People who tuck in before everyone is served - rude?

[SarahAndQuack]

Say you have family/friends over and you are cooking a meal for, say, 8 or 10 people - enough that it takes a bit of time to get on the table. Either you dish it up on plates and pass them out, or you serve everyone at table - you do guests first, of course. Guests tuck in straight away, while everyone else is still being served.

Is that rude?

I was brought up to think you wait for everyone to be served, if it's a sit-down meal.

What do you think?

Rude.

Rude

Rude

Unless I / the host says start in which case it’s not rude, it’s rude.

Yeah I pass them round.
Quickly.
So I can get back to my dinner.

My DM is the worst for this, I find it so rude.

I think the host is rude if they're serving hot food but dont tell their guests to begin straight away.

It also depends where you are and who you are with I think.

In my own house, serving immediate family, I'd expect everyone to start when served (but wait at the table for me to finish).

Serving friends at a dinner party, I'd expect them to wait until I told them to start.

At a restaurant, wait until everyone has their food.

@sashh

Those of you who just dig in wat do you do if there are serving dishes on the table?

Don't you pass them round? I mean if there is meat on one plate, potatoes in a dish and other veg in a different veg and a sauce / gravy?

If you just want meat and potatoes do you just serve yourself and dig in? How do you feel if someone asks you to pass the gravy?

You just pas them round.

I do stay at the table.
I mean, I might be in with a chance of seconds.

Hot - eat it
Cold - wait

RUDE!!
YANBU Op

Not moving in those circles, can anyone confirm that the upper classes, who don't wait, just eat everything so quickly that the last to be served has started yet? On the rare occasions I have dined with even upper middle classes the were at pains to ensure everyone was comfortable and slowed down their pace to match the slowest eater.
Surely it is about the communal enjoyment of the meal. Therefore in institutions (jail, e.g.) and army manouvers waiting doesn't apply. People then make the link between starting straight away and such situations.

Rude to start before everyone is served.

It's not like it takes hours to plate up is it and food doesn't go cod that quickly.

I prefer guests to eat hot food.

OP why ask when you clearly think you are right?

I think it is rude to make people wait for everyone to have their food, definitely start eating while its hot. However, i always say that to guests when i hand them their plate, or if we are out in a restaurant.i think you've let people start for too long, you should have said something the first time if it bothers you.

YABU

It is a problem! I was brought up to always wait until everyone was ready to eat before starting and I think it is extremely rude to just dig in before everyone is even sitting at the table. However I am very aware that is not the case for everyone and I don't want my guests to feel awkward about starting before everyone else (always supposing they are socially aware enough to realise this), so if I see this happening I tend to pick up my cutlery so that it looks as if I am starting but not actually start until everyone has been served. I do that the other way round as well - if I am being hosted by someone else I can't bear to start before everyone else is ready but if I can see that others have started already I try to look as if I am starting but don't actually do it. The difficulty is if at a restaurant where there is a delay in serving everyone at the table - in that case it is fair enough to start eating, but only once it becomes obvious that there is a significant delay.

It's one of those social expectations that's just a load of crap - why would you sit and wait for your food to go cold in the name of 'politeness' - because it doesn't help the people who haven't got their food yet in any way. It's just politeness for politeness sake. Personally I think it's rude and entitled to expect people to let their food go cold, what a lot of non sense.

@FixTheBone

Terrible, I often cook, literally 4 or 5 hours for my inlaws / extended family (usually about 16 people).

I'm sick of cooking it to perfection, timing it so everything comes out simultaneously with hot plates and serving dishes, and sitting down to find I sometimes don't even get a share.

That's really shocking.

@Gowithme

It's one of those social expectations that's just a load of crap - why would you sit and wait for your food to go cold in the name of 'politeness' - because it doesn't help the people who haven't got their food yet in any way. It's just politeness for politeness sake. Personally I think it's rude and entitled to expect people to let their food go cold, what a lot of non sense.

This

It's rude, but host should invite guests to start and this avoids the problem.

@HollowTalk I suppose that depends. If it's happening all the time then it suggests she's not actually cooking enough.

@BordelDeMerde

It's rude. Basic manners is to wait until everyone is served unless the host insists differently.

Absolutely this.

No it’s not rude. Why should everyone’s food start to go cold.
Your guests should be welcomed to start eating once it’s been dished up.
It’s entitled to think everyone should wait for you while letting their food go cold.

Yes, it’s rude unless the host says for people to start as soon as they are served. Generally I would wait anyway but allow the kids to start.

I loathe the expression "tuck in" and "dig in" because it puts in mind snouts in a trough. Having said that, and i grew up with quite formal manners and had them drummed into me at school too, it is rude to start eating before everyone is served.
I also think it is rude of a host not to say, (and op how you can't say this while handing plates round escapes me) "please start before it gets cold" so that people can eat while food is hot.

If you're saying grace? you can serve the food after grace, it's only a few seconds anyway (unless you're doing that horrendously long latin one)

Horrendously rude unless the host says “Don’t wait, dig in”.

Equally rude of your guests to complain about hot plates, though! Stop inviting these Neanderthals to dinner and that should solve it.

I was always taught in general terms it's rude to start until everyone just their food. It's always been a fairly basic rule. I was a bit surprised dp had not been taught this (very different backgrounds). In his house there wasn't a lot of food growing up so you ate fast or one of his brothers would be likely to assume he didn't want it. He isn't being rude it's just ingrained habit (that said he doesn't do it qith us now).

Having said all that we do have a couple of family members that are huge faffers. (In one case it's very much an attention based behaviour that filters into their martyr complex).

Their insistence that everyone waits until they sit down, before which they change the heating, wash up half the dishes, send a text, polish a piece of brass write a letter to the prime minister is alla bout wanting to ascend to the table like the again event and see that their minions will not eat until they command is much more rude. Everyone just started avoiding eating at their home as they use etiquette rules as a wielded weapon. So frankly it depends.

Yea good manners is to wait for everyone. It's hardly going to go cold in the few minutes it takes for everyone to be served