So how do you hold a fork?

[KFC911]

At least I was taught to keep my elbows off the table .

But I hold a fork with the tines curving up .... and I don't care what anyone thinks about it either .

How about you .... tines up or down if you're stabbing a piece of meat and putting it in yer "pie hole"?

[flatbutt]

I hold it like the dude in the "Psycho" shower scene.

[GH85Carrera]

With my fingers?

[KFC911]

Everyone I see on TV, stabs a piece of meat and puts it in their mouth with the fork tines curving downward .... a European thing.

Can't recall anyone I've ever been around doing it that way .... a southern thang ?

[rfuerst911sc]

Tines curved up .

[stevej37]

I never stab meat with a fork....one of the plastic tines breaks off every time.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by KC911

Everyone I see on TV, stabs a piece of meat and puts it in their mouth with the fork tines curving downward .... a European thing.

Can't recall anyone I've ever been around doing it that way .... a southern thang ?

Right, I think I've only seen tines curved down on TV/movies. And I think that I've seen (again in TV/movies) where the tines down people will use it tines up part of the time, but then tines down for a bite of steak.

I've never used a fork tines down for any purpose that I can remember.





but a REAL man

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by KC911

Everyone I see on TV, stabs a piece of meat and puts it in their mouth with the fork tines curving downward .... a European thing.

Can't recall anyone I've ever been around doing it that way .... a southern thang ?

Yea, them funny folks in furin countries on TV and movies do it with the tines down. I figured that started in Australia, and caught on for some reason.

True story, back when i still lived at home, I met a chick that was French, named Sophie, and in the US to learn better English, and experience American culture. Her mom was rich and very upper crust, and "proper" and came to Alabama to visit her daughter.

We were having a 4th of July family party at my parents lake cabin at Lake Martin, in AL. Imagine a 100% typical American family, shorts, barefoot, boat at the dock, drinking from cans of soda or beer, a hamburger and fried chicken meal and kids laughing. And this aristocrat French lady that did not speak but a little English in the middle. We all dig into the burgers and chicken with our fingers, and forks are used for baked beans or potato salad only.

Sophie said something to her mom as she came outside with an astonished tone in her voice. We all looked at Sophie as an explanation as to what was said. She had told her mom it was the first time ever that she had seen her mom's feet. Her mom just could not bring herself to eat fried chicken with her fingers and was trying to use a knife and fork on a chicken leg and her hamburger.

Finally quoted the old adage, "when in Rome do as the Romans do" and her mom put down the knife and fork and held a chicken leg and bit into it. She said she had many firsts that day and felt like an American. He first time to be barefoot outdoors, first time to drinking right from a container and not from a glass, first time to eat with her fingers, and the first time to be on a small boat in a lake and on and on.

[herr_oberst]

Me? Left hand, right hand, tines up, tines down, tines sideways if I'm sawing away at something tough, tines pointed toward someone when I'm embellishing a point of conversation....

From what I understand, the British pretty much hold the fork in their left hand, tines always down. Europeans will spin the fork (left hand always) depending on the food - tines up for rice, or peas or such but tines down for stabbing meat.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

Me? Left hand, right hand, tines up, tines down, tines sideways if I'm sawing away at something tough, tines pointed toward someone when I'm embellishing a point of conversation....

From what I understand, the British pretty much hold the fork in their left hand, tines always down. Europeans will spin the fork (left hand always) depending on the food - tines up for rice, or peas or such but tines down for stabbing meat.

I was always taught that you should use a fork for pretty much everything that it would work for. I guess the only things that you wouldn't use a fork for are liquidy/saucy things that would run through a fork. I always wondered why bother with the spoon at all and thought that was a silly rule.

[javadog]

I use mine correctly. I even know which fork to use. I can explain these finer points to you, but, if you haven’t learned by now, you don’t want to know them.

Years ago I was eating dinner at The French Room in Dallas, which is a fairly extravagant restaurant that uses a European model of service. Waiters and attendants stand at the walls around the perimeter of the room, waiting to be needed. I briefly used my dinner knife to put a some butter on a little piece of bread, and then I replaced the dinner knife onto the crystal knife rest. Sadly, for me, I had placed the knife on the crystal knife rest with the blade facing to the right. An attendant leaped into action and flipped my knife over, so that it faced the correct direction.

True story.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by javadog

An attendant leaped into action and flipped my knife over, so that it faced the correct direction.

True story.

I like to think he saw you were capable of using the tools correctly and he wanted to help! (But it is weird that he would do that!)

[mocha07]

Originally Posted by KC911

Everyone I see on TV, stabs a piece of meat and puts it in their mouth with the fork tines curving downward .... a European thing.

?

All European scenes of dinner,show people eating,holding the forks in left hand and using their knives as adding to the food on the knife. Never grew up using that technight.

[javadog]

Well, you can be an American and cut a piece of meat, holding the meat with your fork in your left hand and the knife in your right, then use the knife to hold down the meat while you dislodge the fork, then put the knife down and transfer the fork to your right hand, then stab the meat and eat it.

Bonus points if you hold your fork tines up and your elbow up in the air, when holding it with your left hand to cut the meat.

Of course, if you don’t want to look like an American jackass, do it like the Europeans do, and nobody will notice you. Just don’t use your knife like the Brits, on things like peas and potatoes.

[javadog]

A very basic lesson for the boorish bastages that infest this place.

Tabs would be disappointed in you but, perhaps, not surprised.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_R70v6xDr_s

[KFC911]

^^^^ LOL ... I hold my fork in my left hand .

signed....

Lefty

edited: I actually got to about 30 seconds in.... meh

[javadog]

Stick to eating barbecue.

[911 Rod]

You are assuming we give a fork.

[GH85Carrera]

Just use a spork.



It folds up so you can carry it with you and always be ready to to shovel in the food! Just lick it clean and put it back in your pocket, after a good belch to let the cook know you approved of the meal.

Done.

[KFC911]

I had to quit eating with a spoon ... nearly shot my head off !