When and who taught you table etiquette when you were a child?

I'm left-handed, and was pretty hard-headed as a kid, so my parents, dad in particular had kind of a hard time with me. First they tried to get me to use fork and spoon in my right hand, which didn't work at all, so then they tried a mirror image of the American style--fork in right hand and knife in left to cut, and then transfer fork to left hand to eat, which made no sense to me--all that switching, so I sort of created an MJ English style and kept telling them that's how the Brits did it--fork continually in left hand, knife picked up in right to cut something, no switching. They eventually learned to live with that. Which has meant for decades when eating with others somewhere, I always try to find a way to sit at the left end of a table or booth, or an end seat, so that I'm not continually bumping elbows with the right-hander sitting next to me. Strangely, when I'm doing food prep, or using a knife for cutting anything else other than a meal, the knife is always in my left hand.

My parents, other than the above, instilled sort of the basics in us, nothing fancy, just sort of polite utilitarianism. We ALWAYS had family dinner, no TV, and I don't really remember any arguments about that. We did get pretty goofy, lots of family stories at dinner. One of the favorites was the time my younger brother was sort of distracted and got up and left the table, and disappeared for twenty minutes or so until we'd all finished and realized he hadn't come back and didn't answer our calls. We went looking for him and ransacked the house, and finally found him after much searching in the upstairs bathroom, stuck up to his waist in the clothes chute (remember them if you grew up in an older house? Put the clothes in and they dropped down a chute in the wall into the laundry basket in the basement). He'd thought about it and figured he could get in and get a quick thrill ride, like an amusement park, and land unhurt on the pile of clothes in the basement. He was just a little too large. And he was so embarrassed that he was stuck, that he didn't answer when we called. Forty years later, it's still the top story whenever we all get together for dinner.

I'm pretty good with chopsticks--just discovered that Chinese dollar stores have really nice decorated chopsticks cheap--no more plain splintery bamboo for me. Don't remember ever learning to use them, but somehow sometime I must have. Not when I was a kid--growing up in Michigan, going out for exotic ethnic cuisine meant pizza. I'm serious. I remember Collier's Magazine doing a whole picture feature on this great new thing that had just come over from Italy that no one had ever heard of before. And it was pizza.
I think a passion for samurai movies must have given me hints and tips, good in pre-youtube days when there were no instructional videos in how to use the utensils. That and the fact that when I first came to Boston I belonged to a "motorcycle club" whose main reason for existence was to go out for Szechuan (or Hunanese in a pinch) every couple of weeks--Thursday nights, as I recall. And you pick up your bowl of noodles, hold it a couple of inches from your mouth, and shovel. Slurping is polite.

mom and dad were particular about having well behaved kids to show off, so of course we learned this stuff. our rules leaned heavily towards being quiet and not making a commotion. the one that I remember tripping me up most was "no pit stops"....when someone asks you to pass something you are not allowed to take some for yourself on the way. I got yelled at and sent away from the table without dinner a few times on that one before i learned it.

I do often think that most English people must be more ambidexterous than I am because of the way that they all use their right and left hands interchangeably and basically to the same extent while they're eating. I guess it comes with practice - I just can't be bothered to practice another method when I have my own down pat.

And I have to say, although it may sound sexist, that for some reason seeing a woman holding both her fork and knife always at the ready without a hand in her lap (as my mother taught me a woman should eat) seems as if something is more noticeably awry to me than when I see a man do the same thing.

Funny thing is - and I just thought about it just this moment- maybe my mother just taught me to do that because it's ladylike. I don't even know if my Dad and brothers did that. Do American men sit with whichever hand they're not using for their fork in their laps? I've just realized I've never even noticed!
See, that's what I mean - I just basically pay attention to my own manners to the point that I don't even know if my father and brothers did the same thing my sisters and mother and I did.
Come to think of it - I don't even know that I taught my own son that. I can't remember.
Sometimes manners just come naturally and sometimes they don't. I have had to talk to my son recently about slurping his cereal and milk, but he doesn't ever seem to have the urge to talk with his mouth full, thank goodness.

Now that you mention it, I do remember the sit with your unused hand in your lap. I don't think that took either.

failure to always put the drink glass back in its proper location after taking a drink got me and my brothers often....spill a drink after messing that up and it was so long, go chill in your room without dinner for the rest of the night.

Never did figure that one out. I think I always put it back on my left, since that was where my drinking hand was (and is). To this day I have no idea where it goes, except that it's somewhere closer to my plate than to anyone else's.

right side, above the plate, and for damn sure not on the side of the plate were you might knock it over and cause the dastardly commotion which would get me and my bothers sent to our rooms,


protest got us no where good, but would always get us a lecture on how that in my dads childhood days such offenses got the back of the hand to the face so hard it might knock you off your chair....before being sent to your room without dinner.

as an aside: my dad passed long before my kids were born, but my mom was so offended by our failure to properly teach our kids the rules that for years she refused to go out to restaurants with us because she dreaded the Embarrassment.

I am amazed by the comments about how the English dine. I keep thinking of that line from the Beatles song: "Clutching forks and knives, to eat their bacon . . ."

I got etiquette in three stages:
1. From my mother. She dearly loved to eat out whenever we could
afford it and she made sure I was NOT going to embarrass her in a
restaurant.
2. At a boarding school. We were constantly "coached" in the refectory.
3. From my wife. Rudimentary Chinese etiquette to save the Lo-Fan
from himself.

Yes to being left-handed and yes to always looking for the corner chair so as to avoid knocking elbows with my neighbor. Also, yes to family dinner at the table every night.

We had a house rule that you had to sit at the table until you finished your dinner or bedtime, whichever came first. As a fussy eater I spent much of my childhood at the dinner table waiting for bedtime.

I don't recall too much table etiquette being enforced but going to a restaurant was a rare treat and one that wouldn't be repeated if we messed up. My aunt tells the story of taking her two children to a restaurant where they misbehaved. She left them at home for a year after that, eventually giving them another chance. My young cousin whipped her mother in the face with an asparagus spear and that was the end of dining out as a family.

Some people have "church behavior" rules. We instilled "restaurant behavior" rules in our girls. Before entering any restaurant we'd ask, "Are you ready to be in a restaurant?" It gave them a few seconds to collect themselves and to understand that they were entering a place where certain behaviors weren't going to be tolerated. My younger daughter, M, decided to test her lungs one time in a restaurant and started making a shrieking noise. She was fine; at age two-three she just wanted to see how loud she could be. I took her outside and stood with her, explaining that she couldn't disrupt other people's dining experience by making loud noises and she could go back inside once she was ready to be in a restaurant. After a minute or so I asked her if she was ready to go back inside. She shook her head no. I shrugged and said we'd have to wait then. I asked again a minute or two later and she nodded yes. I said, "Ok, let's go." I turned to go in and saw that a mother and her teenage daughter had been watching our exchange. I jumped a little when I saw them. The woman smiled and said, "Good for you."

I never raised my voice and she never acted out in a restaurant again.

The infrequent times we ate out was to a Chinese restaurant with booths with walls surrounding it, so we had privacy, and we ate with chopsticks. As for noise, we didn't talk much while eating.

My mother taught me the correct way to hold silverware and a reasonable amount of table etiquette.

She taught me that you hold the knife in your right hand and the fork in your left hand when you're cutting food. Then you switch the fork to the right hand to spear the food and put it in your mouth.

At some point, I decided independently that this was ridiculous. Stoopid. And a complete waste of time and energy. I stopped switching the fork to my right hand. I keep the fork in my left hand for food stabbing. She told me I was wrong and to stop doing that. I told her I didn't care. She lost.

I still don't switch the fork. I guess I'm just a barbarian. No manners at all.

There was and still is a lovely restaurant in Venice, CA, Joe's. It's now up there in the regard list, but started out slowly. Small place, good food, very reasonable pricing. The meals had a starter, a soup, so good. I swear, I never saw anyone in that place tilt their soup bowls away from them. I admit I don't remember if any of those soups had chunks.
http://joesrestaurant.com/lunch

This was a few blocks from our house, on a block that had suffered restaurant greatness and travails, including a homicide (Abraham Ribicoff's daughter, Sari) and a auto bashing, Eileen Brennen w Goldie Hawn.
Star like names, but on a street that changed off and on for decades as being highly unsafe. That's where I had my first gallery, 1974.

My parents taught me my table etiquette. It was mostly my dad though. At first they tried to get me to use the utensils as a right handed person, but that didn't work out so well. So i just used my left hand as the dominant hand. It isn't really that enforced at home since we all end up eating at different times depending on our schedule. We use it a lot more if I eat at someone's house as a guest or in a restaurant. I was taught quite well actually. I was taught since a young age mostly because my family eats out a lot.

I THINK...not sure...that the USA is the only country that does that? It looked extremely strange to me when I first saw it. I don't recall if I saw it happening in front of me much in the US? Is the practice declining?


I was taught table manners by my mother. While they have grievously deteriorated since then, it actually gives me physical distress to see a finger within cooee of the top of the knife blade or a fork held "wrongly".

Wrongly, of course, being a matter of local custom and practice.

Even at the height of my mother's training, my sister and I loved to do awful things when not witnessed by her, like eat with our fingers...still love it...and getting a wodge of mashed potato and getting other vegetables to stick in it and eating them that way. Vegetables were NOT voluntary in my mother's view.

I don't know that i was specifically taught the hand switch technique with knife and fork. It was just that everyone did it around me. Yes, i think the practice may be falling into desuetude--but then, most matters of etiquette and social rectitude, of manners, are.

My mother taught me the correct way to hold silverware and a reasonable amount of table etiquette.

She taught me that you hold the knife in your right hand and the fork in your left hand when you're cutting food. Then you switch the fork to the right hand to spear the food and put it in your mouth.

At some point, I decided independently that this was ridiculous. Stoopid. And a complete waste of time and energy. I stopped switching the fork to my right hand. I keep the fork in my left hand for food stabbing. She told me I was wrong and to stop doing that. I told her I didn't care. She lost.

I still don't switch the fork. I guess I'm just a barbarian. No manners at all.

HA! The first time we guests in our home from Europe, (Danish girl scouts) they watched in wonder as we Americans did the Cut/Switch/Stab routine. Hilarious! they said, what ever is the matter with eating with your fork in your left hand?

I ate that way from then on.

Joe(American think I am a barbarian too)Nation

It's probably a way of eating that slows you down a lot, though, which is likely a good thing.

The cutlery switching is done in Canada as well.

I always thought it came from Britain since people from The Continent were the ones who did it differently.

Don't think so.

Be interesting to find out.