Ah, manners. We don’t hear much about table manners these days. We mostly hear about social media etiquette, and cell phone etiquette, but what about good old-fashioned table manners, specifically when it comes to forks and knives. What is there to talk about? A lot. Especially if you are looking at how most Europeans navigate a meal versus Americans.
Americans, dare we say it, are way behind in efficiency, elegance and plain old common sense. This article will explore the Continental Style versus the American Style of holding flatware. We are Americans, and we will tell you right now that our brethren appall us.
How Do You Hold a Fork?
Before we get to the heart of the matter of this article, which has to do with lefts and rights, let’s first talk about just holding a fork in general. You do not hold it like a shiv or a hammer that you’re about to attack someone with. Ever. Unless you are using the fork as a weapon, but we are talking about eating. And toddlers might get a pass, but still, what stab at your food?
The Proper Way
Sometimes, when no knife is going to be involved, you might just need to use a fork. And using your dominant hand, you can hold it with tines up, and like a pencil, with the shank (the fork handle) extended between your thumb and middle fingers, with your index finger functioning as an additional guide. Your fourth and fifth fingers are at rest, cupped inwards towards your palm. This allows you to scoop, using the tines as a surface to hold food, as well as to use the tines to insert into pieces of food you would like to get up into your mouth.
We can pretty much all agree about this. But when the knife is added to the equation, everything falls apart.
American Style, or The Zigzag, or Cut-and-Switch
None other than etiquette doyenne Emily Post had deemed the American style of handling forks and knives as the “Zigzag”. This is because the American way is to begin with the fork in the left hand, knife in the right, proceed to cut the food, then (omg it gives us agita just writing this) put the knife down on the plate, switch the fork over the right hand, flip it about so that it sits right, and then bring the food to their mouths.
*Loud buzzer sounding* Judges opinion: Inelegant, time wasting, excess movement, distracting, inefficient, and just plain dumb.
There is no point to this approach whatsoever.
Continental Style
Call us un-American if you like. When it comes to fork and knife wielding at the table, the Europeans have it down. Not only to a science, but to an art.
The fork begins in the left hand, tines down. Knife in the right. Food is cut. Piece that needs to get into our mouths is already on the left hand fork tines. Fork is raised to mouth. TA DA! No putting down of the knife, therefore no clinking of silverware on china. No fork and food traveling from left to right across the table to the right hand. Time is saved. Motion is efficient. Elbows, and entire limbs, remain tucked in. Beauty in motion.
A Bow To History
We will pause for a moment to acknowledge the fact that the switching technique was originally European. It is believed to have become popular in the early 18 century, possibly originating in France. Why? We love this quote from a Slate.com article:
“Fancy manners often fetishize delicacy, and it’s just easier to delicately convey food to your mouth with your dominant hand. Anna Post, Emily’s great-great-granddaughter, passed along another possibility. Back when dinnertime violence was a not too distant cultural memory, lowering the knife—even a rounded one—was intuitively associated with high manners. Indeed, Goldstein describes how American fork-floppers lay the knife on their plate—blade facing in—as a ‘medieval position of trust’.”
Can you imagine the various cutlery made available for the menu above?
Left Handers Be Gone
Some historians also believe that using the fork in the right hand to convey food to the mouth might’ve been born from general prejudice against left handed-ness. Historically and even presently, there are areas of Africa, India, and the Middle East where it is considered rude to eat with the left hand. The left hand is often used for personal hygiene, and therefore considered unclean.
Don’t Be Stubborn
If you are a cut-and-switcher, we think it’s time for you to change. According to Jeanette Martin, author of Global Business Etiquette, she cannot think of another major country that zigzags. Apparently, some Canadians do, but the continental style predominates, and we think for good reason.
Is One Style More Correct?
Anna Post (Emily’s great-great-granddaughter) says that either method is acceptable from an etiquette perspective. So, if you have been eating American Style all this time, you could dig in your heels and tell us you are not going to change.
But that stabbing death-grip hold? Never okay.
But people who work in hospitality as well as the etiquette world, including those who look at global etiquette and business etiquette, tell us that the awkward cut-and-switch is being seen less and less.
Formal Versus Informal
You might think that all this talk about table manners is pretentious and about formality. But as Anna Post has pointed out, the world has increasingly moved towards a more relaxed approach to all things in society, including manners, and the Continental Style is simply easier and more direct. It fits in with a more simplistic, modern approach.
Who Is Doing All The Zigzagging
According to that Slate article, those interviewed said that cut-and-switching is mostly associated with older Americans and Midwesterners.
How Do You Eat?
So, what camp do you fall into? How were you taught as a child? Is the way you eat now simply a holdover from what you were taught as a toddler? Are you interested in appearing more elegant and efficient, or perhaps it doesn’t matter to you? Obviously, we have not hidden our beliefs, but tell us what you think.
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