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!

If the staff don't understand the signal, you're not making it easy for them. If you show irritation at being asked if you have finished, that's bad manners. If people keep interrupting you or trying to rush you along, that's bad manners.

The purpose of manners is to keep everyone comfortable, not to hold everyone to universal rules (which were never at any time universal).

It’s not snobby to expect people to behave well at the dinner table .

My absolute bug bear is those that cut the bread roll with a knife and have multiple goes at the communal butter.

just tear your roll, take a knob of butter, put it on your side plate and be done.

More or less had the same table manners drummed into me as a child. Living abroad has made me more relaxed about some of this, but it is still ingrained. As often travelling around, I very much follow peoples' lead about some things that would be appreciated differently.

Honestly, probably very, and I am. However, as a waitress you need to balance the chef wanting to get the dish out ASAP and when perfectly cooked, front of house wanting the diners to have the best possible experience which probably means not too much time between courses, and the diners themselves who don’t tend to communicate to the waiting staff how they want their meal paced (it’s a bit like how people tend to suffer through taxi journeys with chatty drivers instead of saying they’d prefer it quiet).

They sound pretty basic eating good manners to me

Most of these are standard politeness , though the cutlery and bread roll ones are a bit outdated and wouldn't bother me - they're down to education and shouldn't be judged.

All very standard/normal.

And 3. Sitting opposite someone eating with their mouth open, unless they can't breathe through their nose is really off putting.

To be honest this "rule" is a rather pointless one isn't it?

DH eats slowly due to health issues. There is no way I am going to eat at his pace because my food would get cold. He often has to reheat his food in the microwave.

Totally agree. Holding a knife like a pencil is heinous behaviour imo.

My mum used to say that this was affected behaviour ie someone trying to be posh. In reality it means that you can't really control your knife if cutting meat. How do you put pressure on your knife if you hold it like a pencil?

The aunt has a point though imo. These are all utterly needless and I’ve never actually met anyone IRL who cares about or discusses table manners. Don’t eat with your mouth full is about the only necessary and noticeable one. The soup spooning thing I’ve never heard of until this thread!

@edwinbear

Italians consider that using a spoon and fork to eat spaghetti is only really acceptable for children or foreigners!

I think waiting for the cook to sit before eating isn't pointless though - it's showing respect

The odd one is your bread one - I'd say breaking your bread into chunks is playing with your food and so less polite that just biting the roll

Also trying to squash peas on the back of your fork is a mad way to eat them.

Each to their own, but if we're being judgey, squashing peas with the back of your fork makes me think of how a toddler might try to do it, whilst they're still at the stage of learning to eat with cutlery.

Why do people think that forks are curved in the first place, if not to add the function to scoop with it, as well as to spear with the tines?

I wonder if these snobby people, when digging their garden, insist on using the back of the spade to move the soil - as doing the obvious, efficient thing would somehow be stupid?!!

Forks are pretty horrid though

Pain for many food - who wants to eat peas one at a time - and scratchy nasty things

As long I neither see it nor hear it once it's entered somebody's mouth, I don't really care about anything else.

Except an ex. He was in a whole different category of nope, I'm not eating with you again.

Meal placed on table. 'Where's the cheese and butter?'. It's Sunday Dinner. 'Yeah, it needs cheese and butter'. Giant block of cheddar gets grated over the plate and covering most of the table. Then add chunks of butter hacked off a block. Then proceed to dice up the roast potatoes, broccoli and other vegetables, stirring the vegetables, gravy, cheese and pools of butter until it resembles a roughly processed slurry, clanging knife and fork against the plate with force.

Add more cheese and loads of pepper. Stir again before conveying the paste with a fork and spoon shovel combo to slurp between the teeth and coat the lips with fat, elbows out at 180 degrees as though he were a rather shit military drummer. Make copious smacking sounds and always make a point of grinning as widely as possible mid mouthful. Belch a wet and oily belch at the end, grin and say 'compliments to the chef, it's polite, you know'.

The irony was that he insisted this was the only proper and polite way to eat, he was 'mincing his meal' and everybody else was an animal/intellectually disadvantaged if they tended to eat one thing at a time or didn't feel the need to be quite so noisy disgusting.

Mind you, he also insisted that spaghetti had to be cut up in the saucepan to pieces no longer than two inches before the spoon and fork shovel combination came out, so I should have run for the hills far sooner than I did.

Do people really bother about elbows on the table?

I agree with most of those, they are basic manners, with the exception of 9 and 10 which are pointless and serve no purpose other than to make people who don't comply, feel awkward..

As long as people eat with their mouths closed and don't gobble as if they've never been fed before, I'm ok with it.

Your list makes these manners seem excessive, but breaking it down they are pretty basic, normal manners and yanbu (although the bread one is a bit ott).

You have standards. Don’t change

I don’t agree with back of the fork (that’s just perverse ) and I don’t really care about elbows but other than that the whole list seems reasonable to me and I wouldn’t say it was snobby at all. Kids won’t do all of them
but adults probably should.

I think the bread one came partly from the 'breaking' bread tradition with friends and family

I was brought up to do it and I think it's much better than cutting a roll in half and slathering it in butter

Why do people think that forks are curved in the first place, if not to add the function to scoop with it, as well as to spear with the tines?

I agree. It is a practical tool if allowed to be used practically, not something designed to trip you up in "polite society"

I was brought up to do it and I think it's much better than cutting a roll in half and slathering it in butter

I'm sorry, but I disagree. Why is it better? It serves no practical purpose.

I was brought up to do it and I think it's much better than cutting a roll in half and slathering it in butter

I'm sorry, but I disagree. Why is it better? It serves no practical purpose.

Agree with RampantIvy

Like everything else, this is context dependent. What kind of bread, what kind of butter? Any butter? Bread with soup? Warm bread? Crusty, crumbly bread? Butter pats, curls, portions? Oil for pouring? Vinegar? Room for separate bread plates?

You are aiming to eat with minimum mess, minimum fuss, minimum bother to others, maximum appreciation and respect. Once you have grasped these principles, most people will be capable of making a sensible choice about how to eat bread. This need not be based on what their mothers always told them. Sometimes that advice won't work in new context. More often it will work as well as the alternatives - it's the principles that matter.