See, I’ve never noted that to be a mark of sophistication. There’s a couple Darwin award nominees in my extended family and friends, and they eat that way. It just happens to be how they were raised, with immigrant families. I suppose if I saw everyone eat that way in the movies, maybe that’d strike me as odd, but it’s probably not something I’d notice, anyway.
I almost never eat bread with a sit-down meal, it’s just the pusher.
The question should be: Why are knives on the right?
And the answer of course is that most people are right-handed. Try cutting with your left hand.
I do, I use fork in right hand and knife in left and I’m very deft. Cutting a pork chop is not brain surgery. My mother taught me to keep switching the fork from right to left, and one day I said to myself “I’ve got a better idea”, and my life has never been the same.
It’s amazing how quickly one can acquire the muscle memory to adapt to a new routine.
I’m with whoever said “I’m American and I’ve never seen anyone switch hands”, but A, I’ve never paid much attention and B, I’m from a lower class family.
I eat by cutting with my left hand and using my dominant right hand to fork. BUT, when I’m cutting up a roast, or carving a turkey (IOW, working in the kitchen, not eating at the table), I use opposite hands. Because I’m not using the fork to eat, but simply to hold the meat down while I cut it with my right hand for serving. Does this make me ambi-knife-dextrous? Either way, I don’t switch.
Isn’t it obvious? Because “fork” and “left” both have four letters, and “spoon,” “knife” and “right” all have five letters.
What the heck is all this hand swapping about?
Do you crazy folks also transfer your burger back to the other hand when you pick up fries? 
You bet. 
This is what I do as well. I don’t enjoy the food when I use the fork in the left hand. And switching hands would be a bit too much activity during a meal. We’re eating, not boxing!
Man, I’m British but I have to admit to swapping cutlery sometimes, what a loon! I will have to train myself out of it now I know it’s not what a gentleman should do
Let me throw another question into the mix: When setting the table do you set the forks tines up or down? Just saw them on PBS setting a formal table at one of Britain’s ancient castles and they set the forks on the table with the forks pointing down – the family crest was on the back of the fork. A voice over explained that this type of table setting came about from the age of lace-trimmed sleeves on clothing – this way you wouldn’t catch your sleeve on a fork sitting face up on the table.
I’ve seen a lot of formal table settings here in the US in my life but only a couple of occasions where the forks were tines down – I remember the setting was very formal and the house was full of family heirlooms and there was a lot of, well, [del]pretentiousness[/del] it was sort of stuffy if you know what I mean.
What I don’t understand is why not just cut with the knife in your left hand and just avoid all the switching back and forth?
BTW I write with my left hand and when eating always have the fork in my left hand and knife in my right hand.
American here, grew up standard American way. The fork or spoon is used by the dominant hand for feeding the face. However, cutting requires the knife to be in the dominant hand. Ergo, hold the food for cutting with the fork left and knife right, then use the right to fork the food to the mouth.
I have to assume this was because (a) it’s the way I was taught, an (b) it puts the dominant hand doing each task. Since that’s the way I learned, that’s the way that’s most comfortable.
However, recently I have begun to practice other methods, including forking with my left. It works fine for meats or solid items, but it’s trickier for things like peas.
But I also only recently learned the trick of using the knife to backstop those same small items like peas to get them on the fork. I used to chase them all over, trying to catch the lip on the plate or something. Use the knife! Duh! :smack:
Oh, and tines up.
50 years later, and I still eat with one hand in my lap if I’m stressed or under observation.
My right hand as it happens: I’m left-handed so I got away with using my left hand for the fork. This offers me the convinence of pretending to be right-handed when I use a knife. Which doesn’t work all that well, since I am actually left-handed. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always prefered to use my teeth rather than using a knife.
In my house, that’s what your bread is for. That, and soaking up any remaining liquids and semi-solids after your food is gone. Growing up, I always found it so astounding that my mother would end up with a practically clean plate by the time she was finished. Now, my kids have the same reaction to mine! I’m certain that this “sopping” is the height of American boorishness, but I do love the combination of food and bread; so much so, in fact, that at major food holidays (e.g., Thanksgiving, Christmas), I almost always get seconds for the express purpose of eating a little more bread.
Well, of course!
I worked in a restaurant where nobody got out with a bill of less than $100 per person, and they had several forks on the left and knife and 2 spoons on the right. Never saw all weapons lined up on one side left or right.
I vaguely remember doing the hand-switch as a kid. But it was so time-consuming. It’s not that I’m racing, but when I want to eat I want to spend my time eating and not switching utensils.
As a right-hander, I hold the food down with the fork, tines down. Then the knife in the left hand can slide along the fork’s curve and slice in without tearing the food. The left hand is the one that is stronger for holding a saw, or nail, or board, or knife. The right does the more delicate work. I then thought it odd that I hold a hammer in the right hand, but realized that the delicacy of aiming the hammer is more important than the greater power of the left.
The predominantly right-handed Europeans drew their knife from the scabbard on their left hip. This led to naturally having the fork in the left hand. No one argued with this style mainly because of the ease with which a dinner guest could be skewered. Fortunately these knives shrank to their present less intimidating size. The Americans, ever contrary and wary of the British and ready for a fight, always brandished a gun or a knife in the right hand and this carried over to gastronomy and politics. The switching of hands is just American infiltration so they can sneak in and, for example, serve American English muffins instead of true English muffins.
À propos of this…
I’m an American vegetarian. I cannot even remember how long it’s been since I actually used a knife and fork together. I don’t need a table knife to cut anything, ever, because I never encounter large slabs of meat on my plate that would require a knife. Most of the time I just use a spoon or chopsticks, depending on the dish. Sometimes I cut my food up with a fork solo for something like pie or quiche, or spear my salads on fork tines if there are larger pieces that wouldn’t fit on a table spoon.
Right-handed, I always use my right hand for eating everything. Except for vegi burgers at Red Robin, which require both hands. I have dimly vague memories of being taught by my parents to eat with knife and fork American-style when I was very young. But I went vegetarian in high school nearly 40 years ago and since then I don’t use table knives for anything but spreading butter.
So, eating steak over the weekend, I employed the knife in right and fork in left. I held the fork so the back edge of the tines was right so the handle was out of the way of the knife, as you describe. Then forking to the mouth without changing grip or swapping fork around, it was simply into mouth tines down.
However, forking the carrots and potatoes and whatnot, tines up.
:dubious: We are not the aliens from The Mote in God’s Eye. I would not expect a substantial difference in grip strength between hands in someone who doesn’t specifically condition a difference*, and any accidental difference should favor the dominant hand being stronger, because it is used more.
- For example, a guitarist I knew had much greater spread in his left hand than his right, from all the years of stretching for playing. It doesn’t take much spread to grip a pick.
I found this thread fascinating because it had never occurred to me that anyone would have such an awkward method of eating as to keep swapping utensils.
Last night I was watching an American Drama series (NCIS) and there was a scene where two people, a man and a woman, were eating. The woman used her knife and fork in exactly the same way as I and everyone I know and everyone I can remember do (and did) - Knife in right hand and fork in left. The man used the method described above - cut with knife in right hand, swap hands and use fork to carry food to mouth, swap back and repeat.
I can only assume that people who do that are so right hand dominant, that they do not trust the left to reach the mouth accurately.
When I was a child, my mother, who was a stickler for manners, would tell me off for using my fork in my right hand. “We are NOT Americans,” she would say (Americans, by definition, had no manners - they were even so crass as to light a cigarette between courses at dinner. Though not at my mother’s dinner parties). The only exception was when eating cake with a fork designed for that purpose.