After a few conversations with people, this might be something peculiar to my wife’s family. Who HATE sweet things, do it checks that they have substituted cucumbers and tomatoes for fruit after a meal.
My apologies for spreading misinformation again.
We actually do it the American way. But I apologize, I expressed myself clumsily, instead of this:
I should have said this:
“we use to hold a spoon in our left and a fork in our right to scoop and roll up the pasta from the spoon.”
You know what’s the hardest part in English for German speakers? Prepositions…
Thanks for the correction / clarification. Which nullifies my prior post. The method you’re describing matches the American way too.
As an American who took German in high school and college but would never claim to speak it now even a little bit I found many German prepositions hard too. The two languages seem to live for false cognates and role reversals in that department.
Absolutely, and that makes it so hard. Both languages love to form verbs combined with multiple prepositions that have very different meanings, like put on, put off, put up or annehmen, abnehmen, zunehmen, mitnehmen, you know the game if you had German class. And the meanings of those prepositional constructs almost never match in both languages, it’s a guessing or rather a learning game.
I love all noodles, especially lengthy strands of spaghetti, but I use only a fork, in my right hand, of course. A spoon is used only for liberal dispensing of freshly grated Parmesan.
How I actually consume spaghetti is mostly subconscious so I can’t exactly describe it, but I imagine there’s some degree of twirling of the fork, but not to the point of creating a neatly packaged mouthful. It’s probably messier than that, which makes it all the more fun and may involve slurping, which culinary habits I attribute to my canine heritage.
But I can definitely attest to the fact that spaghetti – even long thin strands of spaghettini – can be comfortably consumed just with a fork alone. So can long thin strands of Singapore Noodles – thin rice noodles that can not only be consumed with a fork alone, but traditionally with chopsticks, neither of which resemble a spoon.
Absolutely. All Italians do it. But that’s not how I learned it, and I can’t do it. I’ve also always failed at chopsticks, after several tries. I’m just too clumsy.
I’m not good with chopsticks, either. Sometimes I’ll use them for fun and authenticity, but I generally end up finishing up with a fork. The only time I find chopsticks genuinely useful is for dim sum dumplings.
Jerry Seinfeld had an interesting comment about chopsticks, which I’m very loosely paraphrasing. When Chinese farmers tilled the soil and planted crops, they didn’t use a little stick, they used spade-like implements. Yet for thousands of years the concept of a “scoop” never made it to the dinner table!
Funny, but the Chinese did use forks and spoons before chopsticks took over a few millennia ago:
(And ancient Chinese farmers were known to use digging sticks.)
Maybe they got fed up with social customs requiring them to keep switching their primitive wooden forks and primitive bone knives from hand to hand with each bite, and just said to hell with it, we’ll just use a couple of sticks! 
Seriously, an interesting article about the history of eating utensils. For those who didn’t read it, the advent of noodles is what popularized the chopstick in China and I guess in the East in general. I still enjoy poking at Singapore Noodles or pork lo mein with chopsticks, but I eventually give up on the amusement and pick up a fork!
… in my right hand!
I’m on vacation with my parents and my mom keeps telling my dad to put his non-eating hand (the one without a utensil) in his lap. In Switzerland, the non-eating hand, and lower part of the arm, often rests next to the dinner plate / soup bowl.
I seem to be spending a lot more time noticing what my empty hand is doing, than what I’m doing with the utensils.
I rarely cut anything with the side of a fork anymore - I find it less efficient than using a knife and fork.
I was watching a YT channel, Sailing Florence and Matt and Amy are cruising the Baltic Sea. They made landfall in Gdansk Poland and stopped for lunch where they had fresh mackerel fried. Looks good but Matt was struggling to get pieces of fish on the puny plastic fork.
I’m wanting to advise them to just pick it up and eat it, it’s finger food! But fishy fingers not so good?
all this discussion reminds me of Mike Greenberg, of Get Up ESPN fame, who once told us he refuses to touch ANY food with his hands; when asked about buffalo wings, for example, he said he uses a knife and fork (how? it’s hard for me with my fingers to get at the meat).
I would imagine napkins.
It’s work. And you end up leaving maybe 1/3rd of the meat stuck to the bone. But I bet he can afford to buy 10 to eat 5 wings-worth of the meat.
My ex-wife preferred to eat fried or roasted chicken with knife & fork. Ditto for pizza. In her view, enjoying the experience definitely took a back seat to looking refined while doing so. I’m no slob but that’s one of many reasons she earned the “ex-” prefix.
and if he “taught” his kids to eat the same way, I feel sorry for them. so the guys are out after practice, and Greeny’s sons ask for a knife and fork at a McDonald’s, I can imagine the reactions, Does Greeney ask for knife and fork for his hot dog at ball park?
Sorry about the delayed reply. Just now returned to a digitally modern house (been at aging relatives, no PC and my phone is wonky with SDMB).
It “can” be an advantage, but probably not statistically provable. In the slalom course (assuming lefty = Left-foot-forward), we have our onside pulls out of balls 1,3 and 5. Two of our offside pulls are just reaching the gates. I was sort of kidding, as skill will override any slight advantage for left hand(foot)ers.
On/Offside (AI):
In slalom water skiing, your onside pull and turn happen facing toward the boat (your natural, stronger side), while your offside pull and turn happen facing away from the boat (requiring more active hip rotation and technique), creating a distinct left-to-right asymmetry across the course.
Oh. I was never good enough to ski at that high a level. I was happy if I was able to get up on a single on the first pull!
Take me out to the ballgame
Take me out to the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks
Just make sure you get me a cutlery pack
You would never be welcome at my mother’s dinner table. Left hands were kept in laps, never on the table.
Nowadays, with Mom gone, I just rest my left arm on the bar at the sports bar. It’s the sports bar, so nobody cares or complains. But Mom would be horrified.
Never mind, Mom, I still know what to do at fancy restaurants. Point is, that I don’t have to do that at the sports bar. Context is everything.
that’s a good one!
