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Chopsticks use maxxes out cultural differences. Full of admiration for those that use them proficiently – I can sort of but I’d not trust myself to guarantee an incident free meal whilst talking and thinking about something else.
But…and it’s a flipping massive but…..anyone I’ve eaten with who does this naturally as their default eating style from birth and the food makes 90% of the journey from the table to their mouth still in the bowl. The chopsticks are only trusted with the last few inches. To me that kind of says its a bit of a crap method.
Chopsticks just take practice. Once you get used to them, it's just like picking up stuff with your fingers. When you eat noodles, you put the bowl up to your mouth so you don't splatter soup everywhere but most stuff you just pick up off the plate and transfer to you mouth as though you were picking it up with your fingers.
Fork’s job: spike things, scoop things, balance things, turn things, lift things up and transfer into small facial hole without dropping it in your lap, etc.
Knife’s job: back and forth sawing motion. Or sit still to be a wall to push against.
Whoever invented table etiquette: “Hey let’s make people use the fork with their weaker uncoordinated hand, it’ll be a laugh!”
Absolutely, which is what I do with the knife in my right hand and the fork in my left hand. I’m right handed.
Except when I use a bow or a rifle, then I’m left handed. Just to be awkward.
I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t use a knife and fork, or tie my shoe laces, or even read a book; I was reading at quite an early age, my folks bought me books on nature, encyclopaedia sets, some of which I still have, and I could read quite difficult words.
On the other hand, my ability with maths is not very good, I struggle to work out percentages with a sodding calculator!
For all the people who hold the fork in their non dominant hand; if you eat with just a fork, do you still hold it that way? If you’re eating a bag of crisps, which hand do you use to eat with?
No, if I’m eating a curry or something similar, I just use a fork in my right hand to pick up whatever it is, either scooping or skewering, and a spoon for the more liquid parts. I eat crisps with my right hand, and I use chopsticks with my right hand.
I guess I’m slightly ambidextrous, I use whichever hand is appropriate for whatever it is I happen to be doing or eating.
Just makes sense to me.🤷🏼
Right handed people are weird. They hold the fork in the left hand, do sawing with right hand, and then swap over to the right hand to do shovelling, and then swap back to do more sawing.<br />To be fair what you are describing their are right handed Americans. And their odd table manners is the least of their problems. They are Americans.<br /><br />
Exactly. Although, as I said above, I don’t need to swap hands, I’m perfectly capable of using my left hand to feed myself with, it’s just easier to hold the food in place with the fork, slice a piece of with the knife, then bring the food to my mouth with the fork, or use the knife to push softer food, like mashed potato, peas or whatever onto the ‘U’ of the fork. Anything else seems unnecessarily awkward.
I’m right handed.
Except when I use a bow or a rifle, then I’m left handed. Just to be awkward.
I know little about guns aside from using some wrong-handed can be seriously dangerous.
Bow handedness on the other hand should be dictated by eye dominance rather than hand dominance, you want to be sighting down the arrow stave rather than across it. I shoot right-handed (there was no LH equipment available when I learned) and compensate by closing my left eye for a final adjustment before loose.
Do you have a snake’s jaw?
Yep and adult sized hands 😝
When I’m doing the cooking you need the knife in the strong hand to have a hope of cutting through 🙂
Chopstick use in Japan was our party trick.
“Hashi ga jouzu ne”
Never got old. Well, only after the first hundred times. The idea that a westerner could use them was contrary to the decades of cultural exceptionalism that they’d been steeped in.
Our canteen used to serve a dessert of almond jelly cut into diamond shapes, served in a bit of syrup. Now that was a challenge that made peas seem straightforward.
Was thinking about this as I logged in. Sad hey?
Anyway, whilst on dinner duty at work today, (Very small primary school) I shall see about 20 kids, half the school having cooked lunches. Admittedly this will be about 15 infants as they eat free but most of them at 5 or 6 will use their fork as a shovel at best and will happily pick up chips, jacket spud, carrots, gravy etc with their paws. Of the older ones most will shovel or hold their forks as a dagger. One 7 year old will be a model pupil. It is revolting the way their general lack of tool handling skills results in most of them wearing a good part of their food and that includes the older ones.
Christmas dinner coming up in the village hall, thankfully organised by the PTA which means that school staff lurk on their own tables with their back to the riot. Bet you with double the number of kids eating a cooked meal including the older ones the average number of even vaguely correct tool users will be much the same.
I blame Brexit, the Tories, millennials and boomers for the atrocious state of decorum when it comes to putting food in the mouth. This wouldn’t have happened back in the days of empire. Back then people knew how to hold cutlery at the correct angle. It may have come at the heavy price of slavery, genocide, theft and cultural appropriation, but my god those people could hold their heads high knowing they had impeccable table manners. It’s no wonder climate change exists when young Johnny doesn’t know his soup spoon from his cheese knife. What’s the world coming to! Outrageous!
It’s not so much about eating with a knife and fork, but how many crumbs are left all over the table and floor
Correct use of the tools impacts on this massively
You can see the difference between schools that teach use of the tools and those that dont
I use fork in my right hand, Spoon in my right hand, knife in my left. As a result so do my kids. As long as they are eating sensibly and politely then I am happy.
I eat the way I do as that's how my left handed mum taught me.
We bought our nephew a 'Beatrix Potter child's knife and fork' set when he was young. He moved onto bigger cutlery when older, but we always ate our meals at the table, chatted about the day, had a laugh, he could use cutlery properly and was once complimented in a cafe by a waitress, who said what a well mannered child. My Italian uncle taught me to eat with a fork and spoon certain pasta dishes. If someone has spent time preparing a good meal it should be eaten at a table properly.
Oh and we always finish with the knife and fork closed together.
Whereas the neighbour's children wander around the garden holding finger food (even eating on the trampoline).
Manners maketh man and my parents were sticklers for good table manners.
My kids are 9 and 13, and have been taught to use a knife and fork, so of course they can.<br /><br />Whether they choose to is another matter...
My 13 year old would force his face into the plate and snout about if he could, and my darling 9 year old has a penchant for eating peas with her hands.
Kids...FFS..
DrP
Anyone that uses cutlery to eat a burger or pizza should not be allowed to eat either ever again. It’s supposed to be messy you beautiful, sad weird people.
It's not that straight forward, depends where I am, who I'm with and the size of the burger, it also stops you burning the roof of your mouth if the cheese on the pizza is the temperature of lava.
If it annoys other people, well then that's just an added bonus 😀
It's remarkable that your "weak" hand can be trained to play a piano or guitar but some people think it is inadequately dextrous (see what I did there?) for the task of moving food from plate to mouth.
Well, that was "fun" . Spag boll today that comes in an urn in the one big solid mass plus a mix of broccoli, carrot and peas slopped on top. Many a finger got covered in tomato sauce but virtually no knives were used. Or jacket spud with beans and the same veg. Yummy and messy. Poor little buggers can hardly hold a knife let alone hack through a boot leather potato jacket.
It’s not that straight forward, depends where I am, who I’m with and the size of the burger, it also stops you burning the roof of your mouth if the cheese on the pizza is the temperature of lava.
If it annoys other people, well then that’s just an added bonus 😀
it’s really simple. Pick up food type with hand(s) and proceed to eat. If food is too big, squash or feel ashamed of your Trump hands. If food is too hot, realise this by the fact it is too hot.
I genuinely love you bunch of freaks. In all my life I’ve never come across a burger that is too big, heavy or awkward to consume by hand. Where are you all eating, ****ing Brogdingnag! 😂 and magical utensils that tell the surface temperature of pizza
In all my life I’ve never come across a burger that is too big, heavy or awkward to consume by hand. Where are you all eating
Exhibit A, Almost Famous, Manchester
My two can, although they're lazy and often try to just use the fork, but in the wrong hand. I've even seen my son scoop food onto his fork with his hand despite being told numerous times to use his knife and fork properly. My threat of no pudding normally gets them back using their cutlery properly.
I actually prefer to eat a big burger with a knife and fork, especially in a restaurant. Burgers in fast food places are relatively small so they're eaten with the hands.
Burgers
in fast food placesarerelatively small so they’reeaten with the hands.
FTFY.
Exhibit A, Almost Famous, Manchester
Can’t tell how big that is without something else for scale. More importantly why is it just sat on the table! I’d eat that without utensils. Burgers are dirty junk food so eating them should feel a bit dirty and wrong.
It’s remarkable that your “weak” hand can be trained to play a piano or guitar but some people think it is inadequately dextrous (see what I did there?) for the task of moving food from plate to mouth.
Which is still going to be weaker than your dominant hand.
What is the sensible argument for holding in the left hand which only suits a small percentage of the population?
A quick google seems to indicate its a slight evolution of "hold in left hand to cut, move to right to eat" so ironically it may have originating from some people being incapable of training their left hand to do anything useful.