Okay, now let me ask an important question to those of you who watch “Sopranos.”
When Tony is eating, before taking a bite, he always takes his fork and pushes food backwards with his fork five or six times before finally spearing some and bringing it to his mouth.
What the heck is is doing?
Is it some form of Italian-American dining etiquette?
He’s doing one of two things:
If he likes the food, he’s shoving the shallow remainders into a big pile so he can take a heaping forkful and fill his mouth with marinara-soked goodness.
If he doesn’t like the food, he’s playing with it to delay the inevitable moment when he must eat some.
I’m a fork-right knife-left guy, no switching. The most common question I get is, “How do you cut with your off hand?” My reply is usually something like, “The knife is doing the cutting, not my hand.” It does not take any particular dexterity to cut food. Let the knife do the work. Physics. Can’t be beat. The fork you need control over. It holds the food still, it grabs specific pieces in specific places, it sometimes has to get a bit of meat, mashed potatoes, and gravy all at once, so you need the dexterity there. 
I never noticed anything different about the way I eat until years later when someone asked me that now time-honored question. Once I took note, no one I know eats like that. I must have been raised by aliens.
OK, this is weird. I’m left-handed, born on the East Coast, raised in the Midwest, and I honestly can’t remember ever seeing anyone eat in the manner you folks are calling “American-Style.” I always hold the fork in the left hand and knife in the right, as did anyone I ever remember eating with…but maybe it’s because most of my family has only been in the U.S. for 2-3 generations? Or maybe we’re just mutants.
This seems impractical because:
you are continually putting down and picking up cuttlery. In a restaurant you would have a din of clinking diners?
it would be very difficult to put your food onto your fork without the assistance of the knife to push it on (unless you just ate, say, a piece of sausage in one scoop, THEN a scoop of potato, THEN some peas in the next scoop, …) And wouldnt it be difficult to spread the gravy/sauce on your scoop?
My (English) sons have been taught at their American middle school that it is poor etiquette to mix foods on one forkful. I’ve never heard of this in England, but it does avoid the problem of how to get things on the fork without using your knife.
I’ve never really noticed people eating one way or the other until I met my ex-girlfriend who is German. She’s a fork in one hand and knife in the other. The knife was for shoveling food onto her fork as well as for cutting. Didn’t notice if tines were up or down. When I visited her in Germany, it seemed everyone ate this way. I found this rather novel and sophicated but when I tried it for myself, it just didn’t agree with me. I’m a switcher. Fork in my right hand (I’m a righty) except when cutting, then the fork goes to the left and knife to the right then knife down and fork to my right. I feel that I need the control to be in my right hand, whether for cutting or getting the food to my mouth. Tines always pointed up, for scooping or piercing. But tines down when in my left hand while steadying my food for cutting.
But what I really wanted to write about is that I always use the smaller versions of forks and spoons when I eat. Prefer the teaspoon over the tablespoon. I like smaller portions when I eat. It allows me to savor my consumption at a leisurely pace. Using larger utensils as well as a knife in one hand and a fork in the other makes me feel like I’m trying to power through my meal. I want to sit down and enjoy it, not get it over with.
I don’t understand how you propose to balance food on the back of the fork (that is, the convex) side, while raising it to the mouth. Maybe the forks in our house have a greater curve than the average, but it’s rather difficult to balance something on a convex surface while moving it around, is it not? For those who eat this way, is your cutlery rather flat?
It’s no problem. Firm food (like meat) is impaled on the tines. Soft food (like mashed potato) is sort of smushed onto the back of the fork – it sticks there.
Can you perhaps explain what you’re doing here? I’ve never seen someone eat with the “European” style. You arrange each scoop of food on your fork with your knife? What do you mean by “spread the gravy on your scoop?” Usually I put the gravy on the food in the plate, then scoop it up with the fork. I may stab a piece of meat with the fork and then dip it in a puddle of gravy on my plate if I’m in the mood.
I’m in the U.S. and right-handed. I don’t usually need a knife, but if I do I sometimes use my left and sometimes my right. I always use my right hand for my knife or spoon. I only use my knife for cutting (or for spreading butter on bread or something). At home I usually don’t even get a knife out of the drawer unless I need to cut or spread something.
When I’m at a restaurant I often use a spoon for evasive foods such as peas and sometimes I use it for mashed potatoes. Otherwise the spoon will just sit there unused (unless I have soup or ice cream, of course).
What do you do with something like rice?
I don’t know about anyone else, but unless the rice has sauce that makes it claggy enough to stick, I turn the fork over and scoop. You‘ve got to be practical about these things.
I eat my peas with honey
I’ve done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on the knife
Well, my eating habits are some kind of mutant spawn of both styles.
I’m right handed, and as a kid, I was of the theory that the fork was ALWAYS in the right hand, so when I was old enough to start using a knife, I used it in my left hand and always had the fork in my right, opposite of the Euro style. However, my mom, who’s mother was quite the etiquette queen, chastized me and told me I had to switch when I cut the meat, then switch back. It took me a while, but I learned to do it this way (I might add, it was the “full-fledged” American way, wherin I would switch to cut it, then switch back to bring it to my mouth.)
In high school, I did the “lazy” American style, where I would switch to cut it, but keep the fork in my left hand when I brought the food to my mouth. If I was eating something like steak and potatos, then I would usually eat a few bites of steak, then put the fork in my right hand, then eat a few bites of mashed potatos.
Nowadays, I’m closer to full Euro, but still have American inklings. I will start with knife in right and fork in left, and cut off a piece and eat it, and usually in between pieces of meat use my fork to grab some taters or vegetagble while still in my left hand. If, however, I finish my meat first, I will switch back and have the fork in my right hand for the rest fo the meal. Also, if the meal only needs a fork (say, salad or desert) then it’s in the right hand.
I will also add that I cut mt meat the “Cosmopolitan” style. Which is to say, I cut off a medium sized piece of meat, then cut off bite sized portions of that to eat. I have heard the “American” style is to cut up all the meat into bite-sized pieces, then eat them. This makes sense when you think about it, since if Americans have to switch to cut and eat the meat, then to make it as effeicient as possible, all the meat is cut at once, so there is only one switch. The “European” stlye, as I have heard, is to cut off a piece then eat it.
Doesn’t depend on the shape of the remaining meat on your plate? Sometimes you can cut a bite-sized piece with one cut, but sometimes you have to cut a piece of the main slab and then cut a smaller piece off of it.
As for the din, we don’t exactly slam our cutlery down on the plate. If you set it down gently, it generally hardly makes a sound at all. You sometimes hear the clink of cutlery from another table, but no more than you hear people setting their glasses down after taking a drink and not nearly so often as you hear them talking.
And holding the fork tines up does away with the need the use your knife to shove things up on there. Most foods are solid enough to spear anyway, but small things like corn or peas, or mushy things like mashed potato get scooped. The fork forms a bowlish shape that’s very conducive to scooping.
As for gravy/sauce, you either pour it over the food beforehand or spear your food and dip it in there.
Hey folks, I just found a discussion on this very subject on a British message board (BBC America Discussions). It has a slightly different attitude towards the issue from our own OP (i.e., “Can anyone please explain why Americans don’t seem to be able to use a knife and fork properly?” ;))
bouv: I will also add that I cut mt meat the “Cosmopolitan” style. Which is to say, I cut off a medium sized piece of meat, then cut off bite sized portions of that to eat. I have heard the “American” style is to cut up all the meat into bite-sized pieces, then eat them.
There may be a lot of Americans who do this, but it hasn’t reached the status of acceptable table manners in American etiquette books. What is still considered the “correct” way is to cut your meat—or anything else requiring cutting—one bite at a time. Cutting up a serving of food into pieces all at once before eating it is disparaged as childish. (So is mashing up your baked potato with salt and butter before eating it, alas. Fortunately, I can also eat baked potatoes at home all by myself with nobody watching me. ;))
Amen!
Based on Amarone and **CrazyCatLadys ** commment, it appears that in (many parts of) the USA mixing food on the fork is bad manners.
The way we eat, and presumably most of Europe is to assemble a collection of different foods on the fork before eating said assembly. So I might spear a carrot peice, cut of a piece of steak or chop and spear that, spread a bit of mashed potato on stick on a few peas and gravy then eat the lot - like a mini shish-kebab. It may sound like a lot of food is going in at once, but you put only a bit of each on. In this way there are many permutation of food arrangements available in every bite. This construction work goes on while the previous bite is being chewed and swallowed. For me food would be bland if you couldnt mix the vegies and meat into the one mouthful.
p.s. Using a spoon to eat mashed potatoes or peas in a restaurant would be very bad form indeed.
CrazyCatLady - knives are very useful for taking meat off the bone and putting it on the fork. Much finer control to use a knife than using the side of a fork to work with fish, chicken, lamb chop or steak.
While visiting well-cultured strangers in West Germany, I noticed the following bizarre practice:
Eating with a fork and knife, they would stab the meat with the fork, then slip the blade of the knife through the middle tines of the fork to cut.
Has anyone ever seen this before?