My mother always cuts up all her spaghetti into tiny bite-size pieces, first thing. (But she uses a fork to eat it.) I can’t stand it.
ONLY when I’m home alone, I eat spaghetti by getting some long strands on the fork, then raising it over my head and lowering it into my mouth. For some reason I find this great fun. I repeat, I do it ONLY when I’m alone and can eat like a pig to my heart’s content.
My Mother insists that I am the only person on the planet that does this. I am really glad to find out that I’m not.
Funny story about that. One time when we were eating pizza together, she was in the midst of making fun of my eating method, a big old glob of cheese dripped off right onto her shirt 
(Her response was even funnier “Ah. Now I understand why you eat it that way. Doesn’t change a thing, you’re still weird.” – I love my Mom)
Gyros are too messy for me to pick up and eat, so I eat everything inside with a knife and fork and then I eat the pita by itself.
I eat my peas with honey
I’ve done it all my life.
It tastes a little funny
but it keeps them on the knife.
I am a generally well mannered and conventional eater but I eat shrimp with the shell on. It adds some crunch and tastes pretty good. The shells aren’t hard to swallow once you have chewed everything. It is slightly unusual but not unheard of by any means.
I do the same thing! It’s the only way to eat a muffin, says me.
When I go to a restaurant the US I see an amazing number of people cut their food with the knife and fork, then put the knife down, transfer the fork to the right hand, eat one mouthful, fork back to left hand, pick up knife, then start the process all over again. Is it thought to be impolite to use the left hand to lift the fork to your mouth or something? Seems incredibly elaborate and inconvenient.
Come to think of it, these may be the same people who hold their fork like you would hold a knife to stab someone; I can see that would make it hard to eat with. I must see if there’s a correlation next time I go.
I think that’s just the general custom in the US. I agree that it seems strange to us. But then they probably think our practices are somewhat odd.
No, we’re just accustomed to using our dominant hand for both knife and fork. I agree that Continental style seems more convenient, but to my North American hands it just feels awkward when I try it.
I had a friend who ate both oranges & grapefruits like normal folks eat apples. IOW he just bit into it, skin & all, chewed & swallowed. Unlike an apple though, there is no core. The whole thing went down the hatch - even the seeds.
I had another friend who had mustard on french fries;never ketchup. He said he learned that in the Navy – it kept folks from snitching his fries. Yecch. He also put mustard on popcorn, but not much. Other than that he said he really didn’t like mustard.
Both these guys are generic college grad white middle age Americans.
Other really delicious, but slightly unusual (to some of us, anyway) things on fresh fruits and veggies:
Go to your local Indian import store and pick up some chaat masala. Sprinkle that stuff on your fruit and fresh veggies. Yum, yum, yum. Especially on a hot day. Chaat masala is also delicious on pizza and pasta. Actually, the only thing chaat masala isn’t good on is chocolate, IMHO. Though I’ve never tried it on ice cream. Maybe it’s bad on that, too. I do know, though, that it can be good on some sorbets.
Lime juice, salt, and chili powder on fresh fruits. You can buy delicious fresh fruits with this stuff on them in Mexico (or, at least, in the part of Mexico I visited–the area bordering Guatemala and Belize.) It’s very, very addictive.
For fresh fruits–a touch of balsamic vinegar and sugar.
A mixture of honey and lemon juice, heated up until the honey dissolves, and then cooled in the fridge. Pour over fresh fruit, add salt and pepper.
I have never seen this in the flesh, but it strikes me as inherently wrong (albeit perhaps, as people say, convenient) to eat bananas in a method espoused by people on this board as authentic to other parts of the world - to use the stem as a handle and peel from the other end. One day I hope to witness it.
I once shared a bowl of popcorn with a guy I’d known for only a short while, after sharing a whole lot else with him, to find that he ate the unpopped kernels, crunch crunch crunch. I was horrified to think that I’d had sex with a guy who eats popcorn kernels. I mean, nice guy, but ergh!
I like thin crust pizza to be cut into squares. First, I eat the 4 “corner” pieces that have one small bite of pizza, and the rest is crust. Next comes the 8 “edge” pieces, which have a lower pizza-to-crust ratio as a normal slice. Finally, the best part is the 4 “center” pieces, which are all pizza and no crust. I savor these last few bites of the pie like an orgasm. Its delicious.
I would do this at Howard’s Pizza in Montana (not sure if the chain exists elsewhere), but Domino’s and Papa Johns will also cut pizza into squares. Its just not the same though.
I’d ask if you are my dad, but he’s dead. I heard that little ditty approximately 1,345,489 times in my life. Today is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone but my dad say it.
You’re really making me miss my dad. Stop it.
The story’s apocryphal, meaning I don’t remember which spy thriller I read it in, but; It was said after the homosexuality scandals in intelligence circles in America and England, operatives in the home office were eating banannas like they were corn on the cob.
I eat all pasta with a knife and fork. I conceded long ago that I simply suck at twirling pasta onto a fork. Either I only get it half-right and it slips and slides off the fork before I can get it into my mouth, or I twirl aggressively and get it on, only to find that I’ve flung marinara/alfredo sauce onto myself and my dining companions in the process.
I simply don’t have the patience anymore. I’m going to get the food in my mouth the most efficient way I know how, and I’ll worry about the funny looks when I’m full.
sigh
I hate to even tell this story, but other people seem to get no end of joy out of watching me do this. When I get pancakes – which is frequently, because I love me some pancakes – I cut them up before I eat them. “Big deal,” you say. “Lots of folks cut up their pancakes.” Well, I…go a little further. I butter the whole lot of them, and then I cut them in half one way, and then make an identical perpendicular cut. And then four slices down the middle of the new wedges. If you’re not good with visualization, this amounts to making pizza slices. Then I dump a little butter in the middle of it all and pour syrup over the whole mess.
I’ve never thought this was a big deal. I developed this habit in my youth at my mother’s insistence, because she swore I was going to choke and die on a pancake if I didn’t take smaller bites. It stuck. And I’m reminded everytime I eat pancakes around someone for the first time just how unusual I apparently am. A waiter at IHOP once remarked that it was a shame I was going to eat my meal because I’d created a piece of art.
"Shall We Tell the President? I think. Only memorable thing in the whole damn book which I read a decade and a half ago, so don’t take my word for it.
My mother used to say the pea rhyme. My grandmother used to tell us that at boarding school she and the other girls were taught to eat all their fruit with a knife and fork, including using both knife and fork to peel bananas and oranges. I’ve never tried, but it’s a little odd to contemplate. I ate cheetos with chopsticks once or twice because I wasn’t in the mood for orange fingertips.
Oh, I love this! I slice strawberries up very thin, then cover them with balsamic vinegar and let them steep in the fridge for a couple days. Then I spoon them, vinegar and all, over good vanilla ice cream, preferably Breyer’s. I haven’t met anyone yet who appreciates this like I do, but it is awesome.
Something I’ve only seen one guy do as a regular practice, a Tawanese who grew up mainly in the US, and that is eat french fries with chopsticks. This is not a common practice in Asia, but this guy did it every time. Said fries were to greasy for his fingers…
My family gives me a pretty hard time for putting salt on my ice cream.
Seriously though, give it a try on just one spoonful. I can’t imagine how anyone could dislike it once they give it a shot.
When I eat a container of yogurt that has the fruit on the bottom, I eat the plain yogurt first and then eat the fruit.
I usually eat pizza with a fork, and I like to eat the caramel off the top of a Twix candy bar first, then get as much of the chocolate off the cookie as possible before eating the mostly plain cookie (I wish they would just package the cookies by themselves). When eating assorted candies like Starburst or Skittles, I always sort out the different flavors and eat one of them at a time, usually saving my favorite for last.
A friend of mine used to eat TV dinners one item at a time…the vegetable first, then the potatoes, then the meat. He also liked to eat raw potatoes.