I know there have been lots of threads over the years on table manners, but is it considered bad table manners to eat with over-zealous gusto?
At a local buffet, three people - looks like it might have been aunt and uncle and college age nephew? Looked like average people - not wealthy, but certainly not going out to dinner for the first time in months.
The “nephew” is the person I am talking about - he held his fork in his right fist (the way you would hold a handlebar on a bicycle), had his head bent down parallel with the plate, did not once look up and shoveled food in like there was no tomorrow. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone eat that fast and totally focused on the food in my entire life. When he finished with one plate, he looked up and carried on a normal conversation, but then he went back for plate number two and - once again, he was shoveling it in…I think there could have been a conga line of nude strippers dance by and this kid would never have even noticed.
Yes, I know college age kids eat a lot but this kid took the cake - and everything else on that plate - for zoning in on the food and wolfing it down.
My brother used to hold his spoon (or fork) like that, and it drove me absolutely crazy because it made his elbow stick out, and I was sitting next to him on that side. My mom never seemed to realize what an affront this was.
I have read, but can certainly be corrected by those with better knowledge, that in China the custom is or was to devour rice with gusto, holding the bowl to your mouth and shoveling it in with chopsticks. The reason given was that it represented life, so eat hearty.
I don’t know about the mainland, but in Taiwan holding the bowl right up to your mouth and shoveling food in would still be considered pretty low class, at least among the people I know.
Still, there is more of an emphasis of enjoying the food than what I’ve seen in the US.
When I was growing up, I was taught that when having dinner, one shouldn’t display that much of an overt enjoyment of the food one is eating – to the extent that even complementing the host/hostess on the food would seem a bit gauche. The point of dinner is to appreciate the company of the host(ess) and one’s fellow guests; and as for the food, that’s prepared by the servants, naturally.
Perhaps needless to say, I don’t encounter these standards of etiquette very often these days.
Yes. My second husband. There’s yet another reason he’s my ex. (Honestly, do people who eat like this enjoy their food? And do they not realize how uncomfortable it is for their dining companions to be forced to watch this? Really, this is not the behavior one should expect of a college-educated professional. I’ve often wondered whether the ex’s lack of table manners has affected his career through the years.)
It’s considered the norm to eat with gusto here - not slobbering all over your plate, of course, but making slurpy sounds when eating your noodles is definitely acceptable. I’ve actually been criticized for eating “as if you’re not pleased with your food” because of my Western ways.
Sorta of off topic, but I’m curious what would make you assume this type of relationship? Why not parents and son? I can’t envision many scenarios where I’d be eating with my aunts and uncles absent the company of other cousins or my parents. Just seems like a very peculiar presumption to leap to.
In Spain some people consider it inappropiate for a host to provide finger food yet expect people to keep their manners… i.e., if you’re providing breaded shrimp, chicken nuggets, pizza bites and barbecued ribs, please don’t then go and tell people they must use their napkins and those little water bowls with the slice of lemon. “If I’m eating with my fingers, I want to be able to lick 'em!” is their motto.
I’ve met people in Spain, Italy, Brazil and Mexico who considered that one of the things that make a meal enjoyable is being able to “loosen your manners” among friends. But definitely not to the point described in the OP.
Heh, heh, bit of a derail here but this reminds me of watching Dallas as a kid. I seem to recall Victoria Principal’s all-sweetness-and-light character was usually shown picking at a salad if she was eating at all, whereas there was a character who was supposed to be a bad mother (played by Heather Locklear?) who was always showing sinking her gnashers into a big burger.
I’ve got no issues with people who enjoy their food - including licking fingers - but putting your head that close to the plate and gobbling it down like it’s going to run away if you don’t could be considered rude. I like to eat good food slowly, slowly - how can you taste it if it hardly even rests on your tongue? Just my opinion, of course.
That said, in the south of India, when I was visiting my husband’s granddad, it required a little more concentration on the food than it does in the U.S., because even rice was eaten with the hands. Using chapatis or naan like they do up north makes eating easier and required less attention.
My three-year old still gets confused if someone tells him to eat rice with a spoon. I couldn’t care less, but seeing him eat rice with his hands drives my mom bonkers.
Teenage boys are most likely to do this. I’ve seen it bunch of times. My brother was pretty bad about it and caught flack from my parents over it. I probably did too, though I don’t remember it.
We also had this bad habit of moving food from the serving platter directly to our mouths. Our parents instituted a rule where the food had to touch our plates first. We got pretty cheeky about making token touches as quickly as possible. Our parents did not find this amusing. We did, though, and that’s what really counts.
No teenage boy I know eats like that. My eldest’s SO can eat the legs off a horse, as can my son, but they have manners. I think I would say something to anyone in my house that showed that lack of manners.
Yes, a leap…but you could tell from snippets of conversation they had not seen each other in a long while…and one conversation bit I heard seemed very generic when I think he said, “I live in a dorm.” Parents would know that. Maybe he went to UNLV and the presumed aunt and uncle were visiting Las Vegas and offered to take him to lunch? Or maybe they lived here and he was visiting Las Vegas for a bachelor party? Just a hunch on my part.
By the way, this kid was in good physical shape (thin/athletic) so his eating habits didn’t seen to come from gluttony and sloth.
How do Taiwanese people eat rice with chopsticks? Especially once it gets all covered in sauce and slippery? As someone with family ties to Hong Kong, I always thought it was normal and accepted to put your bowl up to your mouth and shovel in the rice, because it’s hard to eat non-sticky rice with chopsticks. It could be that my family is all just low class, though.
That’s the way my parents from Hong Kong taught me to eat, so I always figured it was normal. Then again, I was taught to use a knife and fork in the “continental style” (no switching the fork between hands), so what does that say?