What should I do or not do when I am eating with the help of fork and knief?
We generally pay a lot of attention to good table manners. Even young children are expected to eat properly with knife and fork.
We eat most of our food with cutlery. The foods we don't eat with a knife, fork or spoon include sandwiches, crisps, corn on the cob, and fruit.
Things you should do:
If you cannot eat a certain type of food or have some special needs, tell your host several days before the dinner party.
If you are a guest, it is polite to wait until your host starts eating or indicates you should do so. It shows consideration.
Always chew and swallow all the food in your mouth before taking more or taking a drink.
Always say thank you when served something. It shows appreciation.
You may eat chicken and pizza with your fingers if you are at a barbecue, finger buffet or very informal setting. Otherwise always use a knife and fork.
When eating rolls, break off a piece of bread before buttering. Eating it whole looks tacky.
On formal dining occasions it is good manners to take some butter from the butter dish with your bread knife and put it on your side plate (for the roll). Then butter pieces of the roll using this butter. This prevents the butter in the dish getting full of bread crumbs as it is passed around.
In a restaurant, it is normal to pay for your food by putting your money on the plate the bill comes on.
When you have finished eating, and to let others know that you have, place your knife and folk together, with the prongs (tines) on the fork facing upwards, on your plate.
| "I was taught never to place ones fork tines facing upwards, but to do the exact opposite, to place the fork with the tines curved and only the tips sitting on the plate. This was because if you had anything of an acid nature i.e vinegaret dressing etc it would tarnish the fork, so as little as possible of the fork would be left placed on the plate to avoid this. If you also so consider that silverware would have taken time to polish by staff a tarnishing of the silver would take them longer to clean off (if indeed it had not been damaged beyond repair) thus staff would be tied up cleaning these items not getting on with other tasks that were needing to be done. Worse it could be these days ones self doing the cleaning not a job wanted by many these days I dare say. Acidity can damage even modern made cutlery tarnishing it beyond repair and with the cost of good cutlery the best way to keep it getting spoit is to place the knife and fork together fork tines facing down so only the tips of the fork are upon the plate. |
Things you should not do:
Never lick or put your knife in your mouth.
It is impolite to start eating before everyone has been served unless your host says that you don't need to wait.
Never chew with your mouth open. No one wants to see food being chewed or hearing it being chomped on.
It is impolite to have your elbows on the table while you are eating.
Don't reach over someone's plate for something, ask for the item to be passed.
Never talk with food in your mouth.
It is impolite to put too much food in your mouth.
Never use your fingers to push food onto your spoon or fork.
It is impolite to slurp your food or eat noisily.
Never blow your nose on a napkin (serviette). Napkins are for dabbing your lips and only for that.
Never take food from your neighbours plate.
Never pick food out of your teeth with your fingernails.
Things that are ok to do:
It is ok to pour your own drink when eating with other people, but it is more polite to offer pouring drinks to the people sitting on either side of you.
It is ok to put milk and sugar in your tea and coffee or to drink them both without either.
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