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.

When I was young and living at home, I used to like HP sauce if we had mashed potato and sweet corn. Ideally the HP and sweet corn would be evenly distributed in the mash so flavoured throughout, and the sweet corn would give a textural element. Yummy. Not allowed to do this however as its "bad manners" according to my parents. I tried to explain that dipping some mash into sauce did not create the same effect but they maintained that it was rude to enjoy my own the food the way I liked it....

Anyway, whenever I now make myself mash/ sauce / sweet corn I think "fuck you parents" as I do it. I'm 34 now.

I'm not sure if YABU but if you making him not enjoy his food for the rest of his life then he may well resent you for it.

My granddad (1906-1988) did it. He'd lived in Canada. His mum had lived in America as a child and in Canada as an adult. We put it down to that.

It's fine doing as you please in your own home but I think it's only fair on children to let them know what's considered normal manners out and about.

So here they can drink their cereal milk from the bowl but I always say "only at home!"

Mixing up food wasn't something I ever saw my parent's do so since I was a child (when I did like messing with mash and gravy) I've not done it. My little one seems to like mixing some things but I don't comment but I think I do say if we are out for a meal something along the lines of "eat up now, don't mess".

"I'm not sure if YABU but if you making him not enjoy his food for the rest of his life then he may well resent you for it."

Nah... it's all water off a duck's back to him. If anyone is going to be put off food, it's me.

Op so glad you posted by Dh who has all his own teeth does this at home and not out. It makes me feel sick. I take a tray and eat in front of the TVs.

Of course it's bad table manners. Surely he wouldn't do it when he was out or at someone else's house?
But sometimes table manners can be relaxed in the comfort of your own home.
Not a great example to set for the children but if it was downplayed as a funny quirk, not to be copied in company they would probably be ok

Hah. I wouldn't even date someone whose table manners put me off. You're a damn sight more reasonable than I am, as you married him!

Well we all do some dodgy table things sometimes ... In our house they usually involve the use of bread to mop or even make butties . There are times the rules are different - if eating in front of TV maybe - but my teenagers will now say of their own accord 'no, mum, I wouldn't do this at a friends house or in a restaurant....'. But your dh shouldn't be modelling this as normal or acceptable to your children.

It wouldn't bother me either. In my opinion, just because something is aesthetically pleasing on the plate doesn't mean it has to be eaten in an aesthetic manner. I'd be happy it looked so scrummy, the person wanted to dive in

Even moreso if it's DH as surely he should feel comfortable enough to eat it however he chose.

pasta im glad my mashed up food would put you off eating it. eat your own damn food.

YABU
It's food. It's there for eating, not watching. Let him eat the way he wants to.

Going back to the list in the link upthread, how does breaking off a piece of bread with your fingers and buttering just that piece make mealtimes any more pleasant for people than using a knife to cut the roll tidily in half and then buttering the whole thing? Then, after using your fingers to break some bread off, using a sodding knife and fork if you wish to use the bread to mop up some gravy? Why is the "polite" way of consuming a bread roll with your meal any more pleasant for other people than the supposedly unacceptable way?

It's not. It's just convention, like which hand you hold your knife and fork in and how you hold said knife and fork.

And it's only "polite" to eat your soup with your spoon moving away from you because soup plates designed for fine dining are so ridiculously flat that you'd end up wearing your soup if you tried to do otherwise.

Ffs let him eat his dinner the way he wants without you looking down on him. He's eating it isn't he??

I'm with the YANBU crowd to an extent, in that this is poor table manners and I wouldn't want to sit opposite it. But, OP, you married him and you say he's always done it, so it seems a bit unreasonable to object now.

I'd suggest serving "one pot" type dishes like risotto, saucey pasta, stir fry etc on occasions where you think it's more likely to offend you. Or something like steak and chips - you can't mix that up surely

Incidentally I wince watching my boyfriend eat sometimes- he eats each component in turn - all the broccoli, then all the potatoes, then the chicken etc. i don't know why it makes me think he doesn't like the food and is forcing it down. He says he likes to eat things "in order" (cannot fathom what "the order" is, after many hours of observation!)

Yanbu. That is bad manners.

Well, OP, I urge you not to start doubting your reasonableness here. Just because some people eat in a disgusting fashion or don't do table manners, doesn't make it wrong to find it unpleasant and off putting and rude! YANBU x 1000!

Yabu it's his plate and he can consume it as he wants, it's bad manners to eat like a pig but how it prepares it once it's on the plate is up to him.

This thread is hilarious! I never knew anyone could be so bothered by how someone eats.

Sorry but it comes across so snobby to say its bad manners. It's not like the man is eating with his feet!

Do his parents eat the same way?

YANBU

I'm the only one in our family who doesn't eat food in order, bubs I like to move around my plate and eat things evenly, though I leave peas until near the end, as I don't like them much!

DH even pulls the salad out of a lovingly made sandwich and eats that first, before eating the rest of the sandwich. I don't even bother making it into a sandwih for DS2 - I just put it all on a plate or in his lunchbag separately!)

Oh, dear. It looks like I'm the least tolerant person in the universe.

Still, at least I freed up all those mashers, shovellers and ketchup monsters for the rest of you to marry

my kids still like to do this with certain meals especially sunday roast with lots of gravy. They call it 'making a dogs dinner'. I am just glad they are eating it all without a fuss but I do encourage them not to do it when they are eating out.

Phew! Cross-posted with some other intolerant bastards

Gosh. I don't see it as him doing me some sort of favour by eating the food I've prepared.
If anything, I think I've done him a favour by preparing a meal for him (usually whilst he's out playing tennis or riding his bike).
He knows I don't like the food mixing business, but carries on anyway. What about him showing a bit of consideration for my feelings?

If it's snobby not to enjoy crappy table manner, I'm snobby and proud! Manners are free.