I think you are supposed to portion out the amount of butter you plan on using onto your butter plate, then pass the butter on, the proceed with buttering the bread one bite at a time. But don’t look at me hold me to that, I apparently have terrible table manners. On the other hand, I generally prefer to eat most bread the way the OP’s corrector wanted. Not sure why, its just how I have always done it. Maybe my parents raised me right after all. 
Which, if you’re dining formally, you do. Or you have a few butterballs of your own on your bread plate that you skewered from the communal silver butter dish using the butter pick.
But, of course, they were in a RESTAURANT. So everything is more casual. Did brother-in-law also complain that his salad arrived before his main course?
You are correct; not only that but (oh, I wish people I’ve had to dinner at my house were aware of this) you are supposed to do so using the butter serving knife that is passed with the butter dish - you then transfer the butter to your bread using your personal butter knife. *You do not spread the butter on your bread using the knife that is in the butter dish, and then return said knife to the butter dish for others to share, and thus transfer bread crumbs into the butter. :mad: :mad: :mad:
But I’ve never said a word to the cretans who do it wrong.
[nitpick]Cretins. I don’t think you have an argument with the citizens of Crete.[\end nitpick]
Sorry, just one of my pet peeves.
Berry sorry. It shall not happen again. 
It bothers me, but not enough to say anything to you. I’ll probably just make a mental note to tell my husband about how uncouth you were, but that’s about it.
This past Thanksgiving I sat next to my son in law. He put ketchup on his turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. I thought about backhanding him for that but his parents were there.
Why backhand him when you can smack him with a cast iron frying pan?
Lying bastards.
The only thing that people do while eating are things like chewing with their mouth open or various other variations at that them. As to how someone eats a particular food, I couldn’t care less. Eating isn’t about rules and rights and wrongs and propriety, it’s about eating, and enjoying the food. If someone’s sushi tastes better to them completely soaked in soy sauce, so be it. As long as they’re enjoying their food, and eating it with their mouths closed.
OK, the one thing that might slightly ruffle my feathers is seasoning something I’ve made before tasting it. But that’s only minor irritation. If they taste it first, then pour on a boatload of salt, so be it. Not everyone’s tastes are going to be the same, and some people like having a salt lick on their plates.
You… ROLL… your pizza?! :eek: :mad:
reports <b>NinjaChick</b> to the Mods for strange pizza consumption habits! 
Me, I do something in between what you describe and the “flopping it around” method that <b>Big Bad Voodoo Lou</b> briefly describes. I sort of push the middle of the crust down slightly with my middle finger while supporting the ends of the crust with my thumb and other fingers. Keeps the pizza more or less flat (as the cook intended it to be, or else he would have made calzone! ) while also minimizing (or at least controlling) the grease flow.
As far as the bread buttering ettiquite, depending on where I eat I’ll either just rip the top off the bread roll and slather the resulting pieces with my personal knife, or else I’ll get a dab of butter and tear the bread into itty pieces before buttering. Really it depends on the resteraunt.
Usually I tend not to pay much attention to how other people eat, though I do have my little pet peeves pertaining to dinner table ettiquite in general. For example, you don’t cut someone off while they’re in the middle of saying something. If they’re taking too long and you really need to say something, you wait for a punctuation mark of some sort and interject with an “excuse me,” You don’t just catapult yourself into the center of the conversation with whatever random thought that just popped into existence inside your head, and you don’t tell them to shut up unless they don’t yield when you say “excuse me”. Depending on who you’re eating with, where you’re eating, and why you’re eating, there may be intermediary steps between “Excuse me” and “Shut up!”
Also, complaining about grease on a pizza? That’s the FLAVOR, YOU UNCULTURED HEATHEN! :mad: If the pizza’s too greasy (I dunno, some folks don’t like to eat at Taco Cabana, the world is full of strange people) you drop your napkin on top of it so it can soak some of it up.
Well heck, how you butter your bread isn’t so bad. What always baffles me is the variations in the “proper” ways to use a knife and fork. I was taught to cut food with the fork in my left hand, and the knife in the right, and then to transfer the fork into my right hand, with the “bowl” of the bend of the fork facing down, as I put the food in my mouth. And yet, when I turn on Iron Chef America, I see food critics just hacking away at meat, and then lifting the meat to their mouths with their left hands, and with the fork upside down! I don’t there are too many table ettiqute rules that are hard and fast.
People in Trinidad put ketchup and mustard on top of their pizza.
Disgusting
When I eat anything I have to cut, I pin it with the fork in my left hand (since I won’t have to move the fork, it makes sense to put it in the off hand), and cut it with the knife in my right hand. Usually I just lift the fork to my mouth concave side down and put the food in my mouth, but it might depend on what I’m eating. If it’s got stuff on top of it that might fall off, I’ll flip the fork over right side up as I lift the food off the plate.
Also, if my dad gets on my case for eating in that fashion while I’m at my parents’ house, I just start flipping the fork right side up as I raise it before eating the bite of food.
My pizza weirdness- It’s less an autopsy than an archaeological dig:
I eat off the toppings, eat the cheese, scrape the soft, doughy part of the crust off and then eat what’s left of the crust. See, I eat my pizza layer by layer.
I tend not to this to the exteme in public with people who don’t know me that well, but I do eat eat the topping first and then the cheese no matter what.
I get the same lunatic expressions aimed my way.
What is it about pizza that demands such an indivualistic appraoch?
Is it the creativity inspired from getting to choose your favorite topping from an array of toppings?
Is it the variety of pizza styles themselves (Scillian, deep dish, New York, St. Louis etc etc) that demands the consumer be just as varied in his or her eating style?
Is it the sauciness of the sauce that makes up act, well, saucy and flaunt convention?
The way you describe is the proper American way to eat, though I’m trying to recall if which way the fork faces is correct. (I’m too lazy to go grab one of my etiquette books and confirm.) I know Europe has a different method, plus those food critics might just be using improper etiquette.
The only thing that drives me up the freaking wall is talking with your mouth full. It’s one thing to just have a bit of food that you can’t quite clear out (a morsel of dry bread) and to answer something quickly, then take a drink to help empty your mouth. It’s another to have someone who intentionally eats and talks at the same time, completely uncaring about other people’s feelings or appetites.
As someone who loves cooking and takes pride in what I make, I do find it just slightly insulting (though I understand it’s not intended as such) when people season their food before they even taste it, especially if tons of seasoning is dumped on. Season after you taste; dumping it on first gives the impression (even if unintentional) that what you made can’t possibly taste good.
Military guys who attend West Point or wherever are taught very specific ways to eat (from what I read), i.e., the tearing of the bits of bread, cutting no more than two or three bites of steak at a time, etc. So they’re all Miss Manners when they attend shindigs with the big shots.
I once prepared a faaaabulous gourmet meal for a guy I was seeing. He proceeded to put catsup on it. I could have strangled him.
This is covered by the ‘conversion to a sandwich’ provision of eating rules, added by the Earl of Sandwich. Fully legal, but also optional.
When is the salad supposed to arrive?
Out of curiosity: why all the hate for ketchup? What’s wrong with it?