Comments on: Table and other manners; class differences

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 06:46:30 +0000

Hi TB. I think it depends on where you’re from and, certainly in the case of the UK, the class of your parents. At home, with just the family, it was perfectly acceptable to mop up the sauce. It was just not done outside the home. Manners are strange anyway, to be honest and, in any event, have changed a lot over the centuries. Just a lot of stupid rules, I guess.
Thanks for dropping by.

By: T B

T B — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:39:28 +0000

I’ve always been taught that using bread to mop a sauce is not bad manners. The chef applies so much sauce/juice that he expects you to do it. It is a compliment to whoever made the dish, that the sauce was so wonderful, you don’t want it to go to waste. Cleaning the plate may be another matter, but just to get another taste of a great sauce is acceptable where I’ve been taught. And actually, to leave a sauce could be disrespectful to the preparer.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:18:02 +0000

Hi Gail,
Well, I think it’s both – culture and then manners depending on the culture. I mean, in near-asian culture, I believe it is normal to eat with your right hand from a common bowl. I guess there are peculiarities which determine good manners from bad and that’s where the ‘teaching’ by parents comes in. Certainly in the UK it is considered very bad manners to pick up the bone and chew the meat from it although, in Elizabethan times (that Golden Age that we British always aspire to) eating meat from the bone was good manners.

Hi Pietro,
For us, using bread to ‘clean the plate’ is also seen as bad manners, I’m afraid. Thanks for noticing my behaviour – not that I was fishing for compliments here and, as for the English Gentleman bit, very nice but I’m not so sure it’s true. Certainly don’t envy me. Being an English Gentleman comes with quite a bit of baggage (emotional and manner-wise) as well, you know……

By: Pietro

Pietro — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:36:41 +0000

Ah ah ah! People at lunch is always funny. Sometimes I also perform the things you described, but I try to avoid it in the canteen…Or, if I cannot resist, I inform my collegues about my idea…using bread to clean the dishes is different: if you really like the sausage (or you are hungry and you have only that) it is hard to stop! I’ve noticed your behaviour, you are always “right”, like a perfect “english gentlemen”. I envy you…

By: Gail

Gail — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:08:04 +0000

Hi Andy –

Good or bad education? I think it is more cultural. I am very educated and our family and culture is very okay with picking up the piece of chicken or pork bone. I must admit, I, personally would not do that while out in a restaurant. And it would depend on the closeness of the relationship with a friend to determine if I would be comfortable doing that at their dinner table. My Dad? Wouldn’t give it a second thought – He would clean the bones. As I write about this it all sounds quite disgusting actually. Heehee
Gail
Love from across the pond

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:02:26 +0000

Well, that’s a little like a tree falling in a forest. If nobody hears it fall, does it make a sound?

By: Bianca

Bianca — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:27:54 +0000

yeah, also when NOT in company!

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:39:07 +0000

Bianca,

Thank you so much for your reply. As I have seen so many people do it here, I thought perhaps it was acceptable. It’s nice to know that my manners from the UK are applicable over here too!

There are, in any event, some things I could never do and picking up a bone and chewing the meat from it, when in company, is one of them.

As you say – only good or bad education!

By: Bianca

Bianca — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:34:19 +0000

“My colleague next to me, after getting as much meat as possible off the bone, picked it up to chew the rest off”

Andy, that’s VERY bad manner! It has nothing to do with “national” table manners, it’s just a lack of education. I’ve been never allowed to pick up the bones!

Table manners have always been important in my family but I do not think it’s because I am from the North. It’s just because my parents pay attention to education in a broad sense and I am sure I share the same approach.

My advice would be to eat as you do in the UK. There are no cultural differences, only good and bad education