Dimsie

Each time we eat out I notice others watching me eat with a puzzled look on their faces. I assume this is due to my cutlery habits - or perhaps they just think I look funny !! Anyway, I wondered whether most ex-pats in the US have changed to the American mode of eating with fork only, with the occasional stab and saw action at something which needs cutting. I've not mastered this art as yet -it's probably all about teaching an old dog new tricks I'm not sure I really want to change my ways that much. Have you changed yours?

Ray

I just sharpened the edge of a fork.... I don't need no stinking knife...

ImHere

We are having a daily battle with our 10 year old daughter to keep her table manners and eating with a knife and fork as she is rapidly picking up the dreadful American habit of stab n saw with a fork and talking with her mouthful etc from school meals.

CitySimon

I sat down for a meal with another Brit and a couple of Americans at the weekend and we noticed almost immediately the difference between the use of cutlery between the Brits and the Americans...

I've been here for 2 years, but the other Brit has been here for 10 years and still uses both knife and fork at the same time.

For a while I wondered whether it was just my wife, but ALL Americans seem to do it...

Are Americans taught to use cutlery like that? Or, is the problem that nobody ever actually taught them how to use cutlery properly?

Toontje

Watch out for what you're saying here. By using these words you put your own manners above those of Americans, like you know better how to behave than an American does.

Why not simply admit that the American culture is different from the European one? Not necessarily better or worse, just different........

ImHere

Aah there you go, thats the problem: Taught to use cutlery to eat wholesome meals composed of real foods and vegetables as opposed to crap finger foods like pizza and burgers all the time. We had one of our daughters friends round on sunday and we made a traditional british roast complete with veggies and British gravy. She looked blankly at the brocolli smothered in gravy and after a couple of attempts at poking at it with her fork she asked how she was supposed to eat it without getting gravy everywhere.....

ImHere

Bollocks. You're not telling me eating foods with your fingers and not knowing how to use basic cutlery is just "different" in a civilised western country? I have no problem with cultural differences but this just plain laziness thats crept in in recent years.

CitySimon

Alright Toontje... I'll give you that.. I could have worded the sentence better.

I was simply making an observation. I am well aware that American culture is different to European culture. No insult was intended and I apologise to anyone who may have taken offence to what was intended to be nothing more than an innocuous throw down comment.

ps. My wife agrees with me.

fatbrit

Toontje is right. I once found culture in America. We were away for a long weekend and when we got home found the power had tripped. At the bottom of the fridge were plenty of little green bits of culture happily growing.

ImHere

Oh come on....appologise for offence??? Dont do it ffs, if anyones offended by comments regarding table manners then they need to get a life.

CitySimon

I'm just trying to stem the tide of lawsuits ImHere!!!

I know I'm right and so do you! Just don't tell anyone else! Shhhh!

ImHere

I can see the writ now:

"Well M'lud im suing CitySimon because I was deeply offended and suffered serious trauma that prevented me from working due to comments he made about my - as an American - inability to use cutlery. These comments left me feeling so badly inferior to the British and their ability to multitask using both a knife and fork at the same time that I was unable to work for a living anymore. And hence I feel the sum of $5,000,000 will help to put my shattered and torn life back into some semblance of normality, while I pick over the remains of my marriage with just a fork."

Toontje

ladylisa

I think your right about different types of food though. Many dinners we have been to with americans are bring you own dish or generally just more casual nature.

We have been pointed at when we have been eating and told how cute it is that we use our knife.

Rete

I'm American but for whatever reason use both the knife and fork when eating, i.e. using the fork in my left hand although I'm right handed and my knife in my right, with both remaining in my hands during the course of eating.

I actually can do and do eat using both the European and American methods. I find that I use the American method when I'm with others who use this method so as not to draw attention to myself (which I have been taught is good manners) and to our "differences" which might make them feel uncomfortable.

I have seen Europeans in Germany, Switzerland and Austria eating and talking with food in their mouths and they think nothing of it. In fact I have also observed this in Canada. So that particular gripe is not strictly an American oddity but one apparently that is universal.