Table Manners

[ciele]

AIBU to think such things are important?
I was brought up to consider such stuff as no elbows on the table, not eating with your mouth open, putting knife and fork together when you have finished as non negotiable.
My OH thinks these things are just the way my family was (read that as you will but I take it to mean shallow and overly concerned with the niceties).

I'm left handed and have always eaten with fork in left knife in right. I think I would find it more difficult the other way round?

The standard way that left handed people eat is fork in right and knife in left. I can't use my fork at all in my left, it feels so wrong to me. I also play computer games with a different configuration to righties.

I still hold the cutlery in the 'correct' way, just opposite hands. I just quietly move the cutlery around when i'm seated and no one notices or cares. I am on a mission to introduce left handed fish knives to fish restaurants tho. I always have to use a knife as they never have any.

Totally agree Mrs Koala. In my case, it's the swapping that's considered "rude" for some reason my DH can't explain.

If I eat something that doesn't need to be "cut", like penne pasta for example, I like to just pick the fork up in my right hand and eat with that. I'm right-handed - if I needed a knife I would need my "stronger" hand to cut, but if I don't, then why should I use my weaker hand just because it would be "rude" to use that hand? No one expects me to eat soup with my left hand - it really is just arbitrary.

Personally i always hold a piece of cutlery in each hand otherwise it feels wrong. So if eating penne/pasta i would hold the fork in my right and the spoon in my left. I would probably push the pasta onto the spoon with the fork and raise it to my mouth with my left.

ifailed eating noisily and slurping is considered bad manners in our society, so why wouldn't you make sure that your children know that?

I think there's a big difference between teaching children to have some basic table manners and subjecting them to constant petty nagging that will cause them to associate meal times with stress and strain.

Holding your knife in your right or left hand makes no difference to anyone else, so who cares if it's "correct" or not.

But not closing your mouth.... Grim.

I think using your knife and fork in the opposite hands to the traditional place settings cannot be thought of as bad manners. Standard for left handers. (Unless you are really an unreasonable Victorian.)

Using your knife and fork (in either hand) to chop up the some (or. entire plate of) food then changing your fork over to the other hand to eat chopped food is the problem. Seems like a pointless amount of work to me!!

As a side note, I have to add I knew a boy whose mother was very strict on manners. Informed everyone how marvellous her son's table manners were. Ate like 'a proper French boy' (despite not being French).

Now he really did eat like a chimpanzee out of her company. Squatted on the chair; grabbed food with his hands; chewed with mouth wide open; added more before he'd finished each mouthful. Even yelled and yelped as he ate.

A sight to behold I tell you!!

StripySocks I agree with you about the constant swapping of cutlery and hands - which is another reason I changed my eating style generally. But it wasn't till I left the US that I could see what a ridiculous practice it was, just from an efficiency perspective.

Not eating with your mouth open and putting your knife and fork together at the end is reasonable enough but I don't get the elbows thing so I don't do that in my house.

Ifailed - Eating noisily or slurping is not disgusting

Yes. It is.

@RoseWhiteTips Oh. 🤔 I always eat my rice meals with a knife and fork, so do my children - the youngest being 5.

I didn't know there were people who don't do that.

PolkaDotDressIsSpotty
Well you go ahead and label it as disgusting without spending a single second on why you were taught to think it is.

From Debretts

The best table manners are always those that no one notices

If someone is eating noisily and slurping, I am going to notice. Yuk.

Rice, cous cous and pasta dishes are always eaten with a fork and spoon here. I always chuckle when see people trying to eat them with a knife and fork, it looks so awkward.

Ifailed I think it looks and sounds disgusting. I would not want to eat with someone that ate like a pig.

PolkaDotDressIsSpotty
Don't travel outside your little bubble then.

Also from Debretts. their website is fascinating and very sensible.

Noises Off
Try to avoid making noises of any kind while eating, either with implements against the plate or teeth, or with the actual ingestion of the food, such as slurping soup.

In Britain it is not traditional to say the equivalent of the French ‘bon appetit’ or American ‘enjoy’. Express appreciation but do so politely. Gestures such as rubbing the tummy or smacking the lips are inappropriate. Similarly, when refusing a second portion, avoid big gestures and decline politely: a simple ‘no thank you’ covers most situations.

Hahahaha so because I don't want to eat with people that eat like pigs I'm in a little bubble? Seriously. Hahaha.

I'll come out to dinner with you Polka.

and actually Ifailed I'm pretty well travelled.

Manners cost nothing.

Where - outside of a japanese noodle bar - is slurping or eating noisily is generally expected? I'm interested to know as I don't know; always welcome being educated further!!!

Eating noisily and slurping is obviously the norm in some cultures, and if you were dining with people from those cultures or countries, you'd no doubt accept it as part of parcel of a convivial meal.

However, to people from our cultures, it's a bit uncouth. So you can go ahead and do it, but people will notice, and you'll look the (noisy) odd one out.

I think people are losing sight of the importance of context.....

I personally would find it distasteful to see/hear someone noisily slurping soup from a spoon in the context of a normal meal.

However, if I visit a ramen restaurant in Japan or in the UK I appreciate that "slurping" is a traditional part of the eating experience - designed to allow you to lift the noodles with your chopsticks whilst both cooling and allowing you to slurp up the rich broth that is core to the dish. Similar with Chinese soup dumplings where you slurp out the liquid contents of the dumpling.

I'm equally not going to break out the silver service in a Chinese restaurant, I'll adopt the cultural custom of chopsticks or in the case of a burger or crayfish in the US - I'm going to eat it with my hands (juices dripping down my arm).

Good manners are as much about context as anything else.

However the original point of this thread was focused around UK manners around the table in public and private.

For me, yes they are important. I want my children to be comfortable in as many environments as possible and to know that what's appropriate in some settings is not in others - but fundamentally that process starts (for me) with the basics of UK good etiquette (holding cutlery properly, mouth closed, no elbows, no gadgets, waiting for everyone to start, asking to leave the table, saying please/thank you etc etc).

Nicely put Hanna

I'm much less interested in random table rules than in a) my children eating a balanced meal without complaining (saying thank you mum is to be encouraged too) and b) actually enjoying family time and having a conversation together. Life is too short to stress about where to out your elbows or cutlery.