American, fork dominant/right. But I am semi-ambidextrous but right-hand trained by my lefty mom, so my left can do many things and using a knife well is one of those (another instance is my preference for Frisbee throwing (but not throwing a ball)).
I hold my knife in my dominant (right) hand, fork in my left. Possibly worth mentioning that, as a professional cook, using a knife with my left hand would feel very awkward to me. Rarely and issue though, as I hardly ever eat anything that requires a knife. Being single as long as I was, I got used to cooking stuff for myself that I could easily eat out of a bowl in front of my computer.
I recall posting a poll of my own here a few years ago, asking men which hand they use to handle their junk, because I’ve always used my off-hand for that.
Huh, now that you mention it… While i hold my knife in my left hand while i eat (no switching), i hold my knife in my left (dominant) hand when i whittle, peel fruit, etc. I don’t think I’m consistent wheni carve a roast, but while my left hand is dominant, my right arm is dominant, and maybe that’s more about the arm than the hand. Hmm. Now i have to pay attention to what i do cutting various foods…
“If I did it I would hold the knife in my dominant hand. But the glove doesn’t fit.”
– Orenthal James Simpson, esquire
When I was younger, I did the American hand switching thing that I learned from my parents, knife in dominate hand when cutting, fork in dominate hand when eating.
Then, I read a story about a woman from Asia and a man from England going on a trip to visit each other. The man from England learned how to eat with chopsticks to best impress the woman and the woman learned how to eat with a fork and knife to impress the man. When they met, they spent so much of their focus trying to eat correctly, they didn’t enjoy their date, or something like that. That part isn’t important.
Anyway, from this story, I decided that I was eating wrong and that I should hold the knife in my dominate hand all the time and carry food to my mouth with my non-dominate hand. So I taught myself to eat that way. If I’m not cutting any food though, I just eat with my dominate hand.
I voted American, Fork, 'cause that’s the way I was brought up. But I’m left handed, and I always thought I was lucky I didn’t have to do the fork/knife/fork/knife thing, because when I had to use the knife, I could pick it up in my right hand, and pretend that I was right-handed…
Around here, the traditional method is fork-right, knife-left. They don’t use dinner rolls.
My inlaws are from a different culture: they eat with chopsticks or Fork-right Spoon.-left. Food was cut up with scissors. Now the kids are getting older, some of them are learning to use a knife the Aus way.
Fork in the dominant hand, knife in the kitchen. What are you people eating that you can’t cut it with the edge of a fork?
Mostly meat, often on the bone. Sometimes I want to cut the skin or a sweet potato or something. I also like to cut pretty patterns into my cranberry jelly as I eat it. Oddly, my kids accuse me of playing with my food when I do that.
LOL - years and years ago, when I was cooking steaks on a daily basis, I was talking with my favorite bartender, and he told me about this steak he had one time when he was traveling. He was served the steak; he looked down at his silverware, then asked the waitress for a steak knife.
The waitress said, “If you can’t cut it with your fork, we’ll bring you a new steak.”
“My god,” he said to me, “that was the most tender steak I’ve ever eaten!”
Curious
Non-merkin.
In my family tableware etiquette is rigidly enforced by the matriarch.
Forks are used in the left hand tines down.
The knife only held in the right regardless of your dexterity. I’m RH but the family is evenly split.
Towards the end of the main course to scoop up the last of the peas/mash/gravy you may switch the fork to the right hand with tines up but only after you put the knife down and don’t pick it up again.
Next you guys will tell me you don’t tilt soup bowls away from, and desert bowls towards, yourself. 
American lefthander, I cut with my left and eat with my right unless it’s pre-cut, or occasionally when the meat is tough and there is a lot of sauce I want to scoop up with the meat, because under this combination, I will already have to perform a mini-switch since I will have to hold the meat with my fork outside the slice I am cutting off to give my knife leverage, and then move it back to the piece to pick up, which would normally not be cause enough to switch hands, but then if there is a lot of sauce to swirl the piece in, my dominant hand is better at doing that.
You need another option. I voted without thinking it through. When I need to cut meat, I cut a whole mess of it, not just one piece at a time. I hold the knife in my dominant hand when I cut and use the fork in my other hand to hold the meat steady. The I switch and eat with the fork in my dominant hand.
The idea of cutting one bite/piece of meat at a time is grade-A crazy. That statement works both ways.
It makes sense if it is in a cold enough room and the meat is so large that the individual pieces will get cold unless they stay in a consolidated state. Plus if the plate is small enough there isn’t enough room to cut off more than a couple chunks in the beginning. Those concerns aside, though, I agree.
Huh? I look at the meat, pick a bit I want to eat, cut it off, and eat it. Why would I want to cut up a bunch of meat in advance? It’s not as if it saves time or energy to go cut cut cut before lift lift lift.
I’m British, so of COURSE I was taught how to eat as a matter of etiquette. Fork and knife combo is the least of it.
And I’ve realised it has made me supremely judgemental about how other people eat (my wife’s the same, thankfully). We took a holiday in Mexico a few years ago, and were both aghast at the lack of ability grown American adults showed in how to use a knife and hold a fork at the same time.
(And, if it needs spelling out, I hold the knife in my right hand - the dominant hand is not relevant in British etiquette. Right is might, even if you’re left handed).
I use my left hand for the knife and don’t switch hands. My dad always called it eating “European Style”.
Japanese-American but learned to use knife & fork while living in the UK and never changed (i.e. knife in right hand, no switching).
And that’s exactly why this American switched to eating that style. One of my London friends used to tease me about flipping the fork. Surprised him when I changed eating styles as an adult.
That’s pretty petty of you to believe that your culture defines the default way of using cutlery, and that someone who doesn’t do it your way has a “lack of ability”. This coming from people who cannot be arsed to pronounce certain foreign/non-local food words properly. Hint: taco and pasta do not use the same ‘a’ vowel sound found in cat, but bananas do. See? Others can play your game too.