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The European way with a knife and fork


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I've lived in Europe for 12 years and hold my knife and fork like they do here, always keeping fork in left hand. On a recent visit to the US the woman opposite me at a big dinner party kept staring at me, her eyes tracking my left hand as it brought the fork to my mouth. She looked kind of alarmed. Is eating that way considered rude there? I had a lot of contact with Europeans while growing up in America so don't remember thinking anything of it. My 2 kids eat that way too of course, and will be going to summer camp in the States for the first time this year. Will other campers think they're weird?

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European-style is considered appropriate in America by most etiquette authorities, and seems to be eclipsing the American style. As for your kids, appropriate behavior is always considered weird in summer camps.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Is eating that way considered rude there?

Your kids will be just fine. I grew up in Canada, fork firmly in left hand. I retrained my Amereican husband in very little time, and my American daughter has always eaten this way.

We've been call weird for many other things, but never for our table manners.

Margaret McArthur

"Take it easy, but take it."

Studs Terkel

1912-2008

A sensational tennis blog from freakyfrites

margaretmcarthur.com

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I think American style is, if not wierd, quite inelegant, what with swapping the knife and fork back and forth between hands. Afterall, the fork is on the left. Even worse is holding the fork like a baseball bat with the tines pointing down while cutting. I've adopted a semi-European version of holding utensils. I hold the fork in my right and the knife in my left.

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I hold the fork in my right and the knife in my left.

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

I've recently been using a two-handed approach with desserts. Big spoon in right hand, wielded much like a knife, and fork in left. I use either to get the sweet stuff in my mouth depending on which seems more appropriate for any given bite.

Jim

olive oil + salt

Real Good Food

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I tend to eat "european style". I think I started some time in grade school after my mom said something. Anyway, every year at thanksgiving I usually sit next to the same cousin, and every year he says to me, "are you left handed?" and I say no. So, maybe you're kids will be given a hard time, but its probably not too big a deal. Just thell them that they know better.

Mike

The Dairy Show

Special Edition 3-In The Kitchen at Momofuku Milk Bar

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My mother taught me to keep my fork in my right hand and cut with the left even though it feels awkward. Most people I know do the switch back and forth thing. Then again, my mother is Canadian. And she had to admit several years back that I was actually born lefthanded and she kept moving things to my right hand 'because it just looked wrong' until the switch was permanent. By the time my brother came along, the pediatrician had persuaded her that that was really a bad idea and he turned out ambidextrous.

There's either a historical anecdote or urban legend, not sure which but probably the latter, that American spies in Nazi Germany were warned time and again to use the European method when eating their steaks in the cabarets or they would instantly give themselves away and be arrested and shot and no many how many times this was told to them, most of them would forget and switch hands and be arrested and shot.

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Since I started traveling more in Europe, I have adopted the European style because it just makes more sense. All of that swapping just seems silly. But... old habits die hard. I am in my schizophrenic phase right now. I catch myself doing the swap.

Tell your kids to say something like... "Oh, We were taught the European way." Said with an appropriate air of superiority and worldliness of course. :biggrin:

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

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I'm a southpaw, so I don't exactly have much of a choice. :blink:

Soba

Same here. It never occurred to me that I ate "funny."

"Some people see a sheet of seaweed and want to be wrapped in it. I want to see it around a piece of fish."-- William Grimes

"People are bastard-coated bastards, with bastard filling." - Dr. Cox on Scrubs

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Tell your kids to say something like... "Oh, We were taught the European way." Said with an appropriate air of superiority and worldliness of course.  :biggrin:

I don't know about that advice. That seems like giving another kid an excuse to beat your kids up.

You know - the ones in the family car with the bumper sticker that says "My kid could beat up your honor student".

Bill Russell

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I eat with my fork in my left hand and my knife in my right hand. So does my wife, although I'm not sure she always did or started to after we traveled in Europe. At any rate we brought our daughter up to eat that way. I was not aware of any problems she had at camp or any other time. However, she did marry a Frenchman.

The odd thing is that I am a lefty, at least most of the time. I write with my left hand and I think that's what establishes one as a lefty. I play ball as a righty in any sport that matters -- baseball, tennis, etc. I have greater dexterity using my left hand, but greater strength with my right hand and thus sometimes I do things as a righty and other times as a lefty. Although I claim greater dexterity with my left hand, I am comfortable using a mouse with either hand and have switched back on forth when I've had wrist problems.

Back at the dining table, I've always traced the use of my left hand to hold a fork to my lefthandedness, but I have not been able to figure out why right handed people keep changing hands to cut the meat. No one ever gave me a hard time about the way I ate at camp, although I didn't know it was the european way at the time. I just thought it was the left handed way.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

My mailbox is full. You may contact me via worldtable.com.

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Even worse is holding the fork like a baseball bat with the tines pointing down while cutting.

I'm not following this description. Aren't the tines supposed to be pointed down? I thought only Middle European types ate with tines pointed up.

I've adopted a semi-European version of holding utensils. I hold the fork in my right and the knife in my left.

That would be considered correct nowhere! :laugh::raz:

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I went to school in Catholic Austria for a year. It is a sin to put your hand in your lap after you switch your fork over to the other hand. In Europe, hands are always on the table. The "American" way makes no sense. I work in a restaurant. I observe some incredibly bad table manners routinely.

Mark

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The "American" way makes no sense.

Table manners are supposed to make sense?

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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On a related topic, do you lay the table with the fork tines/spoon bowl up or down?

If you lay with the tines or bowl up, do you have cutlery with the hallmark ( I assume it is, of course, solid silver) on the top surface?

Personally I think it vulgar to show the hallmark, but some advocate it.

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Eating with both utensils in hand is also a South American custom - I was befuddled the first day I went to school in US and had lunch in the cafeteria - what was all this changing over about? And lunch monitors telling me to get my forearms off the table. Just inefficient I say, all that transferring of cutlery - also I have always wondered, what exactly are they doing with their hand on their lap while they are usingthe fork??

and jackal... stainless or silver, bowls of utensils always facing up, the family initials on the silver pieces are engraved on the front of the cutlery, not the back!

www.nutropical.com

~Borojo~

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The nicety about European cutlery etiquette is the placement of the cutlery between bites. The knife and fork placed to the left means you are finished with the plate/course. A fork and knife on either side of the plate mean you are going to continue eating after a short interlude into conversation, etc.

These visual signs make etiquette much easier for the server and other guest to recognize where the individual is at in the dining experience.

Chef/Owner/Teacher

Website: Chef Fowke dot com

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also I have always wondered, what exactly are they doing with their hand on their lap while they are usingthe fork??

The French keep their hands above table; the British keep their hands on their laps. Ask a 100 Frenchmen what they think the Brit is doing below the table and you will be told the same thing every time! Those horny Brits...

Chef/Owner/Teacher

Website: Chef Fowke dot com

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