Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Emily Post?

Any eat with the fork in the Left hand?

No elbows on the table?

I eat steak with the fork in the left hand.


Had a Danish exchange student friend of my daughter's stay
here a good bit. She got embarrassed when I pointed out how she
held a fork. Neither she or my family were aware of the culture
difference.


Any idea where the American way came from, or why?

And according to a tv show I saw where they visited Post's home,
and talked with a descendant, elbows on the table are perfectly
acceptable. Leaning on the table, or otherwise making anyone
near you uncomfortable, would be bad manners though.

In Japan if you don't make serious slurping noise whilst sipping soup, it's considered very bad manors.

'One foot on the floor, boarding rules."

We lay silverware in the European pattern: fork on the left and knife on the right. The natural and convenient way to eat is to simply pick both of them up and use them that way. But since most of us are right-handed, and our mothers taught us to hold our baby spoon with our right hand, we grew up doing that with our fork, too.

If you eat the European way for a while, it soon becomes quite usual. With many foods like steak it is far better than switching fork hands constantly. Other foods like spaghetti, not so much.

Yes. I’m left handed.

Using a knife & fork, fork always in left hand.

Using just a fork, right hand.

Pretty simple really.

When we moved to Canada (15 years ago), Deb had to teach my brothers 3 (7,5 & 3) kids how to hold & use cutlery !