There are two ways to use a knife and fork to cut and eat your food. They are the American style and the European or Continental style. Either style, it is said, is considered appropriate. But are they? If you consider following “tradition” simply because it is tradition, then this constitutes one of the many forms of irrationality so prevalent today. It is this author’s contention that tradition ought to undergo the process of reason, as with all aspects of our lives.

In the American style, one cuts the food by holding the knife in the right hand and the fork in the left hand with the fork tines piercing the food to secure it on the plate. Cut a few bite-size pieces of food, then lay your knife across the top edge of your plate with the sharp edge of the blade facing in. Then change your fork from your left to your right hand to eat, fork tines facing up while dropping your left hand to your lap. (If you are left-handed, keep your fork in your left hand, tines facing up.) The European or Continental style is the same as the American style in that you cut your meat by holding your knife in your right hand while securing your food with your fork in your left hand. The difference is your fork remains in your left hand, tines facing down, and the knife in your right hand. Simply eat the cut pieces of food by picking them up with your fork still in your left hand.

Observe that at the time of the first American settlements arriving from England and other places, the use of the fork had not yet become widespread in Europe. In particular, England was one of the last countries to adopt its widespread use. For this reason, American colonies remained unfamiliar with the use of the fork and therefore adapted a method – in this author’s view, a decidedly ineffective method - that eventually came to be known as the zig-zag method.

The predominant theory pointing to the origin of the zig-zag method of eating is that many Americans, in the absence of forks, and because knives had come to be designed with blunted ends, began to use their spoons to steady food. They would then switch the spoon to the right hand to scoop up the bite of food because they were accustomed to wielding eating utensils with their dominant hand and because the blunt tip of the knife made this cumbersome. Finding their non-dominant hand (usually the left hand) largely neglected when eating in this manner, American table manners came to adopt the habit of dropping the neglected hand into one’s lap.

Yet another theory exist on why Americans place their non-dominant hand beneath the table while eating. This theory concerns itself with the Middle Eastern custom in which the left hand is used solely to wash one’s bottom in primitive washrooms (you know the ones, a hole in the ground with a pail of water to the side). Therefore, to this day, Middle Eastern cultures frown heavily on the use of the left hand during eating and cooking for purely hygienic reasons. Now, it is possible that through the Moorish and Arabian customs prevalent along many Mediterranean countries, that this Arab tradition somehow filtered itself into American immigrant populations…though this remains at best speculative as the first waves of immigrants into America were not from such countries at all. Still, it is an amusing theory that should cause Americans to reconsider their dining etiquette.

Many of our readers rightfully pride themselves on their rationality and objectivity. Certainly, they bristle at the thought of irrationality affecting their lives, or worse, being accused of irrationality by others. And yet, most every one of our readers persist in at least one form of irrationality: the mindless obeisance to a tradition: the American dining etiquette.

Clearly, human beings possess two hands. But, to place one hand aside and engage in the disturbing and hindering process of transferring one utensil from one hand to the other, over and over again, while neglecting a perfectly useful hand – smacks of irrationality. Two things are striking about this habit. It clearly violates European etiquette – brought to Europe by the Greeks - that tells you to keep both hands above the table wielding gracefully knife and fork. European etiquette is objective as it is well reasoned out to make the most effective use of hands and utensils at a table setting. Secondly all Americans eat the American way (black, yellow, red, white) which is amazing if you think of the different ethnic origins, cultures, and value systems.

To conclude: I began this article with a comment about Americans who cut their food with the edge of their fork rather than use a knife. For a long time, I blamed this habit on bad table manners. But, as of late, I’ve come to place such people one rung above those whose dining habit shuffles utensils from one hand to the other while ignoring a perfectly good hand. Why do they do this? Because colonial America was unaware of the existence, let alone the proper use of the fork. In their defense, it may be said that those who use the fork to cut their food do so because they realize the irrational exuberance of shuffling utensils. Now, if they would just look down, into their laps…and observe that they possess one more hand. Then, all would be well with American dining etiquette.
 

Harry Roolaart is the founder and creator of the harryroolaart.com website and is a writer and artist living and working in Charlotte, North Carolina.  You may contact him personally at hroolaart@harryroolaart.com.