this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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How do Americans eat with their knifes and forks?
Edit: Apparently my fellow Americans put the knife down after cutting and switch the fork to the hand that was holding the knife. I'm not sure I've ever noticed this. I always use my right(dominant) hand to cut with but then I just use the fork in my left to eat the food with. I know I'm an odd duck but I'm baffled by the utensil boogaloo that seems to be going on. Now I'm going to have to watch people around me eat. I'll report back in a few weeks.
Holding the fork vertically with downward pressure in the left fist while cutting with the knife. Then putting down the knife, swapping the fork to the right hand for eating. Bonus points for biting the forks.
It's the most distracting thing in all American media. I like to yell "yanks eating weird!" And point at the screen. Once you see it you can't unsee it.
We put the more dangerous utensil in our dominant hand so we have more control. You all don't do that? Lol
They do that. They just don't switch hands to eat.
So they just hold the fork with their non-dominant hand? What about if there is no cutting to do? Do they still just use their left hand with a fork?
I did some research and it seems like they do use their left hand, but additionally they tend to always use a knife to assist with getting things on the fork. While for things like rice I see some benefits to the American system, the European system makes a lot of sense for something like steak where you may not want to cut the whole thing before you start eating. I often find myself compromising and precutting more than I want to when I'm eating steak since I change hands.
The whole concept of dominant vs non dominant hand can be over emphasized. For example when it comes to guitar the dominant hand typically handles strumming, but the non dominant hand is responsible for the complicated task of fretting. Using the "non-dominant" hand for a task isn't necessarily relegating it to a lesser status. It's often just a matter of practicality and if you grow up doing something a certain way you'll develop dexterity and be perfectly comfortable using your "non-dominant" hand.
Idk I guess most meals I don't even use a knife so Im just used to using my right hand. For things like steak yeah I'll use a knife but the majority of meals I just use a fork to cut it.
This is crazy news to me lol
Same here, but with stuff like rice I definitely have to do a decent amount of plate scraping, especially towards the end. It didn't take, but growing up my mom always told me to just use my knife to get the food on the fork when I was finishing my plate. I will say from my research (which could be biased more towards formal eating) the way they eat mashed potatoes is a bit wild to me. Keep the fork in the same position as when you're cutting meat and push them onto the convex side of the fork. For informal eating with something like rice it was fork left hand, but more of an American style of holding the fork. It does make some sense though. Apparently forks used to be straight and the curve was added so that you wouldn't poke the roof of your mouth so holding the fork curving downwards helps avoid that.
I feel like the American style is very much catered towards the culture of tv dinners and convenience around food. At the end of the day it's all just variations in how we decided to do a task across cultures that get the job done one way or another. With Asia we see the use of chopsticks, in India they use their hands for a lot of foods with a refined technique to push the food from the fingers into the mouth so you're not just shoving your hand in your mouth, in Ethiopian cuisine they use a special bread to pick up and eat the food. As long as the food is tasty and ends up in your mouth it's not too much different than something like driving on a different side of the road or different plug designs. There may be some downsides/upsides to one or the other, but at the end of the day it's just a different path to solve a universal problem.
Are you saying they eat their mashed potatoes with their forks upside down!?!?
Monsters lol
I'm sure in casual settings they probably eat it more like an American, but honestly it doesn't seem like the worst idea with assistance from the knife, especially factoring in the history of the fork. I gotta give it a try sometime.