You know, Goo, after I posted it occurred to me that not everyone might call it “smacking their food.” In my family, smacking your food is when people eat with their mouths open and make smacking sounds while eating. Slurping is another one - I can’t stand people making slurping sounds with their food. Nails on a chalkboard to me. (And the knife/fork scraping on the plate is another one - I really need a quiet meal, basically.)
AHA ! Big, loud, wet masticating noises = smacking food.
Eeeeww, I hate that sound too. The visual of you spanking some vegies was much more fun than what you really meant 
Licking the knife…eeeewwwwwww
Licking the plate is worse … I knew a whole family of 'em.
Julie
I was just taught the basic manners: chew with your mouth closed, don’t talk with your mouth full, lay a napkin on your lap, etc. Elbows on the table has never been a big issue in our family and everyone does it every now and then. I was never corrected on eating too fast and it was never a problem my parents brought up until in junior high when a friend of mine was there. He ate so much faster than the rest of us. If he went out to breakfast with me and my family he’d be the first one finished, staring at an empty plate while the rest of us finished. When I was at his house his mother complained that I ate too slowly. She was very impatient and she always rushed him and made him do everything as quickly as possible.
One thing I thought was odd was how my mother never told me that mashed potatoes and Jell-O™ should be eaten with a fork until I was in my teens. Until then I had always eaten these with a spoon (usually on Thanksgiving) and she had never said anything about this until then.
I have to agree with most people here, eating with one’s mouth open and smacking their lips is disgusting.
Hm. We leave the plate licking to the dog …
Oddly, I really have not put a lot of thought into this topic until reading through this thread. As my kid is not yet two, trying to teach her table manners hasn’t exactly come up yet, though we repeat simple table “rules” to her to get it into her damn head so she’ll stop throwing things, etc.
We are a typical 'Merkin family that eats in the living room and makes a sloppy mess of ourselves in the effort. In the two years in our house, we have used the kitchen table for meals - I believe - a total of five times. I shovel food into my gob, slurp my beer and spill it down my shirt and growl and grunt in satisfaction if the food is particularly good.
This is, of course, just an “us” thing. If we have company other than our closest friends I am a good boy.
When we dine out, however, our manners improve in correlation with the quality of the establishment, and I think it will be very important for our daughter to know this.
My table manners are actually extremely good, I just avoid eating at tables when alone at home.
Chew with your mouth closed.
Don’t talk with food in your mouth!
Yes, of course, how very cosmopolitan. Every culture that is not 100% identical to yours is “stupid and pretentious”. Right. I’ll remember that.
Ah, at least I no longer have to be ashamed of my own US culture as being the most ethnocentric and narrow-minded in the world. There is another to wear that crown, now.
“I eat my peas with honey,
I’ve done it all my life;
I know it must sound funny,
But it keeps 'em on my knife.” Anonymous
aaslatten , it is true that in some countries “smacking” your food is a compliment.
In Japan, for example, one slurps while eating noodles to express delight at the tastiness of the dish. Something like that.
My parents lived in Japan for many years before they had me. My father picked up the habit. It drives my mother crazy.
(Disclaimer: The following commentary is not directed at Gorgon Heap personally, but rather at the rather common phenomenon [bolding mine) that he describes.)
I have a bit of a problem with this line of thinking. Our own families and friends aren’t important enough to be spared the grossness of subpar table manners? This seems to be a corollary to “It’s easy to be polite to strangers and rude to the ones we love.” Also, don’t those disgusting “home habits” get ingrained, and aren’t they hard to break when you’re at a “quality” establishment? Doesn’t it make it harder to teach your kids good table manners when they see you eating like this routinely at home (“But Daddy always eats that way!”)?
I freely admit that we do most of our eating on the couch, we let the dogs lick the plates, and my plate is often balanced across my chest as I sit in my typical TV-watching half-reclining position. And in private I love to eat long noodles by dangling them over my face and lowering them into my mouth. But slurping, smacking, grunting, and spilling seem a bit much even for everyday eating habits.
Etiquette lessons for tweens and teens are still available.
originally posted by Scarlett67
**
I couldn’t agree with this more, and I would extend it to other breaches of etiquette. If you wouldn’t do something to a stranger, why do it to a family member?
I can’t stand people talking with their mouths full or chewing with their mouths open. My grandfather does it all the time, because he won’t stop talking long enough to chew a bite of food, and I finally resorted to making sure I sit next to rather than across the table from him.
In my parent’s household, one did not speak when chewing. One did not belch, or make sounds when chewing food. One kept one’s elbows off of the table.
I’m down with most of that, but until I read the posting in here about personal hygeine issues and The Uses Of The Left Hand in such instances, I never realized why one keeps ones left hand in one’s lap.
Something I struggle with in my household is the concept of everyone dining at the same time. If I serve off of a wooden cutting board in the kitchen, then there’s this general mayhem of serving one’s self, dropping one’s plate onto the table, getting a drink, and then sitting down.
My 13 year old son is a certified Speed Eater. We’re all just getting settled in, he’s cleaning his plate of the last few molecules of dinner. It’s maddening, I really love the idea of a Family Dinner time, when at all possible. ( And, as a freelancer with two busy youthful types, we miss a lotta group dinners anyway ). But, if we are all in the house, then I sure wish he would wait for the rest of us to sit down !
I’m learning wonderful things here. 
Table manners were something that were really emphasized at my house.
Mom always said, “Good manners are learned at home”. In additional to all the standard table manners, one thing mom taught us was this:
Never ever begin to eat before your host does.
I found this to be true the other day. We were at a luncheon with a group of people. Well, one guy just started to chow down, not noticing that the host wanted to say Grace before eating. Regardless of your own beliefs on saying Grace, I think it’s rather rude to not abide by the Host’s customs.
The one thing that drives me around the bend is people that push their food around with their hands.
To Scarlett: There is a vast difference. When it’s just my wife and me, we can point to the object we want and the other will hand it over and go back to the food. When company is over (friends and family) it is always “please and thank you”. Beyond that, they are really just as bad as we are, and quite frankly, as you don’t know the relationship I have with my family, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what they think.
I eat as fitting to the establishment when out. I also realize some of you may have gotten a poor impression of me from what I posted earlier, but hell, if I’m eating a good meal in my own home and I decide to wolf it down, I’m going to do so. I’ve had meals with a great many Dopers, and I’d bet few, if any, were at all put out by my manners.
:: shaking head :: Well, if that works for you. But as for me, I feel that of all people, my husband is most deserving of my kindness and courtesy, and we always use “please” and “thank you” for simple everyday requests. I can’t imagine interacting with the love of my life via points and grunts.
Yes! Moreover, particularly saucy food demands a firm spanking!
I read somewhere that Fergie (Duchess of York) actually differentiates between three sets of manners for her children, which I think is a wonderful idea. (Most people wouldn’t need the third set, I imagine.)
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Home manners–basic politeness such as please and thank you, but pretty relaxed with no formality.
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Dining out manners–Remember which fork is which.
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Dining with the queen manners–Channel Emily Post.
My own mother did not teach me manners at all. I had to pick them up as I went along. Horrible handicap to inflict on a kid.
I read somewhere that Fergie (Duchess of York) actually differentiates between three sets of manners for her children, which I think is a wonderful idea. (Most people wouldn’t need the third set, I imagine.)
-
Home manners–basic politeness such as please and thank you, but pretty relaxed with no formality.
-
Dining out manners–Remember which fork is which.
-
Dining with the queen manners–Channel Emily Post.
My own mother did not teach me manners at all. I had to pick them up as I went along. Horrible handicap to inflict on a kid.