I don't think I have ever done that in my life

One hopes that you haven’t, but it is readily on display, every day at any restaurant in America.

I know for a fact that I haven't ....

I just got lucky tho' .... wasn't trying to impress some pretentious azzhole either :D

Depends if I am stabbing their hands as a warning or somewhere else.

I know someone that uses a fork like a shovel. Can butter a slice of bread with the back of a spoon while holding the bread with the other hand. Hold food down on the plate with the flat of a dinner knife and cut with a steak knife at the same time.

Seriously..someone I know that was born without thumbs. He does not do anything like you or me with his hands but he makes it look easy and fluid.

Has a sense of humor too. He will ask for a straw for the peas.

I cut my meat/steaks/etc in one round. Fork in my left hand with tines down and cut it with my right hand. Then I use my right hand with tines up to shovel into my face.

Always cut with the right (knife), fork always starts in the left, tines flipped down. But after that it's an American free-for-all, left, right saw, tines spinning. Mrs. D accuses me of European tines down, but I don't consciously do any of these things.

I keep my fork "European Style" in my left hand, tines down when eating by my self and with my wife. That way you can scrape and pile up any bits or sauce onto the back of the fork above the piece of meat or whatever with your knife. More efficient that way. I picked that habit up when when I was going to university in the UK. However, when eating with other "Mericans" I try to do it the way most folks around here do so as not to draw attention to myself.

Somehow I learned this was the proper way to eat and I've always done it this way. My parents didn't even teach me how to brush my teeth so I didn't get it from them.

I think it comes naturally, from having a dominant hand. It’s a behavior that you have to unlearn.

Tines down - even my 9yo knows that. If you need a shovel, get a spoon.

Kind of like misusing the fingers to indicate a count of beers in that tarantino movie, wasn't some critical scene in another WW2 movie brought about by the "clinking" of Americans moving their eating tools around (as no European would) and showing them to be outsiders?

So how do you hold a fork?
 

This thread is funny!!

Especially because my nephew holds his fork with a closed fist. Every time we have a family gathering, he looks like he guards his plate as if he is in prison and going to shank the first poor sap that walks to close as he uses his other arm to wrap around the plate like he is protecting everything on his plate.

Yeah, I give him chit about it. I like to ask him how long he has been out of the joint.


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Upon further reflection, I must "knife in right fork in left tines down". I can't really think of any other good way to do it (assuming you need a knife and the fork isn't adequate to cut with). I have no idea what I do after that.

See, I was taught to not use a spoon/shovel, but to use a fork for everything (which I always thought that was weird).

I dunno, as a child I switch hit. Cutting meat/fish/poultry, tines down in the left hand, knife in the right. All other foods, fork in right hand, tines up. As an adult, I solved it. Chopsticks for almost everything including chicken wings.

Hm.

I'll settle this. This example is right-handed: The way you hold a fork is with the waist of the fork resting on the outermost knuckle of the middle finger of your right hand. With the tines facing UP. A bit like a chopstick. For cutting meat, you transfer the fork to your left hand and, with the fork tine facing downward, hold the meat while you cut it with the knife. Then you place the knife across the outer edge of the plate, furthest from you, with the blade facing you. All knife blades ALWAYS face the center of the plate, whether they have been used yet or not.

Then you transfer the fork back to your right hand and, holding it as I described, you pick up the food and place it into your mouth. With every bite that needs to be cut, this is the procedure. You do not make multiple cuts so that you can save time. You cut one bite and you eat one bite.

My wife's family is Norwegian and from the northern midwest. They largely keep the fork in their left hand, tines facing downward, and the tines are in their left hands when they place the food into their mouths, with the tines still facing downward. This seems a little barbarian to me but it works, and I do it sometimes.

Elbows never touch the table. I learned this lesson by getting my elbow poked my my father, with his fork.

Food is passed from left to right. When all the food has travelled back to its start position at the table, then people can start eating.

There is a special butter knife on the butter plate. You take whatever amount of butter you think you would like, and place it on your plate. The knife that started on the napkin next to your plate is never used to get butter from the butter plate.

Forks are lined up on the left side of your plate when you sit down. Knives and spoons are arranged on the right side. knives are closer to your plate than spoons. In this way, conveniently, when you begin the meal your fork is in your left hand and your knife is in your right hand. Where they belong for cutting. Spoons are conveniently placed on your right.

When you ask for a second helping of something, the person to the right of that serving bowl picks it up and passes it to the right where it eventually gets to you. You don't "fly" food over a table as if it were moved using a crane.

Now....don't get me wrong. I am not a prude. I usually see violations of these rules, almost always actually, and for the most part they do not bother me. But these are the rules of proper dinner mechanics as I learned them. Some folks were raised by wolves, not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)

Tines down: fork in left hand and knife in right. I never switch - that has never made any sense to me. I use the knife to push food onto the fork. I guess I have a similar opinion of using a spoon to shovel food into my mouth.

I try to savor the moment of eating food.

They must not eat peas.

It's a dead give away that one is American. It leads to the other tell, Americans will cut up a bunch of pieces or even all their food then switch hands to eat so they don't have to do it for each bite.

As a proud American I will continue to hold my fork with the tines curved up.... all you unpatriotic heathens can just fork off ;)....

I keed .... but I started this thread outta curiosity .... and it's impossible to eat BBQ slaw with the tines curved downward :D.