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!

Those are exactly the table manners I was brought up with too. I don't worry if other people don't follow those rules though, there are so many more important things to know about people, don't you think?

DH doesn't have those manners though he probably was brought up with them. It was impossible to get dd to adhere to them with her father there objecting or taking the piss when I tried to encourage them, so she doesn't have them. Tbh, I only wanted her to use them because it would make her more acceptable to my wider family. Happy to say my close family, inc my mum, don't worry about others' manners either

"You should break your bread, not bite it". What the Masters used to say at my dad's private prep school.

Only by those with no manners 😋

Normal basic table manners. However, It is surprising how many adults there are that don't possess basic table manners.

Op list is not normal or basic table manners. It’s joyless and contrived
Pursued in the false belief it elevates one’s social status or confers a superiority
However I see people all posting how yes,they do all those things. Oh yes? really?

This 😂 I'd say I have good table manners but I'm not overly precious about it.

From op list I do 1 thing,point 3. Don’t maintain any of the others,all that servile waiting to be instructed or told what’s permissible

The list above is exactly what I was taught. I consider it basic manners and minimum you would teach and pass on to children and grandchildren .

Nice manners are just that. Nice behaviour. Like holding doors for people, queuing properly, offering a seat to older etc people on buses, not swearing in public, not playing audible music or eating smelly food on public transport, maintaining personal hygiene, keeping dogs under control etc. Manners show respect and oil social activity. It's depressing that some folk think manners are servile.

Just normal table manners imo.

Because the latter ones (bread/hold cutlery) aren’t manners they are rules designed in part to highlight social differences -Dickens used it well in Great Expectations.
they are also very British and don’t take into account other cultures and how they eat and a very specific type of meal.

bbq have a different set of rules

Given the OP starts with ‘yet I have never been sat at a table with anyone who has the same table manners I do!’, it’s clear that her expectations are out of whack with everyone around her.

Probably because she’s being weird about how people balance things on forks or what they’re doing with a soup spoon or where their index finger is on a knife (safety tip: don’t balance your index finger down the top of a knife, it’s makes it’s more likely that you’ll cut yourself - matters more with kitchen knives, but it’s less stable in any cutting situation).

She’s probably horrified that soup is often served with a dessert spoon too (or a tea spoon in this house, as we all like small spoons).

Exactly what us nice and polite about pushing soup away from you to eat it? What is so polite about using your fork in some weird faffy way? Exactly what does someone using a fork the other way around or not pushing the soup away from them do that is so bad? It's just fussiness for the sake of it.

@Tealtoffee I agree with you that the rules are very imprisoning, I keep feeling like a lone voice on this thread because after years of very prescriptive parenting I hold myself really strictly to the standards I was taught but don’t even notice what others are doing generally, if anything I envy them because they’re not constantly worried about committing a faux pas. Good manner are inclusive, silly etiquette exclusive, as PPs have said, but I almost find it a little saddening that everyone who has had “proper” manners drummed into them is judged to be a horrible snob.

The only social differences manners highlight are between the courteous and the can't be arsed. And yes, obviously manners and ways of being respectful vary from society to society but thanks for pointing out one eats differently at a barbecue or indeed a buffet. Top insight, who'd have thought it?

That’s only if you’re at sea, in case the boat rolls!

But not manners, they exist across all mediums that is the point isn’t it. That manners are universal if they are indeed basic as so many have pointed out.

eating soup in a particular way isn’t manners it was as a pp said about being at sea and avoiding spilling stuff on yourself

the fork is very much European used in the royal courts to highlight there royalty.

would you change your fork etiquette in the us to the cut and switch (which was French originally) or keep your way

personally I don’t use either, have my fork in the wrong hand and use it like a spoon. I don’t think that means I lack basic table manners. Neither does my disliking butter on rolls

I'm of the view that picking your nose at the table is bad manners but I'm worried that makes me a dreadful snob.

Oh god no, this mostly seems OTT to me apart from chewing with your mouth closed, phones at table and waiting to start. I hate prissiness though and having strict rules, I prefer everyone just to be comfortable and enjoy their meal

@CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau Just getting on with eating the way you do doesn’t make you a snob. Although I hope you can feel a bit less constrained by your upbringing - because it’s sounds exhausting to be constantly worrying about committing some dreadful dining sin. You’re not and it doesn’t matter if you are.

There’s a big difference between just getting on with eating and all the many, many comments (including the OP) about being ‘raised properly’ and how unacceptable it is that other people at other tables in restaurants are not following the rules they’ve set themselves. That’s what’s snobby.

Standard stuff and nothing at all out of the ordinary!

I know you are trying to be flippant but it misses the point. Certain things at the table are basic manners and for the most part transcend culture - such as what you say.

saying how you hold your fork and spoon and eat communal bread are not basic manners and do not cover all cultures (US vs European fork etiquette for example). Eating like that does not make you a snob - judging others for not and calling out those who do not is snobbery. Plus I assume it can be stressful when you eat out at a restaurant that for example follows different culture rules (using bread rather than cutlery etc).

@CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau they aren’t proper though - they are etiquette standards in the culture you were raised - the fact the the US follows the cut and switch 19th Century French approach and never switched back doesn’t make it any less proper and that is the snobbery

Same rules in my house. Not strictly but reminders to try and eat in the way that you say

Pushing soup does at least have a rationale behind it.

You’ve misunderstood the sentence. The fork is the usual way up (the same shape as a spoon) but you’re using your knife to push food onto the fork not using the fork to scoop.