In all seriousness, the range of cuisines we now eat is vast, and there are some dishes where a knife just isn’t needed (Indian, for example). In these cases, we eat with a fork, prongs up, in our right hand like everyone else.
But if it’s food which requires cutting, then we revert to tradition, with the fork in the left hand and prongs down. Anything small gets squashed onto the back of the fork with the knife. Holding the fork in these circumstances with the prongs upwards is just poor etiquette, doesn’t mean it never happens.
Maybe I haven’t been paying attention when I’m in Europe, and I’ve spent a good amount of time there, but if I saw someone eating peas or such with the fork tines down, I think I’d break out laughing. Then I’d be dying to see how they held their spoon while eating soup!
Nava: Is there any question that Spain is part of Europe, or were you making a joke? If anything, one might ask that question about Britain*, but Spain?
*Not literally, of course, as The British Isles are physically part of the European continent, but I know British folk sometimes see themselves separate and apart from Europe.
The joke is so old you have to call it sir and geroffitslawn. From claims that this or that Frenchman (the attribution varies, but always a Frenchman) claimed that Africa began at the Pyrinees to saying things like “now that we’re European…” to refer to things from shoe size (I now wear a 36; before we were European I wore a 35; what has changed isn’t my feet but the sizing) to the EU-wide educational standards also known as “Bologna” (by the name of the city where the paperwork got signed). Any reference to a change that’s taken place since the mid-1970s can be preceded by “now that we’re all democratic an’ all that…”; any that’s taken place since the mid-1980s (we joined the EU in 1986) by “now that we’re all european an’ all that…”.
Lightly, rather like holding a pencil. The spoon should be filled only in an away motion towards the back of the bowl and the soup should be taken into the mouth like one is sipping from a cup rather than the spoon being placed in the mouth and slurped off.
I’m visiting my friend in the UK later this month, we constantly tease each other about European and USA differences. It’s all good fun, but I thought I’d surprise him by eating dinner without ‘flipping the fork all over the place.’
I remember this from Mad Magazine, circa sometime in my wasted youth. That would place it into the late 1950’s or perhaps early 1960’s. I’ve repeated it myself at intervals in similar contexts.
My mental version is slightly different:
I eats my peas with honey
I’ve done it all my life
They sure taste awfully funny
But it keeps them on my knife
Tell me, does your first encounter with this poem date back as far as mine? Or is it common in some more recent usage?
I think flipping the fork all over the place is silly, too, but it doesn’t want to make me eat like a European unless we’re talking food and then, yes! Sign me up! So why not just try keeping the fork in your dominant hand and learning how to manipulate the knife with your non-dominant hand? No need to twirl and stab at all. You can stab just fine when you need to with tines upright by rotating your wrist to point the tines toward the plate and when you want to eat smaller morsels gently scoop the fork sideways using the knife as a barrier on the plate. If you can’t cut food with your knife in your non-dominant hand, you just need to practice. It gets easier. According to Serious Eats description of the differences, this might be categorized as a hybrid Euro-American style. It shows you’re well-traveled or maybe just… eccentric.
But I’m a heathen and my worst quality at the table is that I inhale my food like a prisoner on a water diet. So maybe don’t listen to me.
I’ve never actually encountered “American Style” in practice, at least that I can recall noticing. I didn’t even know it was a thing until a few years ago; I’ve never switched fork hands. Seems really fiddly and something someone came up with “just because.”
Nah, them’s not mushy peas. Here’s an Englishman in a silly hat to explain:
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"It's not. That's pea puree...Idiots." :D Loves me some of that reverse elitism! Is there a name for it? Plebism?
Mmm, let me see if I got this. It should be field peas (not garden peas) allowed to over-ripen on the vine, dehydrated, rehydrated and generously salted (but still call it a pinch), and boiled to within an inch of its life until it’s thick and grey. Yum! I don’t understand why the British have such a poor culinary reputation. What do those hoity toity London chefs know about British cuisine anyway?
I was taught (by my grandparents)) to eat with one hand in my lap. A paractice I kept long after I’d come to Aus, but only in situations where I automatically wanted to be on best behavior.
From the “one hand in the lap” position, you bring the other hand up to use a dinner roll, or to hold your fork when you wnat to use your knife.
In Aus I’ve never seen anybody use a dinner roll to eat with. When I was young, the universal custom was fork in right hand, knife in left. Sometimes (rarely), the knife was used to cut with: people who were trained in that tradition used the “fork in holding down” posiiton, and therefore mashed their peas and gravy onto the back of the fork. Mostly we were given food that didn’t require much cutting, and used the fork in the scooping position.
, and have been unobservant of others)
