - it all turns into a big plate of mush.

There is also a sub-question: is it rude to cut your food into small pieces before eating it? By which I mean, cutting everything into small bite size pieces before starting to eat. Again, I say it is, dh says it isn't. (This is what he does with food that is less easily mushed up - e.g. something like chops, new potatoes and vegetables.

The Americans eat that way, they will cut everything up, put their knife down and eat with just a fork.

I'm an American and I've never seen anyone eat this way. There are 300 million of us, so there probably are some who do, but not enough to generalize that we do it as a whole.

I do think it is rude! If you have cooked i think you are entitled to say!

Yuk. Nothing wrong with putting a bit of curry and a bit of rice on a fork. But swirling everything together on your plate? Imagine going out for a for a nice romantic meal and watching him shovel a vomit like concoction in.

I also think it's poor table manners, and like all poor table manners, unpleasant to sit opposite. That's the rationale for table manners really isn't it - what will be unpleasant for others to have to see?

I'm with you OP. I think it is revolting. I'm quite big on table manners and this would put me right off. I also love cooking and when I make eg a curry, I've gone to the bother of making a chicken curry with spices, pilau rice with different spices, a dal, and perhaps a veg dish. I woud normally put separate portions of food on a dish....if you mix it up, it looks like shitty sludge as opposed to an attractively presented meal. You also lose the interesting flavours.

I wouldn't have had a second date with him. I did have an au pair who did this and (for a number of reasons) she didn't last long.

Yuck!

Yes, it's gross. LTB.

It sort of smacks of wanting to ram it in as fast as possible, which is a bit gross.

No I think it's really bloody rude! You have taken care to get a nice finish on the pie; probably gone for a nice bite to the veg - he's just treating it like fucking fuel! As PP said though, you could argue it was very uncouth rather than rude, but it's a bit six of one...

This would really irk me, but then I am a good cook and to me there's more to food than just taste and sustinence. I am one of those people propping up programmes like Great British Menu and Masterchef, and they constantly stress presentation and textures. Two things your DH is sticking two fingers up at.

Even if you didn't say babyish - it's something I personally would associate as babyish simply because mushing food into a pulp is what you do for babies!

I'm really suprised by how many people seem to think this is OK TBH! At a table, with children, making the food look all mushy and baby food like ... Just horrid! YANBU at all, in my opinion.

YANBU.

Just weirdness on his part, just eat the food without a fucking palaver, rude to carry on with odd dissection.

I'm generally extremely tolerant, but I don't think YABU. It's rather immature, and if I imagine myself eating like that in front of another person it feels very uncomfortable - so at some stage as a child I was taught that it was uncouth and/or disrespectful!

Thank you! So glad to hear I am not alone in my assessment.
Surprised by how many people think it's okay, tbh (although I think a few have misunderstood and think I am complaining about having different foods on the fork at the same time - e.g. carrots, chicken and pie crust. I'm not).

I think it's bad manners OP and it would really piss me off too. Only people I've known to do this were my grandmother (who was in her nineties and probably had false teeth) and a great uncle who had never married and had some quite odd habits all round

But then I get pissed off when DH dunks chunks of crusty bread into a bowl of soup and let's them sop it up before fishing them out again.....yuck

YANBU, OP.

lets not let's......

That would make me want to vomit - cannot abide the sight of mushed up food

I think it is bad table manners.

Also he isn't appreciating the cook's efforts to present the food in a pleasing way.

I am a stickler for good table manners and wouldn't be able to put up with it.

I'd be fucking pissed off if someone tried to tell me how I'm allowed to eat in my own home. Why would you do that to him? If you don't like it, don't watch him eat...

Dh used to be in the Navy and eats with the speed of lightning. Before I've finished adding salt and pepper his cutlery is down and plate clean. It is always commented on. I'm used to it now

Gosh, people get annoyed by the strangest things, I've honestly never heard of this being bad manners. My dp likes to mix his cottage pie up when I make it, doesn't bother me in the slightest. He's enjoying it, that's what matters. Can't say I really pay much attention to his plate once we're all sat at the table eating He would think I'd lost the plot if I told him not to do it.

Well, I'd be fucking pissed off if I cooked nice food with a few components and someone mushed it all up to shovel down so that all the textures, the finish, the crunchy bits and the tender bits were just baby shitty gooey fuel to be got through as quick as possible. Very rude to the cook, and a bloody awful example to the children.

I couldn't sit at a table with someone who mixed they're food together like that OP. YANBU it's disgusting.

Manners are usually designed to make life pleasant for others

Sat at a table with a person turning a meal on a plate into something that resembles they have regurgitated their food is not pleasant for anyone around.

Yes I would really hate to see dh do that with a lovely pie. It is bad enough when teens eat with a fork and a hand, my dd's favourite is to shovel all the potato out of jacket(with hand and fork) mash it up with the beans and then eat the skin with her hand. I'm with you all the way but I am an uptight twunt at the table.

YADNBU!