scot47

It is strange that for a long time "becoming American" meant renouncing EVERYTHING connected with the Homeland. Now it may be too easy and too cheap to travel to and fro so people never make up their mind where they "belong". Confusing innit ?

Steerpike

I'm suggesting one does 'what works best' in a given situation and not worry about stupid general rules - be they UK or US based. I was thinking about mashed potatoes as an example ... do you really keep your fork 'down' (tines down) and push mashed potatoes onto the 'back' of the fork, using a knife? or do you 'scoop up' the mashed potatoes using the fork 'tines up'? I do the latter as it is far more practical.

My 84 year-old mum happens to be visiting me at the moment. I asked her about forks and mashed potatoes ... she said yes, when we were young, we were taught to always keep the fork tines down, but nowadays it is not so common, even amongst her friends.

Of course, if I'm eating a steak or a sausage or something solid, then using the fork to stabilize the meat, and the knife to cut it, and then the fork to deliver to mouth, is obvious. But using a knife to push stuff onto the back of a fork is ridiculous. Especially when it is peas, or rice. Do you eat a curry with rice using a knife and fork in this manner?

SultanOfSwing

I don't know of anyone who bothers with the tines down thing but my preferred method is to keep hold of the knife so I can scoop up mash/rice/baked beans/whatever else can't be effectively stabbed by the fork, as efficiently as possible. If I try to eat those things with just a fork, bits of food invariably get left behind and I don't like to leave food behind ...

If eating a curry (or other rice based cubed-meat-in-sauce style meal) I'd probably just have the fork by itself since there's no cutting to do. Same with spaghetti. I never eat peas so I don't have to worry about them, evil little shits that they are.

Mostly it's just force of habit to keep the knife in my hand, I feel weird without it but I don't really care what others do at the table as long as they aren't pushing stuff around with their fingers or licking the plates

Pulaski

No, I mostly adopt the most practical approach - with the caveat that I hold both knife and fork throughout the meal when there is cutting to be done, and use only the fork for risotto, stroganoff, Indian, and Chinese meals. Tines point whichever way they are more useful/ effective.

FWIW Even Debrett's guide to etiquette gave up more than 20 years ago on recommending peas be stabbed, and said it is OK to "spoon" them with a fork.

BTW I did not say I use a knife to push food to the back of the fork; I just use the knife to hold or steady the "target morsel", and thereby avoid a more vertical stab, in favour of one closer to horizontal.

MostlyYank

I think the value of teaching them your heritage is not that they will embrace being English etc, but that it will help them understand the differences that will be part of themselves when they're older, whether they like it or not

I suspect this is true of any nationality in any nation.

So make them eat eel Make'em use the knife properly too lol.

Pete

Steerpike

Spaghetti - now there's another fun food! I use the spoon method that I THINK I picked up while traveling in Italy - use the fork to twist the spaghetti around the tines, with the spoon as a fulcrum (?) / end-cap until the spaghetti is well wrapped, then deliver to mouth ... yum

When eating Pho (vietnamese noodle soup), I try the above approach but invariably there are noodles still stuck in the bowl, so I slurp them up and bite them off ... haven't found a 'proper' way to eat those things

SultanOfSwing

I think the use of the spoon is the Italian convention but at home, that's just an extra utensil (x4) to have to wash, so I just use the plate as the anchor point and hope for the best

Never tried Pho, so I haven't had that problem yet.

Pulaski

I use the plate method, and having visited Italy on numerous occasions (around 20), I think that Italians put a spoon on the table, along side the fork, for visitors, and their own children, but otherwise use the plate method.

Shortly after I married Mrs P, she was preparing spaghetti, and breaking the dry noodles into 2-3" fragments! WTF!!!! Apparently that was the way her parents had preferred them. "Er, no, that has to stop!" I said. ..... Now when the in-laws visit and spaghetti is served, they both proceed to chop it to tiny fragments, before starting to eat it! .... But then my FIL flat refuses to eat Chinese, in the apparent belief that he'll be served dog!

SultanOfSwing

Maybe they should just start eating the Bolognaise sauce over rice instead