It’s not entirely clear what you’re asking here, because you don’t specify which is your dominant hand and what is the dominant hand of your hypothetical non-switcher.
Assuming we’re talking about right-handed eaters:
Under the American system, a right-hander cuts with fork in left hand and switches to fork in right hand to eat. If there is no cutting involved, the switcher just keeps the fork in the right hand.
Under the European system, so far as I have seen, a right-hander keeps the fork in the left hand and, even if there’s no cutting to do, generally keeps the knife in the right hand in order to help push food onto the fork. I don’t know what one would do under this system if there was no knife involved. I imagine that in eating soup, a right-hander would use the spoon with right hand.
Under my system (I am right-handed), the fork stays in my right hand regardless of whether I use a knife.
Basically, yes. The knife does much.more than cut. It’s used to steady objects so the fork can pierce them without them pinging away, it’s used to load up the times of the fork neatly, it’s used as a backstop for small items to save chasing them around, but also, when the expectation.is that the meal will be consumed with knife and fork together, the presentation can be different- it isn’t just meat that gets cut up - vegetables can be served in attractive large chunks, for example.
In the case of meals where the knife is largely redundant, the fork is usually held in the right hand, instead of the knife.
Yup, my first experience with a salad in Germany was a disaster. How and why do they stuff these huge lettuce leaves in their mouth. Answer, they don’t. They use knife and fork even while eating salad to pare down the ingredients into proper fork fulls.
I am a bit surprised that my European friends in Germany don’t use their bread as a back stop. That is something I have often done even in the States. They seem to always go to the knife. Even at the expense of putting the piece of bread already in their hand down to pick thier knife back up.
Oh wait, on second thought, I think they put their fork down to pick up the bread. Well, I have something to look for at dinner tomorrow I guess.
What’s this stuff about chasing food down? Do you also consider using a spoon as chasing food down? If it’s mushy, you scoop. If it’s stronger, you poke. If you need to cut off piece, you hold the fork sideways.
And, I do what ouryL does more often than not. Though, while I’m cutting, I may pick up a piece with my fork. But that’s a horrible way to spend the entire dinner, as it’s hard as heck to eat anything you can’t poke in that manner, seeing as the fork is non-dominant hand.
But usually the food (even steak) is tender enough I can cut it with my fork and avoid the whole mess.
People are talking about peas, corn kernels, cherry tomatoes and probably other stuff that either has a tendency to roll, or is too rounded or crisp to be stabbed.
Concur with amarone. There’s nothing horrible about this, except for unfamiliarity. Eating with chopsticks is horrible if you can’t do it.
Good point, except to a certain extent, the food you’re served is probably tailored to the prevailing mode of eating it. There’s nothing especially wrong with that - in either direction - some of the food served in places where knife and fork prevail together, is tailored to work well that way (for example, crispy roast potatoes, whole stuffed peppers, etc)
One point of using both knife and fork is posture, as kids we learned : fork in left up or down (regardless of dominant) knife in right, spoon in right for soup with left fist on the table and sit up straight. You get used to it.
I’m surprised at so much mention of knifeless eating in the west, even vegetables or poleta demand detailing for confort.
I guess it’s all training, eating spaghetti with chopsticks is easy, once you’ve gotten over the cramps. More a matter of custom than anything else.
Richelieu had round end knives created for the Kings table after getting tired of watching the age old ritual of (very poor) tooth-picking at the end of each meal with the steack knives
It’s not so much a matter of etiquette. Somebody who repeatedly switched utensils between hands during a meal would strike me as being poorly adapted to their task, not at ease, like somebody who constantly adjusts their clothing.