Art of Manliness:
[…] When I began to spend more time outside of military circles I noticed that many men had never been taught proper dining etiquette. I was amazed when I returned to graduate school and met people who were spending 100K on their education but were sabotaging their own interviews over a meal that they ate from their plate like a horse. Still other times I would witness friends embarrass themselves by eating half the food on their plate before noticing everyone else was waiting to give thanks.
A man in the year 2010, like his great-grandfather in the year 1910, still sits and eats three meals a day. The purpose of this article is to give you the basics to dine with respect like he did. Video/Article
Cut it left, cut it right.
Eating pizza with a fork and a knife is wrong.
Even when Trump does it.
Eating pizza with a knife and fork is not wrong if the crust is too limp to support the sauce, cheese, and toppings. It may be more embarrassing to you to eat it this way, but it is less embarrassing to the host than if you try to eat it with your fingers and fail messily.
JohnS is Miss Manners IOTW troll name
It is the American convention to cut one bite of food with your knife in your right hand and your fork in your left one, then put the knife down, transfer the fork to your right hand, and then eat the bite by sliding the tines under the morsel.
It is the convention elsewhere to make the cut as above, but then eat the bite from the fork still in your left hand, and spearing the food with the tines rather than lifting it from below.
When I was a kid, I learned both methods as I lived for some years in Argentina. I prefer the second method as simpler and less prone to messy error.
Any thoughts on this? Does anyone still care about it?
All I can say is that no guy who exhibited poor table manners on a first date with me ever got a second date.
I am not in the business of rehabilitating badly raised men.
I think using the fork in the left hand to eat whatever it is you just cut with the knife in your right hand is far less offensive than other table manner faux pas.
Personally I find it smooth and efficient, and if done with dexterity I doubt anyone will notice.
I have seen a decent-looking young man spear a steak with his fork, hold it up to his mouth and bite chunks off it … at a party… sitting at a table! Table manners tell you a lot about people. During the war spies were sometimes caught because they weren’t properly schooled in European dining etiquette? Europeans didn’t (don’t now about now) just shovel it in with a fork. They almost always used both knife and fork held in a certain way.
I was horrified, mystified and confused when I first came to Texas and my friends took me to a steakhouse; Stabbing their steak with their fork, held like an ice pick and cutting off chunks before switching hands and using their fork in their right hand…WTF! Then cutting vegetables with the side of a fork and attempting to get things onto their fork without the aid of a knife to push it into place where it will travel from the plate to your mouth without falling off.
I am now familiar with this way of eating but it looks so darn awkward. I guess It must look funny to my friends when I put my fork into the piece of food I want to eat, cut it off the main piece and put it into my mouth without changing hands or trying to cut something with a piercing instrument.
I was raised in a culture where every meal was an occasion and proper table manners were required . Then I moved to Louisiana. Half of everything good down here requires fingers. Fred Chicken, Marinated Crab Claws, Boiled Shrimp, Crawfish etc. aren’t conducive to be eaten with knife and fork.
Besides, finger licking (if done correctly) across the table from a dinner partner can sometime lead to some interesting deserts.
A GOOD curl of the de tongue w/de lick when I lived among de “coonass’s”
So I guess plucking the heart out of a fresh killed Antelope and eating it with you hands with blood on your face would be frowned upon?
I cut up everything on my plate
before starting to eat. Then I
only need the fork or spoon.
Like shaving in the shower,
it makes things faster and easier.
I eat when I’m hungry.
I don’t eat while walking or standing.
I sit.
I eat pizza with a fork and knife, and a glass of red wine.
I eat a well loaded hot dog, chili and mustard, with a knife and fork also.
I cut a steak with a knife, lay the knife down, and use the fork.
I mix peas in with the mashed potatoes so they don’t fall off the fork.
I learned that as a child. We used to see how many peas we could put on a knife without dropping any. Great game but my mother put a stop to that shit
Worst meal I ever had was during a rain storm by the Po River in Italy. My mess kit was piled with Swiss steak(?) and noodles; peas, carrots, and strawberry short cake. I had to stand. The rain was pouring off my helmet into the food. Soon the tray became on big watery mess, which i devoured as fast as I could with a spoon.
I will never stand and eat again
Tommy, are you a WW II vet?
Brad No. I was stationed in Italy ’61 to ’64. Got out before Nam
But we used to play war games. But I’ll bet I had it tougher that Jaws Kerry or Algore though. Hee, hee.
Tommy, before my father died he wrote his memoirs. I’ve been avoiding reading them since his death (long story) but recent events forced me to read them. It’s freaking amazing what 18 year olds were capable of back then. And not a safe space in sight.
Yes Brad. People today don’t seem to remember much. There was a lot of us young fellas in the service during The Cold War. I was in during The Bay of Pigs fiasco when we didn’t know what the hell was going on, but were always on alert. Then you had the Berlin Wall, then the Cuban Missile Crisis and then the assassination of JFK. All the while there was Vietnam, which went full blast in 1965. By ’65 I was back in New York to deal with the war protesters, many of whom went on to be our current leaders
As they say, my friend, life’s a bitch. Vote Trump!
But as for dining etiquette. The only thing that bothers me is people who gorge themselves with finger food while talking with their mouths full, or sucking on chicken wings.
Buy me dinner and you can eat any way you want. I just don’t like grunting, loud lip smacking, snorting or teeth sucking. Eat upside down, drink from a bowl, use your fingers I don’t care. Just keep the noise down, provide a little decent conversation, be nice to the server and pay the bill. I’ll leave the tip. 🙂
I never cared how people eat around me. Never paid attention, too busy eating. The only thing that ever bothered me was watching people smoke while they ate. I am still a hundred percent against restaurants being forced to get rid even of smoking sections, but at least I don’t have to watch that anymore.
Though I have been seen on many days at work eating hobo style out of an unheated can of soup, so I probably don’t have much room to talk.
Don’t make disgusting mouth noises, fart, burp, or do anything with your nose at the table. Other than that I don’t give a shit what you do. All this knife and fork bullshit is bullshit.
PS: I always do and always will tuck a napkin in my shirt collar and don’t care what anyone thinks. I keeps my shirts clean yo.
Fork in left hand, knife in right, cut off meat, insert food into mouth with fork in left hand. Very efficient. Sadly, I can never remember t ich fork is used for each course.
Miss Manners here, again… Eating in an airplane seat presents a huge problem. I would say that’s the only place where it’s permissible to tuck a napkin in you shirt collar, hold the plate(bowl) to your chin and shovel it in. It’s impossible to keep food from spilling on one’s clothes while contorted in one of those “seats” with a tray on one’s lap.
After I saw Jon Stewart tardsplain about Trump’s method of eating pizza, I started using a fork. Unless it’s my wife’s flat bread ultra crispy crust, the shit under the toppings doesn’t deserve to be eaten and damned if I’ll lick off the toppings. So it’s a fork for my pizza and a fork off for anyone who’s offended.