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!

YANBU

That's what you get when you go to grammar school.

Anyone who has been to boarding school knows about flaps.

The cheese thing is because you've stolen the best bit. Teach kids why and they'll know, it's not mysterious just practical stemming from a time we didn't have kitchen spray and vacuum cleaners.

Everything but the spoon for me growing up....

Yep, I was raised with most of these. I agree that you see a lack of them now though. You’ve actually nudged me into being conscious about teaching them to my DCs!

What @steppemum said. I live in a multicultural household and family. We don’t judge each other on the different customs or manners that are demonstrated

I agree with you. I'm from a very working class background, but my parents drilled certain things into me, like table manners. I've attended dinners with ceo's of large multinational companies (due to my ex partner's profession), and I could tell they looked down on me 🙄 However, I felt slightly better knowing that at least I knew how to eat soup and a bread roll correctly, even if they didn't 😂

I was partly brought up by the table manners police (my gran! hahahaha) I can 'be taken anywhere' now. I got a rude awakening when I went to uni - I thought I was on a farm, peoples' manners were so, so bad.

My kids are being subjected to the same.

Couldn't get worked up about the cutlery or the bread but I would assume the rest is just normal good manners.

@Boomboom22 I didn’t know that was the reason re the cheese! Just that it wasn’t ‘correct’ to cut the corner off!

Absolutely, they are context specific!

Trying to apply one cultures set of rules in one specific context, to another, in another, is at best, foolish and at worst, bloody rude!

No 5 I was taught the finished knife and fork should be at a slight angle.
I was taught you should break a bread roll by hand, not with a knife, but not necessary into tiny pieces.
But yes, it sounds like very standard table manners to me.

Table manners are fine.
However, there may be a lot of people here, who do not eat their meals at a table and may not understand your gist.

This. My family's not posh but I was brought up with good table manners and it gives you a LOT of confidence if you're eating out somewhere fancy to know all the etiquette.

The knife and fork at 6.30 thing is, as I understand it, so that your host or the waiters know you've finished.

Not sure why you think normal table manners are snobby…

I have never paid attention to the direction of someone else’s spoon in their soup! Or even looked at how they hold their cutlery. I just wouldn't notice someone else holding their knife like a pen, far less judge them about it. Bad table manners I would notice are chewing with mouth open or talking with mouth full or licking the knife (or plate!). I do the putting cutlery together when finished, tearing up the bread roll etc because it's ingrained habit but I'm never looking at my fellow diners to see if they're doing it 'correctly' so that presumably I can feel vastly superior if they aren't? I just don’t care.

YANBU, that's basic table manners imo, but I now live in the US, where none of the British and Irish knifey-forkey business is done, and my kids do things the American way, though soup spoons are used the same way.

Still no chewing with mouths open or speaking with mouths full, but elbows on the table are a gray area, very situation dependent. There are different levels of formality depending on what is served. BBQ, pizza, pasta, and Asian food all require different approaches.

Thanking the cook, offering to help clean up, not eating the last of anything without asking, and waiting to be given a green light to proceed before everyone has been served would be expected here too.

I agree with all of them and was taught the same.

I will add, not getting down from the table unless you have a good reason and then excusing yourself. I do this even if it is just our family because it was drummed into me.

when I first met dh he kept leaping up from the table wherever we were and he still does it now, even if we are out with friends etc and it makes me irrationally mad.

I agree all of those are basic manners except the fork thing. I'd spend all day eating if I couldn't 'shovel' food on the fork!

I think the cutlery thing and also holding it a certain way is outdated and unnecessary, but the rest is just normal.

Many parents are stressed out enough trying to get their kids to eat, without worrying about which bloody angles they're leaving their knives and forks at.

Also strange that some parents tie themselves up in knots being careful not to give their kids food issues, yet think this nonsense is important.

Imagine trying to enjoy something to eat after a long day at school and your parents getting bent out of shape because you didn't put your index finger on top of your knife and fork 🙄

Yes - except the cutlery use, which I think is a bit OTT and have never bothered with (although aware)

I was brought up like this so agree but the bread roll is the exception. I have relaxed at home with the elbows as DH and DC thought I was being unreasonable but when we are out all rules apply!

To the PP who was amused at her FIL trying to balance peas on the back of the fork:
surely the solution is to stick them in with a bit of mashed potatoes? I mean, really.....😹

I didn’t grow up the uk. The cutlery thing is bonkers. Why is it more polite to scoop soup from the back rather than any other position in the bowl. Some ‘rules’ are so outdated, and no longer make sense

Back to front so as not to risk scooping soup on your lap.