Nothing. Especially on hot dogs. 
:d&r:
Nothing’s wrong with ketchup, but you don’t put it on anything but hot dogs or hamburgers. Especially if you don’t want to insult the cook.
I really think it’s a class thing. Ketchup is a rather inexpensive sauce, and it’s sweet, which means it’s prototypically American. Some folks see it as so-o-o-o-o-o unsophisticated. Also, the folks who put it on everything are denying themselves the delights of variety.
The only “wrong” way of eating that upsets me is backwards (the Technicolor yawn, barfing.) That’s bad form, and it puts a crimp in the mood.
The way you are supposed to deal with bread at a formal dinner party is, indeed, to tear off(not cut) a small piece, butter it, and eat it.
The way you are supposed to deal with pretentious pricks who are married to your sister is to drag them into the bthroom, stuff their head into the toilet, and give them swirlies until they promise to go and read Miss Manner’s books – all of them, not just the parts about table manners, but also the parts about never, NEVER correcting someone else’s table manners.
At a formal dinner party, the salad comes after the main course – to cleanse the palate before dessert. Restaurants serve it first because they need the extra time to get your dinners cooked, but it still isn’t formal service. If Batsinma Belfry had wanted to out-pretentious her pretentious prick of a brother-in-law she could have said, “Oh, I’m eating my roll informally, since this is such an informal restaurant.” Then, when he protested that it was a formal restaurant, BB could have smiled pityingly and said, “Well, actually, with truly formal service, the salad is served after the main course… Oh, but please don’t worry! I love little places like this – I eat at Red Lobtser and Olive Garden all the time, myself!”
I thought that’s what those little bowls of sherbert were for.
Well, the way my family managed [holdover from turn of the century and before here in the US]
Basket of breads is passed, you pick what you want. Small plate of iced butter chips or rosettes is passed, and you put 2 or 3 rosettes/chips on your “buter plate”, you know, that little sattelite plate that is about 4 inches in diameter? Usually has a fairly small “butter knife” that is not sharp and has a rounded tip on it 
You have your butter supply, your bread thing and you can then eat it decorusly
Did I ever mention I have an 1830s set of Limoges Haviland for 16 diners, complete except for 4 pieces … including finger bowls, all the assorted bowls, plates, cups, saucers that you could ever want … sigh and I cant really afford the replacement insurance on it. But then again, I also have the sterling placesettings for 16 people as well. No glassware, but I do have the haviland coffee set, tea set and chocolate sets =) I love ancestors who never throw anything away 
That would exactly be my intent if someone managed to get me into a sushi bar ever again.
All this time I’d thought my switching my fork into my left hand and using my right to cut with the knife, and then switching back to eat was just a personal quirk. Guess I managed to pick up a little etiquette somewhere without even realizing.
Makes me wonder if my habit of eating one food item at a time (for which I’ve caught a lot of flak over the years) is just an idiosyncrasy or some other tidbit of proper etiquette I’ve picked up through osmosis.
Frankly, I don’t even notice how other people eat and never understood, outside of a formal setting, why how I eat should bother anyone else. So long as you chew with your mouth closed, don’t talk with your mouth full, don’t reach across the table and don’t lick your plate clean when you’re done… you’re good in my book.
Fries? I don’t use it on hot dogs or burgers much at all anymore but I’ll never stopping dipping my fries.
In my opinion, unless it’s on a hamburger (and even this is questionable)I think it masks the true flavor of the food. When you go through the trouble of making a delicious sauce – a sauce that ain’t catsup – the dish is no longer what it was intended to be.
It actually says less about the food and more about the person. It strikes me as something a person who lacks imagination does.
Not in Chicago you don’t! There is a place (of course I forget the name) that doesn’t HAVE catsup and won’t LET you put it on one of their hot dogs even if they did. They have signs prohibiting it. It’s simply not done here. Well, for anyone over five years old, anyway.
Christ! I’d have hauled off and…BAM! Right in the kisser!
Alice, if you ever see uni in my hands, you are more than welcome to rip it right out. If I want that particular combination of color, flavor, and texture, I’ll wait until Bugs Bunny contracts pneumonia and hocks up a wad of mucus, thank you.
However, as I understand it, folks in Japan are a lot less pretentious about how they eat sushi than insecure Americans are. In Japan, it’s often a fast food, eaten any old which way, and folks don’t give a crap whether you like yours with lots of ginger and wasabi or soaked in soy sauce or whatever.
Me, I like it strongly flavored, and so I’ll make little petit fours with wasabi frosting and pickled ginger garnish. And if you don’t like it, you’re welcome to tell me so: at that point, I’ll give a great big wide-mouthed grin so that you can see the masticated mess in my mouth, and you’ll quit watching what I eat so carefully.
Daniel
Sad, isn’t it?
I suppose my contribution is more of an aversion to watching people incorrectly prepare an avocado.
Every avocado is a gift from Og. To slice into one that is underipe is blasphemy, pure and simple. To try and peel one like a potato with a knife (taking off half of the flesh with peel), in my presence, will cause me to howl and shreak in demand of your exorcism.
This irks the bejeezus outta me. I used to go to a place for chicken salad-stuffed avacados. Every once in a while I’d get one that was so hard I couldn’t stick a fork in it. What the hell were they thinking??
I slice in half and use a spoon to pop the pit out. Then I slice in 1/2 inch slices and alternate them with tomatoes on my enchilada casserole. Perfection in my mouth!
Thank you! If I like to eat my mashed potatos smothered in chocolate syrup and tabasco*, that’s MY choice, dammit! I’m the one who has to taste it, not you!
Now, in the past, I have been grossed out by how my aunt has to salt everything she eats, including spaghetti, pizza, salads, etc. And then she wonders why she has heart problems.
Oh, and people who pick at food, lick their fingers, and continue to pick at it (yes Dad, I’m looking at you!). That’s just gross.
[sub]not really.
I’ll let odd flavour combinations go, for the most part. Store bought ketchup is nasty and needn’t be served on anything, but homemade ketchup, while not my thing, you can go ahead and use on whatever you like. I like weird flavour combinations, and as long as someone’s not forcing me to eat their soy sauce-drowned sushi, they can go right ahead.
But why people with basic table manners so hard to find? I don’t think most people my age were raised with a mother as obsessed with table manners as mine, but still. Don’t scrape you knife and fork on the plate, don’t put more on the fork than can fit in your mouth, don’t scrape your knife between the tines of the fork to get whatever food is left on there off, don’t lick the knife, don’t shovel food in your mouth then load up the fork and hold it next to your face before even finishing chewing the previous morsel. And your face doesn’t need to be three inches from the plate, really. No, I don’t expect everyone to know how to “properly” set a table, or even necessarily which fork is for which course, but for the love of Og, don’t eat like we’ve just snuffled up to the trough. Chew. WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED. Breathe in between bites - yes, bites. A “bite” does not fill your entire mouth, just so you know. You won’t get in trouble for occasionally placing your fork down on the plate instead of letting it hover in mid-air, I promise no one will try to steal it while we’re talking. You don’t have to get all fancy-pants and “savour” every bite or anything, though trust me, you’ll eat less that way. But no matter, just take the time to chew, swallow, and breathe. It’s not a competition to see who can finish fastest, really.
This is why I usually try and have the first or second date involve going to some sort of restaurant. Doesn’t matter if it’s a fancy dinner, or lunch at a sidewalk cafe. If the potential interest is a nasty sloppy eater, I need to know that, and evaluate accordingly. If you hold the fork improperly (i.e. grasping the handle, like a small child holds a spoon), but are an awesome conversationalist, it’s probably no big deal. However, you could be the smartest, richest person alive, but if I gesture to let you know there’s some food on your chin and you attempt to wipe if off WITH YOUR TONGUE or WITH YOUR FINGER, WHICH YOU THEN LICK, no dice, it’s done. Ew.
Ketchup on a hot dog?
Interesting quote:
Some would say the hot dog is the “catchall of garbage” of the meat world. Just because it’s an “all beef” hot dog doesn’t mean you’re getting the best cuts.
Seems appropriate to put the “catchall of garbage” condiment on it.