Last night, for no particular reason? my mum was getting a little upset about mine and my brothers methods of eating, altohugh mainly my brother. It was all about the
knife and fork work.
Basically, my mum was getting upset that i would scoop or drag food onto my fork, which i was holding concave (in order to scoop things accordingly
). Apparently though, this is wrong, and you're meant to hold your fork convex (ie spikes down) and scrap food etc onto the back of your fork and then put it in your mouth like that. This to me, although i was still adapting to it, was an incredibly ineffcient way of eating, since gravity would tend to pull donw, causes the food to slide off the back. Like using a shovel backwards/upsidedown?
Although, apparently, if you want to scoop
you're meant to put your knife down and then scoop with a fork, solitarily in your prefered hand (ie i am right handed).
They were the two that most related to me, although i thought it was quite absurd?
She also mentioned that people in America would commonly cut up their whole meal and then just use the solitary scooping action with their prefered hand.
What the most interesting thing was though, is that my dad is German and my mum is Australian albeit her parents are British, so while my mum was telling us this, dad would butt in and tell you otherwise. And both where critising each others habits (dad said it was acceptable to use my scoop method ), so i was left in the air not kowing if anything was
correct or
proper. That said, i think the small things like this are absurd so my brother and i were getting a bit of a laugh out of it all. Especially the parents mildly arguing over such a trivial thing. Although, I don't want to come across, nor think i am a philistine, so i was trying to comply. Of course, as my dad always likes to think that he's right and perfect and all
he kept saying "i'll show you the right way later"
That said, i think it's more of a traditional thing that might be dying off anyway?
Although now, i was thinking, how does it matter? all these small trivial things, especially when they seemingly lead to a less effcient way of eating. I could hardly balance or manage to stick anything to the back of my fork
Still, i was wondering about whether this really makes any difference whatsoever and if anyone really cares much, about this stuff anymore?
My mum was mainly insisting that when we may be in some kind of offcial company for business or something, that it may deter them from doing something cause i didn't scoop food on the back of my fork (or do any of the other small eating appropriations) ....eh?