Continental vs American

You "over-think" things too much OP.

Prediction: this thread will destroy Datalounge.

SueAnn says either style is appropriate!

Continental style doesn’t work well for casseroles.

I think Darfur Orphan should weigh in on this.

Continental style is a class marker. You’re trash OP!

OP sounds like the sort bothered when people eat finger foods with their damned fingers. As long as people don't embarrass me (it takes a lot really to do this, unless it involves treating other people shabbily in public) eating out with really bad table manners, I can't see why this choice could bother some. I should think the dominant hand of the eater plays a role, as well as how they were taught by their parents. People this neurotic have no capacity to just live in the moment and enjoy life.

I was always surprised every time I saw the characters on The Sopranos eat in the continental style (when they weren’t shoveling pasta or gabagool into their mouths). And they clearly made a point of having them do it. I assume it was meant to be an affectation?

[quote] Continental style is a class marker.

No class marker. It's so trashy to keep your knife and fork in your hands the entire meal. What's the rush to eat?

I prefer Japanese style so I can eat sushi with my fingers and slurp my noodles.

OP, interesting topic.

I eat American style. I agree that it does slow you down and is, arguably, more refined. I know someone who grew up in the U.S., traveled to western Europe, and came back eating Continental style. IMO, an affectation.

[quote] I was always surprised every time I saw the characters on The Sopranos eat in the continental style (when they weren’t shoveling pasta or gabagool into their mouths). And they clearly made a point of having them do it. I assume it was meant to be an affectation?

I never noticed this. Interesting. Maybe it was meant to accentuate two-fisted eating, shoveling food into mouths (especially for Tony).

Wait a second ... Tony Soprano's fork is in his right hand, tines facing up. He's eating American style.

Op, do you just mean which hand holds the fork? I’m 60 and have never noticed what hand people use. Never.

Tony ate pasta American style. But watch when it’s something like a steak:

I didn’t grow up in the US and I eat “continental style”. I’ve tried the American style but I just can’t. There’s more effort involved in switching around all the time. I have two hands so I may as well use them while I shovel food down my gullet.

Bobby Bacala, discussing Quasimodo/Nostradamus, eating steak Continental style. IIRC, Tony ends up ordering steak as well, but this clip does not show Tony eating the steak.

When I started working in international business, I quickly learned to see what other people were doing, how they ate, etc. Now I always eat steak with knife in right hand, fork in left, or continental. I stopped at a KFC in Barcelona, bought my food, found a table and was just about ready to pick up a chicken leg with my hands when I looked around and everyone was using fork and knife, carving off pieces of leg. I didn't want everyone staring at the heathen American, so I picked up knife and fork and worked my way through it.

R14 that is continental style but that is not steak. Class is displayed more through the proper resting position and finished position for cutlery, within each style. Working class Euros eat Continental Style so that alone is not a class marker. It's also important that one does rest sometimes. It's gross to finish a course never having put down the cutlery, unless its a tiny ridiculous tidbit on the plate. Also, knowing where to keep hands. Also knowing toasting culture that matches your companions'. Very few Americans are aware that our toasting is impolite and coarse to Europeans if the eyes do not meet with each toast. Finally it helps to respect if one should clear one's plate or leave something.

Only the right hand for eating, with muslims. This has a bonus if a meal is being served intended to be eaten with 1 hand, the meat is tender and falls apart to touch. Some of the most delicious roast meat meals I've ever had.

I like that this is going international now.

By international, I meant non-western. And btw, I love tender meat.

[quote] I stopped at a KFC in Barcelona, bought my food, found a table and was just about ready to pick up a chicken leg with my hands when I looked around and everyone was using fork and knife, carving off pieces of leg. I didn't want everyone staring at the heathen American, so I picked up knife and fork and worked my way through it.

My friend grew up in Switzerland. He thinks Americans biting corn off the cob looks animalistic.

Our French teacher in junior high was from Paris and a real bitch. She said corn was for pigs and called football players gorillas.

R13 Because you are normal. The neurotic obsessives here probably aren't noticing conversation or the food, so much as what everyone else is "doing wrong". I'm beginning to understand why I have so few gay men as close friends, the longer I read DL threads.

R8 Can you please give a translation and description of "Gabagool"?

Fuck you OP. You are such a fucking idiot.

R17 I very much respect your sentiment as in "When in Rome..." but did it ever occur to you that you were still at KFC? Wouldn't it be more authentic to eat with one's hands, provided they're clean? It doesn't matter the location, no one should be so self-conscious in a casual eatery like KFC. Grown men so concerned with what mere strangers think of their eating habits amuse me.

It’s so insecure to worry about such things. Some foods should be eaten with your hands. It looks finicky and strange to be cutting fried chicken with a knife. As long as you’re not slobbering and wiping your hands on your pants, who cares?

Eating American style is almost as disgraceful and middle class as draining pasta.

I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, nor do I care.

"Gabagool" is actually capocollo or capicola, a lunch meat . It’s just how they pronounced it on the show and the word has sort of taken on its own life.

I once ate with a lady who actually ate EVERYTHING on her plate continental style. It was breakfast and she even ate a banana fully with knife and fork. Mind you this was a whole banana, not a peeled one. I've yet to see anyone eat like this woman. Even her toast was eaten with knife and fork. We were at a diner too.

That sounds neurotic, Frau.

R33 I was stunned. Absolutely stunned.

I like to put everything on my plate into a bowl. Then I get a big tablespoon and shovel it into my mouth while holding the bowl under my chin. It works great for standing over the sink or watching TV!

Why ask that here? Dataloungers don't have real teeth so they have to use a blender for food

OP is correct. Continental style can certainly be pulled off in a refined manner, but American style makes sure you slow down and, with its multiple steps, is inherently more elegant. In the hands of the British, even those of the middle class, I've commonly seen the Continental style produce the most horrendous performances: they're like pigs at the trough, piling food on the back of their tines through long series of scraping motions, squashing it to keep it in place, picking up the fallen residue with their knives and piling it back on until it sticks; then they have to lean far forward over their plates to make sure to shovel it all in before it falls off again. The noise alone is nauseating. The American liability of chasing the last few peas around the plate is venial in comparison.

I prefer eating with chopsticks and having food already cut before it is cooked and served.

SMH

I am aware that there is a difference in the way Europeans and Americans handle cutlery. I travel to Europe a decent amount for work and thus eat with European colleagues.

I have never once focused on how they are cutting their steaks and whether it is more or less efficient than the way I am cutting mine or worried that they think I am an uncouth American for eating the way everyone else in the US does.

The fixation on this sort of thing is yet another manifestation of DLCAS (Datalounge Class Anxiety Syndrome)

Table manners are noticed as are all forms of etiquette. In some circles.

Continental vs. American is not a question of manners.

Actually there was one time... I was at a Mexican restaurant in London with some British colleagues.

There was one particularly prissy guy who was oddly enough married to a woman, who was trying to eat his (soft shell) taco with a knife and fork. He was making a particular mess of it until one of his more senior colleagues just turned to him and said something to the effect of "just pick it up and eat it with your hands like everyone else."

Although being Brits they referred to them as "Tack-Os" which made me doubly happy.

And no R40, the only circles in which people notice table manners are those in which the members are insecure about their social class.

This of course excludes obviously bizarre instances like someone grabbing a steak with their hands, or loudly slurping their soup while spilling it down their shirt, things that would be noticed by anyone, regardless of of class because they're unpleasant to witness.

^^Both of those (steak/hands, soup/slurp) are things DLers have claimed their family members regularly do, so I guess it's more common than I would have guessed.

Only the lower classes talk of such matters! We eat anyway we want to, and with much enthusiasm!

I grew up in a working class family and I was still taught that it was vulgar to cut-eat-cut-eat with the same hands, just as it was vulgar to pick your soup bowl up and drink the soup out, or to lick your plate.

"Although being Brits they referred to them as "Tack-Os""

Those dumb fucks pronounce the a as ah in almost every fucking word that has one, but the one time that they should they go and fuck it up by doing the exact opposite.

SMH, limeys.

I started eating with the fork in the left hand as a teenager, out of sheer pretentiousness. I was taking French classes and... well.

However, I've never been able to stop! It's a more comfortable and logical way to hold a knife and fork, so even if I totally dropped my teen prisspottery and could fairly be called "coarse" these days, I still use my knife and fork "continental" style.

There were 7 kids in my family, 2 parents, and a grandmother. If you didn’t grab food quickly at dinner, all that was left was brussel sprouts. I’m the youngest and my parents had pretty much given up trying to teach us anything, including manners.

Despite the above, Mom would invite the priest for dinner, and other sad sacks. We even had two Swedish boys as exchange students one year.

As it happens, I’m left handed, so I eat continental style, by accident.

Marxist table manners.

I must admit that I've never given this any thought before this thread. However, now I am wondering how continental-style eaters eat food that doesn't require cutting. Do they use their dominant hand or stick with the right? Actually, do left handed people switch to hold the fork with their left hand and cut with the right?

Is this an old person thing?

What I don’t understand is why both styles feature you using the knife with your dominant hand - I eat with an “American Style” fork, but always keep the fork in my right hand. When I need to cut something I pick up the knife with my left hand and use it - I’m not performing surgery, just cutting a piece of meat - my non dominant hand is up to that task. I’m sure I am unspeakably vile and uncouth.

Until is was taken over by United, Continental was much better than American. Had the best customer satisfaction rates also.

Wow, I never noticed this - seems like quite a hassle (although I guess it comes perfectly natural to americans). I would argue it’s more elegant to _not_ put down your knife, change fork to your dominant hand, and transport your food to your mouth, but hey, different strokes..

The one thing that I notice every single time, is when someone doesn’t look me in the eyes when toasting. It comes across as very rude and detached.

I do the same thing R52 I've never understood why you would eat with your non dominant hand. It makes no sense. You move the fork much more than the knife.

My mom is an American who eats continental style and my dad is European but eats American style. I prefer American style since I’m right handed.

R54 - In my American family our toasts are still based on a goof my baby sister made when she was three; “Cheers and tables; look at the light” - as we all stare at the chandelier.

We set the table for continental, with forks on the left and cutlery on the right. You were expected to cut and place the knife down, eat the piece of meat, and then pick up the knife again after cutting. You were allowed to use the dominant hand for your fork once you'd placed the knife down. Cutting anything into little pieces was considered vulgar. You never ate anything all at once, or mixed up foods unless it was intended, such as with peas and mashed potatoes. No liquor at dinner, ever, not even wine, and water was served in goblet glasses. Milk was in served in 8oz tumblers and always placed on the right.

Lace curtain Irish ancestry, so I'm sure there's all kinds of mannerisms at play in that set of table manners.

I had an aunt that ate popcorn with a fork. It was incredible to watch.

I was barely taught anything as I was raised in a barn. I eat with the fork in my left hand because I am left handed.

One rule the is sacrosanct in my house, is that milk cartons or similar, are never placed on the dining room table. The liquid is placed in a decanter. I guess people don’t have dining room tables anymore.

I still have my childhood milk decanter. It’s silver plated. I also discovered that the metal is leaching into the liquid as I put plant cuttings in it and they all died.

R58 is describing American style (as far as utensil use goes).

I’m not American and I wasn’t aware that there were any class indicators for Americans with the way that you handle your knives and forks. I’ve travelled there a lot and if I’ve noticed it at all it was that Americans do the reverse of what I do. And that the way that I eat has on occasion been commented upon (“oh look you eat back to front!”).

Until I got hooked on “Brothers & Sisters” years ago and noticed, in the inevitable getting-drunk-and-fighting-at-dinner scenes, that the Walkers eat with fork in left hand and knife in right. As they’re supposed to be upper middle class / comfortably off I assumed that this was a class indicator.

Or maybe I’m just overthinking it!

[quote]I’m not American and I wasn’t aware that there were any class indicators for Americans with the way that you handle your knives and forks

There aren’t any class indicators. This is just a few queens on here with too much time debating over nonsense.

Two utensils, two hands. The old countries knew this. But America must be “special”.

I need to jump in here, it’s not about using just one hand to eat, but switching your utensils to take advantage of your dominant hand. It’s also about acquiring behaviors to appear posh. The core issue is, why can’t we just be ourselves?

I usually eat Continental-style because it works better for me. I'm a lefty and hold the knife in my left hand, fork in my right, tines down, without switching hands. If I'm eating a bowl of macaroni and cheese, I do not eat this way, but for meat and potatoes and the like, it works well.

Years ago, I had a boss who thought we should take a table manners class together (for my benefit more than his, I was certain). We'd take our elegant manners coach Bryn to a restaurant and she'd show us the appropriate approach for the food that we were eating. We did this 3 or 4 times.

She taught Continental table manners, which seemed strange until I realized how much more efficient it was than my bastardized American table manners. Until then, I knew only a few very basic rules (elbows off the table. Don't chew with your mouth open) but nothing about formal dining and silent service signals.

Anyway, my boss was telling a story in the middle of one of these suppers and using his knife as a gesticulation device. I knew intuitively that this looked inappropriate and was curious as to whether she would mention it. When he finished, she gently said, "Now, it's not polite to stab at your dinner companions with your cutlery." She said I could rest my elbows on the table, though, and when she caught me making friendly eye contact with someone at another table, made me feel fancy when she said "That's good--that's very French."

As we waited for the valet at the end of one of the evenings, she mentioned that she drove a "A Bona Vee". I was puzzled until the valet pulled up in her Pontiac Bonneville.

I never knew about this. I eat in the European way. That's what I was taught. I'm American. For ignorant people like me, here's a quick explanation.

I'd never noticed a difference in how people eat before this.

R64 - you're the one assuming it is an affectation and blowing up a non-issue into an issue. You're the one with the hang-up because you prefer American style eating and you feel that people judge you for it.

It's all in your head. And you think people look down on you.

Even though Continental no longer exists, I still prefer it over American Airlines.

I heard somewhere that the switching hands thing, and holding the fork in your non dominant hand, was invented to slow men down.

I suppose if I were eating with the Queen I would learn and use the continental style. Still waiting for my invitation. In my world, it just doesn’t matter.

I wish Continental would have been the surviving carrier. United sucks!

FYI Americans using their forks in right hand originated from the days of the Revolutionary War. It was a way to discreetly signal others that you were against the British.

I apparently switch back and forth between Continental and American style dining, depending on what I'm eating. But I only learned that later in life, reading Miss Manners. I didn't realize there were defined rules before then. I don't need to knife for many types of foods, but when I do, I suppose I eat in the Continental manner. I also read that the Queen eats bananas with a knife and fork. I've read comments from Euros remarking disgust for the American way of eating corn on the cob, I don't like that either, and always cut the kernels off the cob before eating. On the other hand, I'm happy to pick up a slab of watermelon and eat it with my bare hands.

There really is no elegant way to eat corn on the cob. I refuse to serve it at dinner parties, even barbecues.

Just me and my partner or family, no problem.

Continental for me. I despise when someone at a restaurant switches their fork between bites; so gauche. This is why you have two hands ffs!

Educate yourselves, peasants:

Continental dining included free meals in Coach up until 2010. American wasn’t offering that.

[R75] What do people say when you tell them they’re “gauche” at IHOP?

R75 IHop? C'est quoi ?