What's the matter with kids today? Chapter 1: Table Manners

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  • Puzzler, you are welcome to dine at my table any time. The young lady who is the subject of my OP is not.

    And I love Chinese food, especially when it is ordered and consumed the "right" way.

    {Miss Amanda girds her loins in anticipation of the opprobrium that remark will engender, over and above that which she has already endured upthread.]

    What an odd thing to say. Could the child in Puzzler's post have elbows on the table and knees up? How would you tell?

    Somehow you seem to be saying that it is ok to be politely engaged in conversation in a Chinese restaurant situation - whatever your posture - but not in your home.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Moo wrote: »
    There is one type of 'elbows on the table' which is very unattractive. The person leans forward with his elbows and forearms beside his plate, as if he were afraid someone might try to snatch it away. On the rare occasions I have seen this, I have looked away and refrained from looking that way again.

    This used to be our preferred position when saying grace at home, because otherwise we would open our eyes to a depleted plate and a cat making a hasty exit.

    Funnily enough the cat nicked the tuna mayonnaise put out for the jacket potatoes last night. I found it particularly ironic because I've always thought tuna smelled like cat food anyway. But that must have been either a very efficient cat or a long grace!
  • And now for something completely different--a little humor, to clear the air! ;)

    Back in 1969, Disney aired a TV version of "Hans Brinker & The Silver Skates". It was based on the book of the same name, which has to do with Dutch teenage boys in an ice-skating race down a river. This thread made me think of my fave song and scene: "Proper Manners"! (About 3 minutes, 47 seconds.) The boys spend the night at an inn, and the innkeeper (Cyril Ritchard) is none too pleased with their manners. He endeavors to educate them, and it's hilarious.

    NOTE: No captioning, I'm afraid, and I couldn't find lyrics. There's at least one full copy of the movie on YouTube, and maybe it has captioning. If anyone's desperate for that, I can take a look.
  • (Hans Brinker addendum.)

    Ok, there is a captioned version on YouTube, but there's a catch: you can't switch on the captioning unless you have a Google account and log into YouTube with it. That's just mean!

    Anyway, here's the scene (at 47:32), if anyone wants to try.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    What an odd thing to say. Could the child in Puzzler's post have elbows on the table and knees up? How would you tell? Somehow you seem to be saying that it is ok to be politely engaged in conversation in a Chinese restaurant situation - whatever your posture - but not in your home.

    Lordy Lordy, you have a vivid imagination! You should try selling it -- make a fortune.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Anselmina wrote: »
    How irrational of me to favour thinking of people with genuine problems over entitled, selfish twats. I’ve no issue with service animals, except to acknowledge the real conflict between their owners and people with serious allergies.
    Well, it is true you did make that distinction. My bad. However, I'm a dog person, so frankly I'd probably still feel happier with the table-manners of most dogs I know than many hoomans!

    (Speaking as the one-time owner of a lurcher who would've inhaled food through his arse if he could've got away with it.)
  • GwaiGwai Epiphanies Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Moo wrote: »
    There is one type of 'elbows on the table' which is very unattractive. The person leans forward with his elbows and forearms beside his plate, as if he were afraid someone might try to snatch it away.
    This used to be our preferred position when saying grace at home, because otherwise we would open our eyes to a depleted plate and a cat making a hasty exit.
    But that must have been either a very efficient cat or a long grace!
    I was quite enjoying picturing a cat who had learned that it could do whatever it liked during grace and so leapt up onto the table the minute the praying started knowing it wouldn't have to run until the praying ended.
  • Gwai wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Moo wrote: »
    There is one type of 'elbows on the table' which is very unattractive. The person leans forward with his elbows and forearms beside his plate, as if he were afraid someone might try to snatch it away.
    This used to be our preferred position when saying grace at home, because otherwise we would open our eyes to a depleted plate and a cat making a hasty exit.
    But that must have been either a very efficient cat or a long grace!
    I was quite enjoying picturing a cat who had learned that it could do whatever it liked during grace and so leapt up onto the table the minute the praying started knowing it wouldn't have to run until the praying ended.
    I suppose if one's imagination ended there, it would be amusing. However, if one thought about were the cat might have been walking before jumping on the table...

  • It wasn't a question of taking offence, but it left me puzzled... I did my undergrad at a fairly traditional men's college where we took dinner together. Grace, served at table, etc. When I first arrived, I was appalled at the want of table manners many of them displayed. One of the worst was one fellow who would stab his pork chop with his fork, holding it down as though it might escape the plate, proceed to saw at with his knife, then continue to hold the fork 'backwards' as he delivered a morsel to his mouth. Others displayed similar, if not so cartoonish, behaviour. After getting to know these guys after a couple months, it dawned on me that a lot of them had gone to boarding school, so missed out on the training I got at home on a daily basis.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    I don't quite get this - what were you expecting? I may have misunderstood you, but to me this sounds like a perfectly normal British way of eating (although somewhat frenetic).
  • I don't quite get this - what were you expecting? I may have misunderstood you, but to me this sounds like a perfectly normal British way of eating (although somewhat frenetic).
    Yes, I must confess to being slightly mystified as well. Even with a tender piece of meat, one secures the piece one will eat and then cuts it away from the main. I await edification as to why this makes one a barbarian.
  • Chops come with handles, so you can hold them easily while you gnaw at them, grease dripping down your chin.

    And that's the correct way to eat a chop.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    Chops come with handles, so you can hold them easily while you gnaw at them, grease dripping down your chin.

    And that's the correct way to eat a chop.
    And now you are right off ABR's Christmas list.
    harrumph
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    @Pangolin Guerre

    What do you mean by holding the fork backwards?

    We were taught to hold the fork this way at all times - even when eating peas!
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I remember one time when I was on a plane, travelling from one part of Canada to another, so the people around me were Canadian, and I caught a glimpse in the window of the reflection of all of us eating our plane dinners. All the Canadians were sitting back, casually, holding just their fork, as if it were a spoon, and scooping up their meal. I was sitting straight, holding both my knife and fork in the way shown in the pic Boogie linked to, and I became very aware that I looked like the odd one out! But this is the eating etiquette of the UK. The Canandian way looked sloppy to me, though I was aware it was different etiquette norms, and I realised I must look odd to them. I found it quite amusing!
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    Boogie wrote: »
    @Pangolin Guerre

    What do you mean by holding the fork backwards?

    We were taught to hold the fork this way at all times - even when eating peas!

    I was taught this one, but I don't observe it rigorously because it's stark staring bonkers for things which will just roll off. I rotate my fork according to the position least likely to scatter food all around the table.
  • I have seen Americans move their fork from their left to right hand after cutting. I'm not sure what they made of my barbarian fork-in-left-hand ways.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I hold my fork in my left hand and knife in my right, as I was taught this was the way, though I am left handed, so in theory should do it the other way - but I notice a lot of left handers do the same as me. It is more convenient as no hand switching need happen if I decide I don't need my knife. Though I find I continue to hold my knofe in general, out of habit, even when I oberve it is serving no purpose! I can feel a bit uneven without it.
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    Gosh...in my right-handed privilege I hadn't thought about that. Interesting. Have you ever tried the other way?

    I too tend to hold the knife always.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    No, never wanted to try it the other way - well, maybe I did out of curiosity, but not seriously intending to keep it that way. The way I do it is what I'm used to now. It'd be hard to adjust to the other way.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited October 2018
    Fingers were made before a fork, as the saying goes. Though possibly not for mashed potato.

    Back in the day you carried your own knife - and spoon also a good idea. This would cope with most things slapped in your trencher.

    Fancy cutlery is a things of the last couple of centuries, possibly at its apogee in the 1900s, the era of specialised asparagus forks.

    Basically, the eating implements are there to help you eat efficiently and unmessily.

    I eat my peas with honey
    I’ve done it all my life.
    It makes the peas taste funny
    But it keeps them on the knife.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    I used to have a book called Life in Shakespeare's England. It consisted of excerpts from the writings of Shakespeare's contemporaries that shed light on customs.

    My favorite excerpt was written by a man who had just returned from living in Italy, where he learned to use a fork. He explained that forks were better than hands "since all men's hands are not alike clean."
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Having been reduced to eating in the campus cafeteria once a week (sometimes more) this semester, I'll just say that the number of students I see chewing with their mouths open is truly appalling. I have muttered any number of excuses to avoid sitting with my own students ("Sorry; another time; must prep for next class") for fear of discovering this barbarity in them. And then there's the putting of feet which have recently waded through puddles onto seats, and the young men who manage to take up entire tables with one self, outerwear, backpacks, skateboards, etc. but who insist on sitting "together" at adjoining tables, shouting across at one another, while others roaming the lunchroom searching for a place to sit . . .
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    @Pangolin Guerre

    What do you mean by holding the fork backwards?

    We were taught to hold the fork this way at all times - even when eating peas!

    I was taught this one, but I don't observe it rigorously because it's stark staring bonkers for things which will just roll off. I rotate my fork according to the position least likely to scatter food all around the table.

    Me too - unless I notice everyone else is being polite and keeping the fork in the correct position :smile:

  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I used to keep it in the right position and have fun stabbing and eating one pea at a time as a kid. Now I turn it over like a spoon to scoop the peas, which is quicker, but not so fun, and I find the 'correct' way of holding spoons (and I assume upturned forks) uncomfortable.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    It's perfectly ok to eat peas with your fok held upside down and in your right hand - you do need something on the pleat to push them against though. Better to serve either snow peas or sugar snaps though. An added bonus is that they're clearly not just taken from a packet in the freezer.
  • These kinds of eating taboos - along with injunctions about 'long hair', 'wearing jeans to church', 'speaking with an Essex accent whilst living in Essex' etc - were the music of most of my childhood. I've wondered if the world was different enough a generation before me, that my failure to grasp them really would have been as catastrophic as my parents made out, or if perhaps they were just expressions of my parents' own frustrated social ambitions. That's a real question older shippies, and for info I was born in 1970.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    @Pangolin Guerre

    What do you mean by holding the fork backwards?

    We were taught to hold the fork this way at all times - even when eating peas!

    I was taught this one, but I don't observe it rigorously because it's stark staring bonkers for things which will just roll off. I rotate my fork according to the position least likely to scatter food all around the table.
    Except when eating a slab of something which I desire to consume in smaller chunks, I do not observe it at all, because it is ridiculous. A fork was obviously designed to be used concave side up. Although, I do not switch hands.* I use what I have just learned is called a hybrid-style. Knife in right hand fork in left. Concave up when eating slab-type foods and concave down when eating more scoop-able morsels.

    *The American habit of cutting and eating with the same hand seems a bit odd to me.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    Don't you mean concave up when scooping, ie with tines pointing somewhat upwards? Like with a spoon?
  • For various reasons, as a teenager, I learned to eat a banana with a fruit knife and fork and how to serve myself from a platter being held next to my shoulder. In this millennium I have not found a use for these skills. Nor am I often called upon to wrangle a fish knife.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Don't you mean concave up when scooping, ie with tines pointing somewhat upwards? Like with a spoon?
    Buggerit, yes.
  • When I was living in Africa, my missionary colleagues set me up one evening by telling me that I had to eat a squishy mango with a knife and fork. Not recommended.
  • When I was living in Africa, my missionary colleagues set me up one evening by telling me that I had to eat a squishy mango with a knife and fork. Not recommended.
    This is exactly how I eat them. Because they're squishy. Though, as a child, I just peeled and stuffed directly into my mouth, gnawing around the pit.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I cut up mango and banana into little pieces and put them in a bowl with yogurt and cacao nibs, and eat them with a spoon.
  • Ah, bananas. The most manly of fruit. Best peeled ever so slowly with a hint of anticipation and a slight licking of the lips. Then holding the shaft of the fruit gently, fervently, lower your mouth onto the tip of the creamy white flesh, making sure you maintain eye contact with your fellow diners. Slide a inch or so inside, then nip it off with quick bite.

    Everyone will be seriously impressed with your immaculate table manners.
  • * fans himself *
  • Somehow, I don't think that was part of Carmen Miranda's legendary Chiquita banana commercial...

    (The one in which she wore a tall hat made of fruit, while she sang and danced.)

    It is, however, similar to scenes in "Flashdance" and "Fast Times At Ridgemont Times". They just involved different foodstuffs.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    For various reasons, as a teenager, I learned to eat a banana with a fruit knife and fork and how to serve myself from a platter being held next to my shoulder. In this millennium I have not found a use for these skills. Nor am I often called upon to wrangle a fish knife.

    These are a thing of the past, I think?
  • I never even knew fruit knives and forks were a thing! Off to google...
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    In polite society in France, one eats peaches and similar fruit with a knife and fork. I much prefer this to using my fingers and ending up with juice up to my elbows. We have what I believe are proper fruit knives in our house although they meet with a variety of uses – they’re quite handy for cheese as well. We don’t have any special forks though, so have to make do with pastry forks.

    Fish cutlery is also in regular use chez rouge. It was given to me by my mother, but bizarrely there is only enough for three people, which strikes me as a very strange number. I have no idea why my mother had three fish knives and forks.
  • In Britain, we have taps and towels.

    Exclaiming noisily to everyone at the table just how juicy your peach is almost the best part of eating a peach, as is the juice dripping down your chin and the sucking that sweet, sweet nectar from your fingers. I also like my plums ripe and bursting with flavour.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    I always eat peaches leaning over the kitchen sink
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate

    Moo wrote: »
    I always eat peaches leaning over the kitchen sink

    I cut them up into a ramekin and eat them with a teaspoon. I’ve just done the same with a juicy pear.

    I hate stickiness!

  • The nicest foods all make a horrible mess - juicy fruit, cream cakes etc etc.
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    Boogie wrote: »
    I cut them up into a ramekin ...

    This thread is showing me what a philistine I am. No idea re fruit cutlery. Had to google "ramekin"*. I may as well just use a trough and my mouth.


    * I thought it was a fancy shape a la this

  • Easy. Someone will be breaking out the doilies in a minute...
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    Moo wrote: »
    I always eat peaches leaning over the kitchen sink

    I do this! :lol:

    Or else I chop them up along with a banana and put in yogurt. Or they are quite nice stir fried into a dinner. I love peaches.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Peach shortcake makes an interesting change from strawberry shortcake.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    I inherited some fish knives (to say nothing of fruit forks and knives), and I would use them if I could still entertain. Cutlery can be fun!
  • Curiosity killedCuriosity killed Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    According John Betjeman (and certain of my relatives), fish knives are non-U - see Phone for the fish knives, Norman - Wiki explanation, here

    And, yes, I've eaten fruit with a knife and fork too. Personally, when told that I'm eating formally and have to eat properly, I select fruit from those on offer that make sense to eat with cutlery, like peaches, rather than bananas.
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