Do you know why we eat bread with our hands but use a knife and fork otherwise for most all plated dinners? Legend has it that the court of King Louis XIV made the call. It was the first court that had full access to table cutlery. It was a new technology at the table. To use knives and forks was a class marker, a sign that you were among the elite.
But then came the question of bread. It could be cut, but should it be? The court decided that bread was a common staple among common men. Therefore, the tradition of eating with one’s hands should be maintained even among the elites, even in the court. Thus was born the protocol of breaking bread with hands while eschewing the knife and fork (with the exception of spreading butter).
Maybe the story is apocryphal. There are plenty of other reasons to eat bread with one’s hands rather than saw away with a knife and poke it with a fork. That said, there is no question that Versailles acquiesced to the tradition rather than replace it. That codified the practice. And that is surely for a reason.
The fork revolutionized eating. Eventually, everyone had them in their homes. With that was born the democratization of manners. They vary in different countries but they are always crucial to a functioning society. To know manners and practice them requires training from parental mentors and years of habit.
You have surely noticed the decline in table manners. I had a friend whose presence I enjoyed, but eventually I stopped wanting to eat with him simply because he had no idea how to sit at a table and use cutlery with dignity. He had been raised entirely by fast food wolfed down in the back seats of cars and chicken wings munched on during happy hour.
If your life is entirely burgers, pizza, hot dogs, chicken wings, fries, and game day snacking, how would you ever learn to eat properly?
Truly, you can get away with this most of the time. You can live off finger foods. A burger franchise came out with a new sandwich some years ago. It was delicious and healthy. It utterly failed as a product for one reason only: It required two hands to eat.
Americans have become one-hand eaters: Pick it up from the drive-through and scarf it down while holding the steering wheel with the other hand.
Sure, this works much of the time. But mark my words: There will come a moment when table manners are crucial. It could be a sitdown with extended family, a dinner with a prospective spouse, an interview for a new job, a business luncheon with colleagues from around the country, or a formal dinner during the holidays.
If you do not know how to manage a napkin, knife, and fork, others will notice. You will fall in their estimation no matter your other achievements. In fact, poor manners are so distracting to others that it is all they will remember about you. From then on, even if no one says a word, you will be known in people’s minds as that guy who holds his fork like a monkey or saws his steak like a lumberjack.
Parents: Teach your children well!
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the following: “A child should always say what’s true/ And speak when he is spoken to,/ And behave mannerly at table;/ At least as far as he is able.”
It’s a verse called “Whole Duty of Children.” And it pretty well sums it up. Don’t lie, don’t interrupt, and learn table manners. If you get that part right for the first 10 or so years of life, you have a good start.
The importance of table manners is obviously and widely underestimated. No one will ever call you out publicly or even privately for misbehavior. Instead, they will just privately think ill of you. They will think that you were poorly raised and never corrected it.
It’s not that different from having poor hygiene or sloppy dress, but it is even more physically connected to who you are. Table manners, rightly or wrongly, are seen as a window into who you really are. It’s treated like a display of your underlying character.
Bad table manners are also enormously distracting to others. Watching someone eat like a slob makes one’s own food taste less pleasant.
You are being judged every time you lift fork to mouth. And not just judged: You are watched with an eagle eye and mercilessly and horribly criticized in the minds of those around you. They are forming extreme opinions about you. Missteps are being chronicled in the annals of the personal histories others carry around in their minds.
What’s more, the facts that people hold in their minds concerning your table manners rise to the top. It is more important than what you say, because table manners seem to reveal some inner secret about you. People are perversely interested in your secrets, particularly those you reveal inadvertently.
You can be wearing a $5,000 suit. You can speak with incredible erudition. You can have the whitest teeth, the best jokes, the coolest haircut, and looks of dazzling beauty. But bad table manners wipe it all away.
Worse: The better you look and sound, the higher the standards are for your manners and the more severe people will be toward your slipups. Why? Because people will figure that all the other externals are nothing but a put-on. You will be a living, breathing hoax.
At some point in your life, you will be required to eat in front of someone whom you want to impress. That someone might later find himself or herself in a position to do you a favor. Poor table manners could actually alter that. It could change the path of your life. People are horribly and secretly cruel: They will condemn not only your character, but also your whole family history.
These are brutal facts—terrifying ones, even. But it’s better that you know now rather than blow your one chance to get it right. Remember the quotation attributed to Oscar Wilde: “The world was my oyster, but I used the wrong fork.”
- Hold your fork and spoon properly. There is only one way: Balance them between the first knuckle of the middle finger and the tip of the index finger; the thumb steadies the handle. There are no variations on this, no issues of personal style, and no regional permissions. For some things, such as cutting with the other hand, there are other variations that require turning the fork over. If you are unsure, default to the orthodox way.
- Put your napkin in your lap after you sit down to dinner. Do not forget.
- Don’t smack. This is easy, right? Apparently not. Smacking is incredibly and disgustingly common. People must suppose that others don’t hear it. But they do, and it’s awful. There is only one way in the known universe to prevent smacking: Keep your lips closed when there is food in your mouth, no matter what.
- Eat at the margin, not the aggregate. Don’t cut all your steak up before you begin eating. Don’t butter your whole roll. Prepare each bite separately.
- If in doubt, wait for others. Don’t start eating anything until everyone has been served.
Equally important to obeying rules is to look like you are not even thinking about them. You must look comfortable, happy, and relaxed. What’s more, this is the only way to be.
You are certainly free to have sloppy manners. But others are also free to think of you as uncouth, ill-trained, low-born, and poorly raised, and to treat you with all those assumptions in mind. Yes, there are probably great men and women of the past who ate like pigs. They succeeded despite it. Why take the chance that you will happen to be among them, when minding manners is so little to ask?
The development of table manners is a product of half a millennium of struggle by your ancestors. Surely you owe it to them and to everyone to improve and be your best.
