I’m a right-handed American who predominantly will eat with the fork in the left hand if I’m cutting meat (I don’t switch), though I use my right hand if I don’t need to cut. I also almost always eat tines up (and hold my fork in my left hand such that after the cut, it just swings up to my mouth).
Oooh - neither Bob++'s nor my mum would invite you back I’m afraid…
Quite right. She was far too polite to mention it of course, but certainly, no further invitation would have been forthcoming.
I am a right handed American. My parents immigrated from Europe. I eat the European way. It is possible that I had early instincts to eat the American way, although I was not really aware of the distinction. I am not sure what my parents taught me. I WAS aware that all my European cousins were paragons of virtue and etiquette, so I did learn to watch and emulate them.
I did not really think about it until college. I caught some ribbing from a friend’s father, who thought it looked like I was performing construction (fork-loading, I guess).
Then I thought it was way superior and more practical to do it the European way.
Then I learned from Miss Manners that practical eating and etiquette have little to do with each other. The “correct” ways to eat are indeed different on different sides of the Atlantic.
Now I eat European because I like to do it that way and I can say that large contingent of decent people somewhere eat that way. But I try not to look down my nose at the poor schleps who have to switch utensils left-and-right.
BTW- Exapno Mapcases’s Slate article cite about the anti-English/pro-French things sounds very plausible to me.
I personally think the main issue is that it’s impolite to make all your cuts ahead of time. Switching would be no big deal if you only had to do it once.
My preferred method, BTW, is to cut with my fork. That works for pretty much everything but steak. Steak, I do what I said above. The first bite may be with my left hand, but the rest are with my right. Something that needs a knife to chop up takes time to chew, which gives you plenty of time to switch. Even for someone like me with a slight jaw problem which led to the habit of not chewing as much.
Also, getting bites of food isn’t random. Once you are used to using your fork as a scoop, you get the right amount every time. (And if it’s something small and rolly like peas, why not use a spoon?)
I was rapped over the knuckles by my grandmother for using my fork as a scoop. “It’s a fork, not a shovel, Jane.”
It seems that in the 18th century switching hands thusly was considered courteous and a mark of good breeding—in Europe. Colonial America of course followed European ways in this.
When Geo. Washington was a teenager ca. 1748 he copied out in longhand 110 “Rules of Civility” from a book published in England, which was derived from a French original. Including this one:
95th Put not your meat to your Mouth with your Knife in your hand
So in this as in many other aspects America has not innovated but merely kept an old civility while Europe innovated it away. The reverse of what we’re led to expect.
I read a short piece in a book by Sandi Toksvig about manners. In it she says that England was the last European country to adopt the fork, but it was some time later before it caught on in N America.
She offered an explanation something like this: (from memory)
"The knives with no point, imported from Europe, are harder to eat with than pointed ones were, so Americans used a fork or spoon to steady food as they cut, and then switched the spoon to the opposite hand in order to scoop up food to eat. Now known as the zig-zag method.
Are you sure that’s not just saying “don’t eat off your knife”
As a young man when I first started dating I would carefully watch others in a restauraunt to see how they used thier utensils. While I am cutting I use the left hand to eat, when I am done cutting I switch to the right hand. I no longer pay attenetion to what others are doing so really couldn’t say what I find most common.
Pretty sure, yes. That would be so downright barbaric that it presumably wouldn’t need to be mentioned.
That doesn’t really hold up as an explanation - this list of rules doesn’t particularly pull its punches - several of the other rules mention things that aren’t particularly genteel such as spitting in the fire, scratching/touching yourself.
I think you’ve got a bit more work to do to establish the interpretation of this rule as exactly (or even approximately) describing the American style of dining.
I don’t think there’s any other way to interpret it. Incivilities like scratching or spitting in the fire are peccadilloes that crop up occasionally in civilized society and hence admonitions against them are useful. Using a knife to bring food to your mouth is a whole other level of barbarity. Something an unwashed mountain man in buckskins might do at a campfire, but among Virginia gentry I think it would be unheard of.
I’d have thought that spitting in the fire would be unheard-of amongst Virginia gentry, so that response made nothing clearer to me.
I can see at least four different ways to parse/interpret the intent of that instruction, to wit:
[ul]
[li]Don’t use the knife to put food in your mouth[/li][li]Don’t keep the knife in the same hand that you use to put food in your mouth[/li][li]Don’t be hanging on to the knife - as though too eager for the next mouthful - whilst eating the current one (some of the adjacent rules have a similar theme to this)[/li][li]Put down the knife, then pick up the food[/li][/ul]
You seem quite certain about your choice of interpretation. Why?
I (European as of last check) learned the same without switching items. You put your knife down whenever you’re not using it to cut. Why? Because it’s a knife! My mother’s regular ones are as dull as they come, but the good ones are surgical steel and you really, really don’t want to drop one on anything that can bleed.
I’m glad this thread appeared - I’ve been tempted to start a similar one myself.
In our house, my wife (born of English parents) uses the European style - cut and eat with fork in the left hand, knife in the right (no hand switching). I use some hybrid American style - which is cut and eat with fork in right hand, knife in the left (no hand switching). To me this make sense - since most of the fine motor skill work takes advantage of my dominant (right) hand.
My wife thinks this is an example of my poor upbringing and lack of manners. I’d hate to have to admit she might be right . . .