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!

Exactly how I was brought up and have raised my kids. Good Manners are invaluable.

The objective is to enjoy the meal. Are you really saying no one should drop a single crumb on a dining table? Never invite me for dinner at your house! Fucking hell

Yes, OP - these are basic good table manners. So much faux drama/ offence here from some pps about what is really just common sense and reasonable consideration for fellow diners. We're not talking finger bowls or 6 sets of cutlery, are we?

If you're eating alone then yes, trotters in the trough if that's what you like. But it only takes a bit of empathy to think about how stuffing a whole bread roll in your mouth, slurping your soup or masticating your food with your mouth open might affect the appetite and enjoyment of people sitting opposite you.

how stuffing a whole bread roll in your mouth, slurping your soup or masticating your food with your mouth open

Absolutely no one on this thread is suggesting any of those things though

If someone had a big enough mouth to fit a whole bread roll into it in one go, I'd be more impressed than anything else.

@CoffeeCantata ’trotters in the trough’. Nice to see what your views are of other cultures that use their hands to eat.

TheKeatingFive

Fair play! But I'm always amused by the fact that as soon as anyone mentions any kind of social expectation or convention on MN (eg being expected to wear particular clothes on special occasions, or modify behaviour in any small way) out come the pps claiming it's old fashioned/stuffy/pearl-clutching/damaging to MH/snobbish/a breach of human rights etc.

Look at the pjs at hotel breakfast and asking son to wear something other than a tracksuit threads. You'd think they were being asked to dress for the Ambassador's Ball, the OTT fuss that's made.

You are so right. Breaking your roll into tiny pieces is all about consideration for others and not signalling to people that you’re just better than they are because you know weird rules about how to eat ‘properly’

8-10 are quite picky (never heard the bread thing and my mum was such a stickler for manners she made me practice using a spoon with a bowl of water) but the rest are fairly basic imo

I and another PP have already pointed out a practical reason for the bread tradition. It’s to stop you messing up your clothes. I don’t know about you, but when I spill food on myself I feel clumsy and embarrassed and often people will laugh and tease a bit. If you can avoid getting crumbs on yourself why not?

“load food onto the back of the fork with your knife. (No 'shovelling' as my mum called it)”

like in the photo?
I agree with everything else but not this, is this the British way only or more general?

The ridiculous rule that you just break off and butter individual chunks of your bread roll is absolutely and intentionally a class marker.

It’s not an efficient way of doing things (and breaking off lots of little bits will generate crumbs) but it functions brilliantly as a way of creating an in and out group.

This is a well studied studied thing. British formal dining etiquette is all about demonstrating class status. And looking down at people who do dreadful thing like butter their roll and dip it in their soup.

Other things are class signifiers, but breaking chunks off your bread generates more crumbs but on the plate, not over your lap or your cleavage if you’ve got one.

I was brought with table manners, as per the thread topic but what puzzle is soup and croutons, why is it ok to put croutons into the soup yet frowned upon to put buttered chucks of bread into it?

I grew up with most of these, but was terribly cack-handed as a child so struggled massively with the back of the fork bit and also the one that wasn't mentioned but that I used to get in trouble over - eating with elbows in at the sides. I understood why, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't cut anything without sticking my elbows out.
I can do it now, but it took a mighty long time to get my body to do what seemed so easy for everyone else.

It is 100% a bullshit class signifier and pretending that it’s simply ‘better’ that slicing the roll open and buttering it is utterly disingenuous.

If you’re worried about crumbs in the butter, loads of people buttering individual morsels is worse than people just buttering their roll at the start. And if it bothers you, serve individual butter curls or something.

But anyone sneering about how people eat their own roll or use their for is just unpleasant.

Because it’s all a test to see if you’re posh enough. It’s pretty arbitrary - the rule is just there to make it clear who is not part of the in-group. Or, as the OP puts it, if you were raised the (superior) way she was.

I haven’t sneered at anyone, just pointed out what the rationale might be or have been. By the way, the socially “perfect” way to eat a bread roll is to cut a large chunk of butter and leave it on the side of your plate to butter smaller chunks. Alternatively, posher places will have a butter knife or individual pats of butter if you’re really pushing the boat out.

https://www.theswaddle.com/social-etiquette-doesnt-signify-good-behavior-just-class-discrimination

This is the manners/etiquette distinction. Good manners are things like saying please, thank you, holding a door, pouring someone else a glass of water, offering the last piece of something. Etiquette is about class and would be no elbows on the table, spoon soup away from you, silly pea eating.

We do all of these as standard in company. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t apart from
my DD who is still learning with cutlery and her peers (3-4 year olds).

On my own I will admit to some shoveling and elbows.

Holding a door, whether you say what? or pardon?, who you thank and how are all still riddled with social markers of various kinds. There are no universal ‘manners’.

Holding a door is consideration. Saying what? Or pardon? is etiquette and firmly related to class, as are loo/toilet, napkin/serviette etc

Most are basic table manners that I would do without thinking about it.

I doubt the world will come crashing down if someone's knife and fork were not perfectly positioned on their empty plate, or they bite into a bread roll though. I am also not scrutinising other people's elbow positions during a meal. These are not hills I would be prepared to die on.

The 'large chunk of butter' thing, does it not mean that because you're not permitted to go back to the communal butter dish, you end up with far too much and there's a nice slick of butter left on your plate?

I'm curious, I don't eat butter so couldn't fall foul of this one, but I do like a nice bread roll sometimes.