Adnams

A few years back I was watching a televised state function and the President was eating the correct way. I.e. with a fork in left knife in right
So perhaps it's a class / formality thing too? Oh and it was Bush too!

Yorkieabroad

And the common denominator is.......

Actually, its one of my pet peeves as well.

Working in the cafeteria at school is quite an eye opener as to the abysmal table manners of (some) elementary kids. They are not allowed knives (only get a plastic spork type thing) so couldn't comment on whether they can use one or not, but a large proportion of them eat like animals. Literally. Mouths open, food flying everywhere, and on several occasions hands and cutlery have been bypassed totally, in favour of the face to plate technique. A particular favorite (this is normally, but not exclusively) the boys is "mixing" - whether it is combining chocolate milk and mashed potato, or squeezing bits of lunch into a half full water bottle and shaking it to make "soup". A particular favorite appears to be rotini, Cheetos and mustard.

When I see one doing something particularly gross, I often ask them if they'd do that at home. Scarily, you can tell from the expression that the answer is probably "yes"

Yorkieabroad

Amen sister!

Yorkieabroad

He probably had K and F on his cuff links

SultanOfSwing

That's just children being minging. Our daughter plays with her food like that as well, no matter how many times we try to stop her

It's when adults (and teenagers) do it that it really bothers me. No amount of correct cutlery practice can offset the godawful squelch, smack, squeak of a noise eater. Bastards to a man.

Pulaski

But for many children, school lunch may be the only time they sit at a table to eat. Or perhaps sometimes at a fast food restaurant. So there are very few opportunities or role models for them to learn good table manners these days.

Little Miss P was quite adept with a spoon and a fork before she was two years old, and was learning how to use a knife, though mostly for pushing and scraping, not cutting. Then she started at day care! It has literally taken 4½ years since then to get her back to where her cutlery skills were before she started at day care.

Yorkieabroad

Maybe, but if they are still doing it at 10/11/12 year old, There's something wrong...and not a lot is likely to change....

Yorkieabroad

Hit the nail on the head there....

SultanOfSwing

One doesn't have to be at a table to learn good table manners. Our dining room table doubles as a storage area for 'crap that hasn't found a permanent home yet'. Therefore we usually sit in the living room using either the coffee table or our laps, yet we're all (with the exception of a beligerant three-year-old) capable of eating politely either there or when we do go out to eat somewhere.

Plus, it's really hard to see the TV from the other table

Poppy girl

I married into a red neck family (divorced) and it was mind blowing what went on, my step son at the age of 14yrs would pick his veg up with his fingers, that trick came to an abrupt stop, my ex husband would lick the plate not only at home but in a restaurant double

My pet hate is when you eat out and the server takes the plates/plate away when others are still eating, big time piss off from my end!

SultanOfSwing

That doesn't bother me. If I'm done (and I eat quickly so I usually am) before everyone else, I don't mind handing over my plate to get it away. Makes the table look cleaner.

I'm also usually asked if they can take the plate, so I could turn the request down if I really wanted a dirty plate sitting in front of me.

Pulaski

That's an interesting article, however it is ironic that they quote Tom Colicchio and an incident at one of his restaurants, because whenever I've seen him on Top Chef, he is "a switcher" who holds the fork in his left hand very awkwardly, almost vertical, while hacking at whatever he is cutting with the knife in his right hand.

Nutek

We got rid of our Dining Room table so that there was more room for computers.

SultanOfSwing

Our house is open plan in the main living area, so technically speaking ours isn't really a dining room table anyway. I think we've eaten at it a few times but it's a pain in the bloody arse to clean it when I have a perfectly good lap to use. Therefore, other than at Thanksgiving and Christmas, when it becomes part of the self-serve festival of lovely food, it is used for crap storage.

Pulaski

I'm indifferent, I wish they didn't clear the table while others are eating, but I'm not too concerned. What irritates me more is when they go to grab my plate when I haven't even finished! Even when I purposely rest my knife and/or fork handle on the table (a habit generally despise) deliberately to stop the waiter grabbing my plate, I have had them lean in to carefully place my cutlery back on the plate so they can remove it!

I think it says a lot about the amount of food wasted in America when the wait staff can't even work out when someone has finished eating.