# Are you still doing the "cut'n'switch" while eating? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 5, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748 "2015-11-05T19:05:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/61 "2015-11-06T05:22:11Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > When I was 19, in 1980, I lived in Paris for several months and picked up several terrible French habits. Heavy smoking, drinking round the clock, eating pussy, and using my cutlery in the Continental manner. This last one irritated my father no end, so it became habitual. One of those habits isn’t like the others. But how did you handle the utensils? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/62 "2015-11-06T06:09:53Z")
Lefty here. As a young boy, probably the first time I was entrusted with cutting my own meat, my mother noticed that I was having a problem cutting with my right hand. She taught me the method of cutting with my dominant hand, then feeding myself with the fork hand. My dad once remarked that it was a “continental” style of handling the flatware, and said that if I were a spy in Europe, I would fit right in with the locals. Many years later, I watched a B&W movie about the OSS on the Late Show, and saw the American agent get busted in the German restaurant because people noticed his foreign eating style. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/63 "2015-11-06T07:37:20Z")
I don’t switch. Lived in Europe as a child–in fact most of my family lived in Europe for various periods as everybody was in the military when I was growing up. Pretty much all of us, or most of us, quickly adapted to the European method. I think in the case of my family it was because you can actually shovel it in faster that way. So I still eat that way. I have no idea how many other Americans do this because I don’t pay attention to how anyone else eats unless they are eating in a way I find offensive. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/64 "2015-11-06T08:11:47Z")
Left-handed American here. Fork in left hand, tines down unless picking up small things like peas or rice, knife in right. Never switch. I put the knife down when not in use, and I have a tendency to cut several bites at once if I’m eating something that required a bit of effort to cut, like steak. Reading through the thread, I’m a bit confused as to whether this makes me an uncultured oaf or not, but I’ll just assume the worst and cry myself to sleep tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/65 "2015-11-06T12:25:35Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > What is this “not using it” of which you speak? > > I mean, I don’t use my knife when I’m eating soup, but generally if I’m using a fork, I’m using the knife to move bits of food _onto_ the fork. > > Knives: they’re not just for cutting things Exactly, you can move the food onto the fork and then shovel it into ones mouth to eat. > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I was taught to switch. After living in Euope for a while, I observed what people did and decided that cutting with my right hand and eating with my left was more efficient and mostly do it that way, but not always. I don’t know why people make a fuss about it. > > Once when I was in Germany, I saw a guy eat a peach. He speared with his fork in his left hand, then holding it in the air with a knife in his right hand, he daintily peeled it, then put it back down on his plate and cut slices off it and ate them. Me, I pick up the peach in my right hand and suck it down. I suppose the German would consider me gross. Tough! Most people eat a peach with skin while using their hands - even in Germany - that peach guy is just weird… whatever makes him happy, I guess. > [@Ornery\_Bob](#): > > I’m right handed and I find that using my dominant hand for the knife when cutting gives me more control and less chance of a mishap. Switching the fork to my dominant hand after cutting likewise gives me more control. > > It’s not stupid and it’s not rude and if you think it is, you’re simply wrong. It just looks simple to me - since only simple people & children do it here. I’ve seen my buddy fighting with his food several times over the years - it just looks an awkward and an inefficient way of eating to me - however he still manages to eat his food, even if half of it is cold by the time he gets to it. ---
**Author:** ![nofloyd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nofloyd/32/2870_2.png) [@nofloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nofloyd)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/66 "2015-11-06T13:15:33Z")
Some history in article - [Fork and knife use: Americans need to stop cutting and switching.](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/06/fork_and_knife_use_americans_need_to_stop_cutting_and_switching.html) Cut and switch was french at one time, and spread, picked up in America. When Europe went the other way we didn’t. Seems to me that European style in gaining ground in my part of America. I do a mix of both these days. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/67 "2015-11-06T13:29:19Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Left handed American. Fork in the left hand, knife in the right hand. Never switch. Yep, another lefty here. Never even noticed people switching hands before. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/68 "2015-11-06T13:30:33Z")
I’m right handed and eat the American way. Cut with the dominant hand, otherwise eat with the dominant hand. I’m amazed than anyone cares. The food is on the plate and has to get in your mouth. Obsessing over what hand does what seems very odd. I have heard that Nazi POW guards would observe the prisoners eating to identify Americans pretending to be British. I don’t find it terribly credible, it seems doubtful that the POWs ever had anything to cut or that Americans found any advantage in posing as Brits, but if anyone has any info please share. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/69 "2015-11-06T13:33:43Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Right handed American. Fork in the right hand, knife in the left. Never switch. This is me. When I was taught the “fork in left to cut, fork in right to eat” method as a child I decided almost immediately that it made no sense and kept my fork in my right hand. But so far as I can tell, the switching method is still dominant here. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/70 "2015-11-06T14:03:57Z")
Just goes to show how arbitrary ‘good manners’ are from different cultures. The American cut and switch is deemed ill-mannered in the UK, because having the tines up encourages food shovelling. Tines down, and you are forced to eat more daintily (and need the knife to push food onto the turned down fork. I therefore found it startling when I was young to see Julie Andrews use the ‘cut and switch’ method in the Sound of Music. As a fairly posh British actress, there is just no way she would eat like that in real life, so the US directors must have told her to do so. I imagine she would have found it quite uncouth. (And for all those of you, left handed or not, who keep your knife in left/fork in right, well, words fail me. My mother would have slapped the back of my hand :eek:). ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/71 "2015-11-06T14:36:09Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Just goes to show how arbitrary ‘good manners’ are from different cultures. The American cut and switch is deemed ill-mannered in the UK, because having the tines up encourages food shovelling. Tines down, and you are forced to eat more daintily (and need the knife to push food onto the turned down fork. > > I therefore found it startling when I was young to see Julie Andrews use the ‘cut and switch’ method in the Sound of Music. As a fairly posh British actress, there is just no way she would eat like that in real life, so the US directors must have told her to do so. I imagine she would have found it quite uncouth. > > (And for all those of you, left handed or not, who keep your knife in left/fork in right, well, words fail me. My mother would have slapped the back of my hand :eek:). I see no reason, why the tines can’t be turned up or down - regardless on in what hand the [fork](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork) is placed in or what method you are using. > [@](#): > > _Food can be lifted either by spearing it on the tines, or by holding it on top of the tines, which are often curved slightly._ In fact, to get the food from the plate to the mouth, people usually turn the fork and move/push the food with the knife onto the fork. The fork is turned to spike the food to hold in place for cutting - conveniently you can than move that food straight to your mouth for consumption and or turn the fork to add other food. ---
**Author:** ![Abner\_Ravenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Abner\_Ravenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abner_Ravenwood)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/72 "2015-11-06T14:52:46Z")
I’m a left handed American. As long as I remember, I’ve eaten with the fork in my left hand and knife in my right hand and I never switch. It’s more efficient this way. I also cut with my right hand because the left handed scissors were shit quality in school. ---
**Author:** ![SacFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@SacFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SacFly)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/73 "2015-11-06T14:53:07Z")
I grew up cut n switch, but now I alternate fairly freely based on the stabability of the food. For meat, broccoli, roasted potatoes the fork is in my left hand. Mashed potatoes or peas the fork goes to the right hand to scoop. Trying to eat mashed potatoes with the fork in my left hand would feel extremely clumsy. I’m not even sure how eating peas would be possible. Do people ever turn around the fork and scoop with the left hand? Scooping with my left hand feels extremely awkward, like trying to sign my name with my left hand. ---
**Author:** ![Abner\_Ravenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Abner\_Ravenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abner_Ravenwood)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/74 "2015-11-06T15:01:26Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I was taught to switch. After living in Euope for a while, I observed what people did and decided that cutting with my right hand and eating with my left was more efficient and mostly do it that way, but not always. I don’t know why people make a fuss about it. > > Once when I was in Germany, I saw a guy eat a peach. He speared with his fork in his left hand, then holding it in the air with a knife in his right hand, he daintily peeled it, then put it back down on his plate and cut slices off it and ate them. Me, I pick up the peach in my right hand and suck it down. I suppose the German would consider me gross. Tough! Did that German guy happen to eat his Snickers bar with a fork and knife as well? ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/75 "2015-11-06T15:47:32Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I was reprimanded as a kid for holding my knife after cutting my food. My parents considered it bad manners. It looks clumsy having both hands gripping cutlery during the entire meal. Ham-fisted. It also looks greedy & gluttonous. Won’t even put down the utensils between bites; have to keep a grip on that fork and knife; keep those fists clenched. When I was a child, we were explicitly taught not to eat the “european way.” When we were small, they’d take them out of our hands and put them back in the right way. We’d be more strictly admonished when we were old enough to know better. If I notice someone doing it, even though I’d never say anything and intellectually I know that there are many different styles of eating and manners, a part of me thinks “raised by wolves.” ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/76 "2015-11-06T15:51:04Z")
I am a right-handed American and have eaten with the fork always in my left and and the knife always in the right hand all my life. I must not pay any attention all to the habits of others because I cannot ever member seeing anyone switch hands after cutting. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/77 "2015-11-06T15:59:20Z")
I have always referred to “cut 'n switch” as “American style” as, for whatever reason, in the USA, it is quite common, and is almost never pointed out in public (which I have seen done in Australia). I try not to do it, but sometimes it just gets to the point where I just can’t get enough food with my left hand and end up switching; usually, something like mashed potatoes or rice is involved. IIRC, director Terry Gilliam was admonished in the dining room of the hotel that became the basis for Fawlty Towers when somebody (either the head chef or the hotel owner) complained that he was eating “too American” when he did this. (This is the dining room where Graham Chapman asked for a “three-egg omelet” and got an omelet with three eggs fried on top of it.) ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/78 "2015-11-06T16:19:37Z")
I do both, sometimes in the same meal. It seems such an easy way to piss off the vast majority of the world. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/79 "2015-11-06T16:39:31Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Left handed American. Fork in the left hand, knife in the right hand. Never switch. Me too… I like to think I got this from my father, who emigrated to the US from Britain after WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748/80 "2015-11-06T16:48:32Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > The American way seems barbaric to the rest of the civilized world: just saying. There’s no reason for it and it certainly comes across as very bad table manners, especially the closed-fisted stabbing of previously cut meat with the fork protruding from the pinky side of the right fist. Ouch. I have never seen an American using the fork with the tines protruding from the pinky side of the fist. You hold it like you would a pencil. We cut the meat exactly the same… but then we politely set the knife down and then use the fork in our right hand with the tines up to pick up and take the bite to our mouths. I can eat “Continental” style but would never do so in any kind of a formal or business situation. Doing so would make me feel like I looked like I was starving and couldn’t wait for the next bite. I go to business dinners with clients from around the globe and I have no problem with the way they use their utensils, but the “switch” has been drilled into me as the proper American dining etiquette. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-still-doing-the-cutnswitch-while-eating/736748.md?page=5)