To think these are correct table manners or am I just a snob??

[Justintime3]

I was raised with strict table manners, yet I have never been sat at a table with anyone who has the same table manners I do! Are these over the top?

This is what I was taught

1. Do not eat until the person who cooked sits down (excused if the chef says you can start)
2. Do not eat until everyone has their food in a restaurant (excused if the person without their food says you can start)
3. Chew with your mouth closed and do not speak with your mouth full
4. Do not take calls or use your phone at the table. Excuse yourself if you need to
5. Put your knife and fork together at the front of your plate when you are finished
6. Offer the last serving of XYZ to the table before you take it
7. Thank the person who cooked and offer to clean up
8. Elbows off the table
9. Tear bread into small chunks to eat in a restaurant, don't bite off the whole roll

10. Use cutlery correctly

• index finger on top of your knife and fork
• spoons for soup and dessert only. Spoon the soup from the farthest side of the bowl
• load food onto the back of the fork with your knife. (No 'shovelling' as my mum called it)

My mum's always been really strict on it and is the type to point out people's bad table manners so I've always followed these to a T. Thoughts? Is this over the top and I'm a snob, or are these just normal to expect?

Because of how I've been raised I can't help but be put off when I see someone without these manners.

Just keen to see how others were raised!

Objection, objection!

1. This woman sounds American. They use cutlery differently. We have been told several times on this thread that they are wrong and disgust people.

1. She is instructing us to drag the bowl of the spoon across the rim of the soup plate / dish. Do people really want to hear that? And what if you are eating your soup from a bowl, or is that bad manners?

I agree with everything up til #10.b & c (still guilty of elbows & phone unless we're somewhere nice) - I'm left handed, and never got the hang of correctly "loading" my fork as my right-handed parents taught me to, so I eat how I can, as delicately as I can manage it. And gasp I exclusively use my left hand for fork, AND spoon. Never been able to hold either in my right without looking like a toddler. I hold knife and cut with my right.

And tbh never heard of the spooning soup from the back of the bowl - I just eat that soup, and try not to spill.

I've only got a toddler at the moment so we're still on the "please don't fling the entire plate of pasta sauce onto our rented beige carpet" end of the scale, but I'm not sure I'll be too strict enforcing the finer etiquette-based rules like which direction to eat from off the plate, etc.

This is exactly how I was brought up and I did the same with my kids. Good table manners are hard to find these days.

All of these other than the fork part. Never seen anyone using a fork by squishing something on the back of it

I've never seen even the most excruciatingly polite Americans scrape a soup spoon across the rim of the soup plate/ bowl as the woman js doing in that video. At most, you wipe the bottom of the soup spoon discreetly on the point where the bowl ends and the rim begins, soundlessly.

This is the 12 o'clock position.

When I was a kid at camp, if anybody dared to put their elbows on the table, everybody would start chanting, usually led by the cabin Counsellor at each table (insert the campers name) " "Camper Camper young & able...
get those elbows off the table!
This is not a horses stable, this is a first class dining table....STANNND UP!!!"

I never was called, thankfully!

Yes all fairly standard table manners. Agree that not many people seem to have these manners though.

The best post. This is so true.
While I practise the usual table manners what you say is the most important and I will never judge a person by their manners.
I also have to be honest about how I feel. I feel uncomfortable if I notice my fellow diners purp loudly, talking on their telephones, coughing on my food, showing me their chewed up food or exhibiting other extreme rudeness like gobbling the first course before the host has joined us.

I never notice an elbow, a fork, a soup slurp, a poor roll cut or other non disruptive differences because they do not detract from the joyful gathering and the sharing of love, food, experiences and chatter. I regard a happy daily family meal time more highly than manners but to combine the two is easy..

Manners affect others. How is how you handle cutlery affecting others?

YANBU

Aren't these just every day table manners?

I think it's snobbish to care too much about how other people use their cutlery, but agree with you about chewing with an open mouth. Treating people politely is important; tedious rules about how people maneuver food from plate to mouth are of no consequence to me.

I was raised this way. I work in a school now and see some disgusting habits, kids jabbing food and sticking a fork in it and eating it like a lolly, no idea how to hold cutlery or use a knife. Playing with their food and talking so it is all on show and it drops out. My mum would have a fit!

Thinks like not eating with your mouth full and being polite to your host etc are of course, basic manners.

But things like how people hold their cutlery etc are just fucking stupid, rules for rules sake so beloved of the upper classes of old so they can feel superior to commoners.

Not when you’ve finished a meal, no.

While they are all known table manners, some of them are quite silly, I think. I mean, chewing with your mouth closed and not talking while eating or using a phone at the table are obviously rude. But spooning soup from the back of the bowl and tearing a roll into small pieces for instance, don’t really make a lot of sense or seem any more polite than the alternatives. Even squashing food onto the back of a fork has never really made sense to me when it’s so much easier to balance it on the front of the fork and not in any way rude or unpleasant to do this.

Squashing peas, how you use your spoon when you’re eating soup (as long as the bowl is on the table!) doesn’t bother me. But holding a knife like a pen makes me stabby.

My ex was an incredibly up his own arse idiot whose entire life was a masquerade about how posh he was and he was such a snob. Couldn’t hold a knife. I wanted to point it out every meal.

I don't understand rules one and two when the dish is hot or frozen (i.e. sorbet or icecream). You insult the chef and spoil your meal by letting it go cold or melt whilst you wait for others to be served. And at banquet-type events with long tables, you'd be waiting a long time.

For a room temperature or fridge temperature dish, I agree that you should wait.

What do you mean by #4 being on your phone, as in taking a call or just merely touching your phone?

a phone is so many things in 2023 from a camera to a calculator to a calendar. If I want to show someone a photo on my phone, I’m rude now? As a young person, I genuinely don’t understand the issue and think it’s an archaic view

That doesn’t mean you’re right. I agree with you on some bits but mainly it’s rude to have your phone out on the table. You’re basically saying something might come up that’s more interesting than the person you’re with.

I pull my phone out sometimes, as we want to Google something.

However, it is rude to be sat there scrolling away, or having a text conversation when you are in company.

Most of these. Especially the tearing a bread roll into tiny pieces to eat, just putting small amount of butter on our plate and and buttering the one mouthful of bread at a time. Also if we were staying in a hotel then Mum taught us to do similar with toast at breakfast - a small helping of butter and marmalade on our plates so we didn't dip knives with crumbs on back in the butter or marmalade. And then just spreading a small amount at a time (maybe a quarter if a slice). I'm old, so the butter and marmalade would be in dishes for the whole table rather than individually wrapped pats of butter and mini jam jars so getting crumbs in them was a big no no.

Table napkins, cloth ones, had an etiquette too. Families would often reuse their napkins for several meals - folding or putting them in their napkin ring at the end of a meal. As a guest folding the napkin was tantamount to hinting that we expected to stay for another meal, so the correct thing was to leave it lightly crumpled. (Unless we were already invited for another meal in which case folding was fine).

Later someone rather grand told me that where a spoon and a fork are given for dessert, you should just use the fork unless the dessert is very runny in which case you use the spoon and fork together.

It’s rude to have a phone out on a table? That’s so extreme.

If I don’t have pockets or a bag with me, where is my phone supposed to go? I live in a city centre and all I need when out is my phone and keys. Women’s clothing tends to not have pockets, such as dresses.

Plenty of restaurants encourage you to use your phone, such as ordering directly to the table or scanning QR codes. So if I participate, I’m rude?

You can check your phone in the course of the conversation eg check a map on your phone together to the next location, view cinema times, directions to an event you can go to afterwards, check parking or travel times. Plus anyone can give you undivided attention with their phone merely resting on the table.