Dining pet peeves

The cutting of the cake by gwen

(I don't know who these people are. I just liked the picture!)

So this week, I saw the capital offense: the licking of a knife!

Every now and then, I cheat a lot on dining etiquette. When no one's looking, I eat pastries with a knife only, cutting and stabbing pieces. Shame on me. I can't help myself sometimes. In company though, I'd never dream of it. But I saw someone lick their knife right in front of me. I was appalled. In med school, someone did this in front of me, and I stopped eating for a moment, my brain reeling from this act of incivility.

The inevitable question is why, WHY is it rude to lick your knife. I guess that the idea behind not licking your knife was that you could cut yourself on it (which is still a legitimate concern). But I imagine that when the fork came to be, its dominance of the dining table had to be complete, and this guiltiest of guilty pleasures had to be sacrificed.

The courtesy wave

Whatever happened to the courtesy wave? I was driving through a lot of construction this weekend, and I'm a pretty charitable driver. I'll let cars merge in front of me. But out of the nearly ten cars that I let merge, only one gave me a courtesy wave. And it was of course the big ass truck, not any of the sedans I let through.

For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, SHAME ON YOU! Whenever anyone lets you merge into a spot that he needs to slow down for, etc then once you're in, you should wave to the guy that let you in (usually with your right hand through the rear windshield).

Please practice the courtesy wave as often as humanly possible.

How to hold your fork

FORK!! uploaded by ehavir

This cute little guy has an excuse. It's his first fork meal. And we are often quite forgiving of the table manners of children. However, if you're reading this, you have no excuse. A fork should never be held in a clenched fist.

I've seen a lot of people, especially when cutting with a knife, who stab their meat with the fork and a clenched fist while cutting. This is never appropriate.

The fork should always be held with the thumb and first few fingers, using the minimum amount of force needed. This is one of my dining pet peeves, but on the list of egregious dining habits, there's worse.

So, I should explain myself

I thought it would be fun to have a little manners and etiquette blog. I know a lot about manners and etiquette, and although I don't always practice these noble arts, I do enjoy the knowledege.

Anyway, I thought that it would be fun to write about little pieces of arcane knowledge and help the world become a more bizarre place, but more fun, because when you meet someone else that knows these etiquette rules, it can be tremendous fun.

So, what does this have to do with spoons and pasta? Good question. One of the most hotly contested questions in the U.S. is the use of a spoon with pasta. Its purpose, for those of you non-spoon types, is to spin your fork in the bowl of the spoon to get the noodles onto the fork. Then you use the fork to eat the pasta (or some people bring the fork and spoon together to the mouth).

This question would become quite simplified if people stopped serving noodles on plates. Pasta should be served in a shallow bowl, and you can use the side of the bowl to twirl your pasta.

However, in the U.S., everything comes on plates, and pasta suffers, and the spoon for pasta is born.

Waitaminute, you say to yourself. The Italian table is set with a fork AND spoon! Quite right. The spoon is for serving sauce, and not for twirling noodles. However, the use of the spoon for pasta is so commonplace that it is often seen as acceptable, and even in some high class restaurants you may be given a spoon for pasta.

However, far beyond the spoon for pasta, if you want to show yourself an Italian food novice, ask for parmesan on your seafood.