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!

Etiquette is carefully learned ways of making it obvious who doesn’t ’belong’. Yes!

I would consider these normal manners for European food. However I like to eat rice and curry dishes with a spoon, Asian food with chopsticks and at home I slurp my noodles and drink the broth from the bowl with no fucks given.

I'm all for etiquette and am 100% behind rules that make everyone's life easier.

However, no reasonable person should be spending time trying to push peas on to the back of a fork, so the occasional bit of 'shovelling' is a sign of being a sane person rather than bad manners.

These are super basic.. yes absolutely to all of them.

But that's the correct way to eat rice with chopsticks and a rice bowl. Same in India, Indonesia and Malaysia when eaten by hand. The use of the word 'shovelling' implies crassness which is offensive and again it's that British superiority complex. We don't seek to improve, just assure ourselves we are superior by judging others.

Consideration for others has no bearing on how you hold your cutlery, truly. As mentioned upthread, some people use alternative cutlery or none at all to eat so how does your argument work there? Are they being inconsiderate? Or just following long standing cultural traditions around food? In some cultures, slurping and belching are perfectly acceptable: the idea that following the OP’s rules shows ‘consideration’ falls apart when you look at basically any other country in the world

I agree. This isn't manners, but some unspoken code for something. I had never heard of this etiquette rule until I joined a foodie forum several years ago.

That said I very rarely eat out anywhere where I get a bread roll as we tend to eat Indian/Thai/Chinese when we eat out, or I don't bother with a starter.

Precisely this. It’s typical, in-group out-group, classist bollocks. It is another way for people who think they are better than others simply by virtue of blindly following some arcane rules handed down to them to reinforce their superiority.

People who judge others for how they eat need to get out more - ironically it’s incredibly bad manners to sit in judgement of another person over something as trivial as that. I’m all for judging people on the content of their character, not how they hold a fork!

Some cutlery rules are there to signal to staff (wait staff, servants) that you've either finished, or are still eating.

I was taught to put my knife & fork together across the middle of my plate to signal that I was finished. Otherwise, how are staff supposed to know to take your plate?

Just so you know... You tear your roll roughly in half, then into smaller bite-sized pieces. You use your knife to take some butter from the dish/ board and place it at the side of your plate and then you put a bit of butter on each piece before you pop it neatly into your mouth with no crumbs and without any embarrassing tugging and chewing to try and get a piece off.

A lot of these guidelines developed during the days when there were no washing machines and more people had false teeth/ dental issues. Lots of women (some of my elderly aunts among them) had their teeth taken out in their 20s to avoid expensive dentistry later in life. Plus a lot of men had moustaches and the bread thing means that you're less likely to end up with a moustache caked with butter and crumbs.

The 'rules' were about protecting precious clothing, not looking clumsy and dropping things, not contaminating the butter dish with crumbs, and not putting others off their food by trying to get half a buttered roll in your mouth at once because your false teeth couldn't cope with a tough crust.

I agree these are very specific table manners to a specific culture - some dishes come and different times abd you start, some you share dishes, I went to a lovely Ethiopian restaurant where the cutlery was bread.

surely better etiquette and manners is recognising the differences and adapting accordingly

Normal table manners. Particularly dislike knife and fork not set together at the end of a meal. My friend's husband eats with his arms almost at right angles flapping about - looks like he's shovelling food into his mouth - makes me wince.

Go back and read my whole post, rather than just picking out one bit out of context so that you can have an ableist chuckle about it.

I think they are mostly true and expected…however we are living in a much more casual world these days so imo they don’t ALL apply ALL the time in every setting/situation. Like having a casual pub lunch with a close girlfriend etc would call for all of these. Sitting at home at my own table wouldn’t call for them all either…
my dh’s family are much more into all of these rules and to be honest it tires me out sometimes. (I’m not from England though so that might add to why I feel that way!)

Completely standard in the UK. Completely different in other parts of the world and so I wouldn't judge because I don't presume to know whether people subscribe to my own (probably outdated) conventions.

this isn't strict? it's just normal...

I remember a thread from some time ago about people holding their cutlery in the 'wrong' hands and the frothing that some people did about how these subpar neanderthals were a disgusting disgrace to humanity, or words to that effect.

I suppose not all of us can achieve great things of note to assure our places in the history books, so if you have nothing else, maybe convincing yourself that you're much better than somebody else who does something slightly and inconsequentially different from you is all you have.

Why bother to graciously elevate yourself, when you can just stamp down on the heads of others and effectively end up in the same place?

I remember tht thread @FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper (love your user name BTW )

As most people don't sit at trestle tables it makes sense for the user to use their knife in their dominant hand, so left handers will usually have the knife in their left hand.

This isn't wrong, it's different. I thought that the Victorian attitude that being left handed was wrong was stamped out years ago.

Also, learn how to eat soup properly and fold a napkin on your lap.

I'm more of a slob at home but any work/business type dinners I roll out all the etiquette. It's distracting when you have someone at the table who has no idea.

In 90s South Korea my friend was given a detention to practice moving dried peas between plates using chopsticks. Her teacher was disgusted at her chopstick use in the lunch hall!

Me too and my DC follow the same code.

All pretty basic - although not strongly enforced at home.

except for this:

• index finger on top of your knife and fork

my fingers are gently wrapped around a knife and fork, unless I need pressure to cut, that's the only time the index finger is actually on the fork. I think it would be very odd to have your index finger laid along the knife/fork at all times.

I suppose conveying silent messages to my staff isn't a problem I've had to deal with.

Even at restaurants - waiting staff usually come and ask how everyone is getting on once everyone has stopped eating. The silent domestics waiting to receive signals from the angle of your cutlery are not a feature of modern life as I have known it.

You are a snob 😅

Tbh some of these are reasonable and good manners that everyone should know for like black tie occasions but day to day some of them are really ott, especially using cutlery correctly. I literally can't cut food holding cutlery correctly and hold forks on the wrong hand and upside down. Also the elbows thing is just ott.

Yep, with the fork resting prongs-up.

Up and down the plate. Never across. And not putting them together signals to the waiter that you haven't finished.