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!

Most are the same as I was raised but not all. We didn't have mobile phones when I was growing up so had no rule about that.

The differences:
Your index finger should not be on top of cutlery
You should spoon your soup away from you

So I think you're not strict enough! 😉

However, I wouldn't judge your (or others) table manners as I know we all have different upbringings.

It's not usually necessary to stipulate "White British" on this website, in Britain where 82% of the population are white.

I used the phrase white british, because these may not apply to the normal eating manners in for example British Asian families, or others.

So saying 'British' manners would be pretty excluding wouldn't it?

Just assuming all Brits are the same culture?

Which was kind of my whole point. Welll done for missing it so spectacularly.

You’re not a snob - those are the basic table manners we were taught as children ( in my house)

Some family members are unable to handle cutlery correctly and ignore the napkin which is for their lap. Oh and yes - cutting the nose off the Brie!

I have hypermobile joints so grip my cutlery so as to minimise pain. I use the fork in my dominant hand and swap my knife to that hand for any cutting. Observers wouldn't know why. My hands look normal.

Does this really cause offence? How does it hurt anyone watching it eating with me?

Lots of good points on this thread, but maybe think before judging which category of behaviour you're dealing with. Are people being inconsiderate, or are they just not following an artificial convention? True courtesy isn't about criticising difference.

Yes I was brought up with those manners..but in hindsight very stifling. My children have had a very different upbringing 🤷‍♀️Good manners only work to a certain degree with little people.

Not in my house! 🤣🤣

Agree with 8/10

The rudest thing of all is to remark on someone else’s manners a table.

Silent flinching at the ‘Ay’m no snob, me’ gurning & shovelling is permitted.

I think one of the things which is grating with me about this thread is that these things are taught in families.

So if someone doesn't know them, you are basically judging the way they were brought up, which is hardly somehting that they can do anything about is it?

My cousin was brought up by my batshit aunt who decided that anything conventional was wrong. He didn't know any of these manners and was very uncomfortable in a restaurant as a consequence. Rather than judging him, I felt that he had been let down, because his mum had this skill and chose not to use it, but he did not have the luxury of that choice, he had no idea how to use a knife and fork in a posh restaurant.

So judging someone for their upbringing, rather than for themselves, their character, their kindness etc, etc, seems pretty narrow minded and rather sad to me.

True courtesy isn't about criticising difference.

Correct. The whole point of 'manners' is to smooth the social flow and make stuff work better. (This is why I don't understand the back-of-the-fork thing: peas don't want to be squashed, or they'd have been served mushy!) Good manners demand common sense and consideration.

Quite correct apart from point 9. Biting off the main lump of bread roll is the only polite way to eat bread based products.

The breaking off of parts of bread and eating them thus would mark you apart as a commoner. Sorry.

I don't think anybody has said they eat with their mouths open / chew loudly etc, though?

This!!!! And all the racist, ableist & classist undertones 😔

All perfectly normal stuff - YANBU.

@steppemum

nowadays there are plenty of ways to learn these things even if you weren’t brought up with them. There are even TikTok accounts on the etiquette and table manners:)
eg some of the things on the list weren’t taught in my family because I’m from a different culture but I just learned them later on with no issues…

This thread has some shades of the other pyjamas at hotel breakfast one.

People assuming that the 'manners' that they expect from everybody are basically there to affirm their preferences; and so anybody else with different preferences is somehow doing it to upset, disrespect or horrify them.

It's interesting how it's supposedly very bad manners to break a few silly arbitrary rules that somebody else has a preference for; but it somehow isn't bad manners at all to be preoccupied by, staring at and commenting negatively about the people who don't share those minor preferences.

Surely the very best way to avoid spilling your soup is not to prescribe the direction in which everybody must move their spoons, but rather to concentrate on eating your own food rather than watching others in the hope of being offended by (and thus, in your own mind, 'better than') them? Little children are taught that it's rude to stare, but apparently, supposedly social adroit, snobbish adults think it's what you should do?!

Yes, but most grown ups are reasonably confident in their ability to scoop and navigate the spoon to their mouth. I’m not sure why wanting to scoop from the front is worthy of scorn.

YANBU.

This is how I raised all my children. Also not to leave the table until everyone else is finished eating

YANBU at all.

IME truly middle class people (born and raised) have normally experienced so many different cultures and classes, they wouldn't dream of judging others based on their own personal upbringing.

The 'moving classes' however, can certainly show themselves up in doing this and of course they see being called a 'snob' as a compliment rather than the insult it actually is.

"Oooh Dave, someone called me a snob today. We've made it! Gorn up in the world so we have" 😁

I’m the same as you op. They are the basic table manners I use and expect others to use. I’ve seen some eaters that would turn your stomach.

Pretty much the same as I was taught, except for the soup. Soup should be pushed away from you to the back of the bowl and the spoon faced slightly away from you as you lift it up.

Yes, spoon from the farthest part of the bowl: the back

How do you hold a knife?

I was brought up with all these rules and taught all my children the same rules. But then we moved to the US. Goddamit! They went and made friends with normal Americans who eat in a completely different way. So THEN we had to teach our kids it was rude to point out that their friends, who were eating in a very normal way for here, were in the wrong. But to my dying day, the fork holding, knife stabbing will irk me forever.