Using a knife and fork

Hollysteers Thanks for that.
It’s just what it said on Google apart from the refinement bit.
I’d have thought the middle classes would have been keener on aping their betters than the working classes, but who knew?
Your father sounds like my Granddad. He was quick to pour scorn on anything my Grandma did that didn’t suit him.
ParlorGames
Does it really matter?
No. I never really noticed until I started reading posts about GN’s perceptions of the right way. It comes up year on year with the same comments on the horrors of the American way, the evils of holding your knife in the way you choose, the lack of children’s ability to use a knife and fork and this year . . . 😱 using bread as an implement for eating curry.
I decided to Google whether there is indeed a correct way to eat, but your list of don’ts seems to cover the unacceptable, without criticising normal cutlery use.

Does it really matter which hand the knife and fork are in? As long as the diner is actually using the cutlery and not eating with their fingers, not waving celery about whilst talking, not using a spoon as a catapult, not stabbing anyone with the knife and not prodding anyone with the fork I don't really care.

Mollygo

I googled lots of stuff about holding your knife. According to one source, it is the middle classes who hold their knife like a pencil and the upper class and working class who wouldn’t dream of doing so, and the working class who are most concerned about how others hold their knife.
Who knew?

PaperMonster

Use cutlery in whichever way is most comfortable for you.
It’s a good motto to go by.

Holding your knife like a pencil is a misguided attempt at ‘refainment’. It’s practical to use the whole hand for cutting meat etc.
My mother held her knife like a pencil and my (working class) father poured scorn on her.
And he was right!

I am left-handed but use cutlery right-handed, however, if I lay a table I put the fork on the right. I don't know why.

Being left-handed in a right-handed world I often use either hand for tasks, for example depending on which scissors I am using, I have left and right-handed, I can use either hand.

I googled lots of stuff about holding your knife. According to one source, it is the middle classes who hold their knife like a pencil and the upper class and working class who wouldn’t dream of doing so, and the working class who are most concerned about how others hold their knife.
Who knew?

PaperMonster

Use cutlery in whichever way is most comfortable for you.
It’s a good motto to go by.

Primrose53, I do the same. I'm most definitely right handed but also use my fork in my right hand and knife in my left. I use a spoon in my right hand so can seem a bit awkward when eating a posh dessert with both a spoon and dessert fork!!
As a child, if I left the dinner table for whatever reason, my dad would swap the knife and fork back to the 'proper' setting! It became a running joke and he was still doing when I was in my forties!!

Knife in the right hand, fork in the left, unless you are left handed, of course.
Ask a left handed person to lay the table and it will end up with some knife on right, some on left, and if you throw in starters cutlery then it's a lucky diner who gets all the cutlery they need.

I am right handed, but eat with my knife in my left hand and fork in my right hand. Apparently as a small child, I was taught the "correct" way by my parents, but I always swapped them over. I also open jars and bottles with my left hand and envelopes.

Use cutlery in whichever way is most comfortable for you. I make sure the children I work with know to put their knife and fork together on the plate to show that they’ve finished. But they can use their cutlery in the most comfortable way they can. Sadly, a colleague doesn’t feel that way and scares some of the children.

VioletSky

Knife used for cutting should be in the dominant hand with the best control

I am a tiny bit fussy about it lol

That seems sensible.

We use chopsticks a lot now but not so much in our own home where we still use knives and forks. My grandchildren are all pretty nifty with chopsticks, some of them have lived in parts of Asia for a time. It is good to have a choice.

My Son & I love Ramen So I’ve just learned to use chopsticks efficiently
A deep spoon is held in left hand chopsticks in right hand
Watching young Chinese students using both together.
I haven’t quite mastered using both together yet You pick up noodles with chopsticks load them onto the spoon dip for a bit of soup & slurp them down from spoon. So clever !

If its a rice or casserole dish..like in many middle eastern countries we use a spoon and fork.

When I was 16 I went to San Francisco to stay with an aunt for 4 weeks. I ate a lot with my fingers which at first felt weird but i soon got the hang of it and loved it, once home I picked up a piece of chicken with my fingers and my mum told me to use my knife and fork, I replied that in America they didn't use knife and fork for eating chicken. I was told very firmly well you're not in America now.

It was good while it lasted. 🇺🇸

eazybee

It isn't that difficult to learn how to hold cutlery correctly, but if anyone comments they are always called snobs.
Cheap.

The snobbish bit is believing your way is right, rather than anyone else’s, sometimes accompanied by claims of where you learnt your right way which in your eyes confirms its correctness.

The cheap bit is pointing out where, according to your perception, someone else is wrong,

Yes, like you, fork in left hand and knife in right and when finished eating, place your knife and fork together on the plate, these days the knife and fork are cascaded across the plate in any direction!!!!!!!

I was working in a cafe in Asda and watching children messing around with the food and eating with their fingers. "You'd think they'd never sat at a table with a knife and fork" I thought - then I realised that some of them probably hadn't.

Chopsticks anyone? I enjoy eating Chinese food from a bowl which is lifted off table by my left hand while I wield the chopsticks with my right. Yummy food.

BlueBelle, no of course about it, a lot of people do it the other way around as you have read above. I only use my fork for 90% of my food. I am mainly a vegetarian, so everything I eat is either soft or cut up before it goes on my dish. If I do eat from a plate I use a fork and knife in the manner you describe. I much prefer the fork and a dish. It is cosy eating which I very much enjoy.

eazybee

It isn't that difficult to learn how to hold cutlery correctly, but if anyone comments they are always called snobs.
Cheap.

Who deemed that the way you hold cutlery was the correct way? It is just one of society's petty rules. Surely the most important thing is that your food doesn't hit other people as it flys off the plate, you manage to get it to your mouth cleanly and you don't show your food whilst it is in your mouth as you chew. Anything else is semantics.

Nansypansy, either is 'correct' - and why does it bother you? I'm left handed - but write with my right hand, as I was forced to. Many things I do with either hand anyway.

I had a meal with my friend from India. She persuaded me to abandon the knife and fork entirely. I copied her using the bread to scoop up the food, as she's convinced a curry tastes so much better eaten that way.

why should i change how i use cutlery just because someone else finds it annoying.
what nonsense.
if it was acceptable in my family of origin and at private boarding school, i don't see why i should change now.
i don't tell people to change what they do.
i get on with eating my food and leave them to theirs.

I don’t care how people hold their cutlery, but I do mind if they eat noisily or with their mouths open.

It isn't that difficult to learn how to hold cutlery correctly, but if anyone comments they are always called snobs.
Cheap.

I think I am a mixture of culture! Brought up by Mum form Jersey, we hold knife in right, but then we all switch over the fork to the right to eat, like Saggi's GD.

I could never get over using the back of the fork to push food onto. So for instance a meal of chicken, new potatoes and peas would be eaten british way until I get to the peas, then I switch! Mashed potatoes would be eaten with fork in right hand.

Knife and fork at 4 o'clock on plate when finished, napkin beside plate of left. I am sometimes guilty of elbows on table, but more during conversation between courses.