Table etiquette on both sides of the Atlantic

Yves · 2005-10-15T07:30:55+00:00

As most travellers know, the idea of good table manners is different on both sides of the Atlantic:In Europe, while eating a main course (still wondering why it is called entrée in the US), we hold the fork with the left and the knife with the right hand, cut the meat and eat every freshly cut morsel immediately, whereas Americans first cut all the meat and possibly the veggies into handy bits, put down the knife and use the right hand to eat with the fork while keeping their left hand under the table.It is sometimes frowned upon if you do not respect these rules, as Americans think that Europeans have a barbarian attitude towards their food, whereas Europeans find it pretty childish to see an adult person cutting his food into dice before eating it (and what the heck is the guy doing with his left hand under the table ??)So a couple of colleagues and I wondered why and how those table manners evolved differently on both sides of the big pond (by the way, how do they behave in OZ and NZ?) .One explanation I heard was that in America, the gold diggers and cowboys would always need one hand to hold their gun...you know just in case some wanted to take the last T-Bone-steak from the BBQ....Any other ideas?ThanksYves

Oct 15, 2005 63 Replies

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Mike Tommasi 20 years ago

Yep, hautemeal.

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Mark Lipton 20 years ago

Surely you meant haute miel?

Mark Lipton

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Timothy Hartley 20 years ago

Didn't Pooh Bear get stuck up a tree trying to reach that?

Timothy Hartley

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Anders TÃ¸rneskog 20 years ago

"Timothy Hartley" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@dd30.orpheusnet.co.uk...

Aw, this is getting unbearable...

Anders

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