Poll: What Hands do you Use a Knife and Fork With?

[Tibike77]

Cutting : fork left, knife right
Actual eating : fork right, knife down

I swear, that's got to be a slightly more efficient way of eating food than just smashing your head against the table until the food finds its way into your mouth.

If you're in a bit of hurry but still in somewhat polite company you can shovel food with the fork left in your left hand, but I don't find that comfortable, so it makes me eat faster and in larger chunks, and since I usually want to eat as slowly as possible, the "putting the knife down and switching fork hand" break combined with small cuts prolongs the meal quite nicely, giving you time to properly savour each bite you chew.

If in "really polite company", I usually keep the fork in the left hand and make an effort to still cut small bites only, but it's not relaxing enough to do that with any other occasion.

When actually in a hurry and I really do need to scarf down food "efficiently" (as you so put it), assuming there's no company at all (or only people who don't give a damn about etiquette), I usually skip the knife altogether and just use a fork in the right hand.
The teeth replace the knife in this scenario.
And if feeling particularly savage and/or bored, I occasionally don't even bother with a fork either.


So, yeah, my utensil usage style changes radically based on company and available time.

 

[Agent Larkin]

While personally I prefer to just use a fork and my hands in polite company I use fork in left knife in right. The correct etiquette of course.

 

[D0WNT0WN]

Fork Right,
Knife Left.

Not being arkward, I find it easier. Im not even left handed.

 

[Dags90]

Well I personally blend everything and use a straw to suck it up in the fashion of our insect overlords.

But seriously ... I'm surprised there's this much deviation from fork-left knife-right. WTF? Didn't your mothers teach you even basic etiquette?

As a side note ... I use chopsticks usually. Caucasian here though.

Etiquette varies widely base on location, which is part of these threads. In the U.S., it's been considered rude to eat with your left hand, because it's taken us longer than our European ancestors to move to the quicker fork in left hand way of eating.

 

[Rawne1980]

What Hands do you Use a Knife and Fork With?

The ones at the end of my arms (budum tish)

Knife right hand, fork left.

 

[XMark]

The knife goes in your dominant hand, because cutting requires more force and accuracy than the fork hand.

If you're just using a fork, it goes in your dominant hand, but the knife takes precedence if you have both.

 

[StANDY1338]

Knife in the right its always in the right. Just encase you need to stab something.

knife <<< is that how you spell knife it looks wrong lol

 

[teqrevisited]

I'm right handed and I hold the fork in my right, knife in the left. Mum does the same. Whenever I go round to someone's house and they've set the table they always mention that it's odd when I switch them around. I also have my uncle's habit (an uncle, I might add, that I never knew. I only inherited his name as my middle name) of eating everything separately, one thing at a time.

 

[twistedmic]

Actually, it is correct manners to eat with the fork in the left hand and knife in the right hand.

It's called continental style etiquette.

Despite being an American, I eat using the 'Continental Style'. It feels more natural than putting my knife down and switching my fork to the right hand for each and every bite.

 

[Puzzlenaut]

Fork left, knife right. AS IT SHOULD BE you foreign knaves...

 

[Not-here-anymore]

Actually, it is correct manners to eat with the fork in the left hand and knife in the right hand.

It's called continental style etiquette.

Much more efficient than the ridiculous American method anyway, which is to cut the food (knife in right hand), then set the knife down, to then switch the fork to the right hand.

This is how I eat, because it's supposedly good manners to do so. Also because I'm right handed, and it makes sense to use your dominant hand to cut.
I'm fairly sure the politeness thing isn't directly linked to the cutlery, though. There used to be huge societal pressure on people to learn to do things right-handed, at least in Western Europe, so if you were using your cutlery the other way round, it wasn't wrong because of a mealtime faux-pas, but because you were being left-handed.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

just a little public survey, i got into an arguement with someone the other day who believes that to eat with a fork in your right hand and a knife in your left hand is the "wrong" way of eating and that no-one does it, i argued that not only is there no "correct" way of eating, but that i know/have heard of several people who eat said way, so to put this arguement to rest, how do escapees hold cutlery?

Yes technically as already said is the "proper & mannerly" way to eat in Europe. In reality it doesn't matter but if you want to be prim and proper that is how you do it although a fork and knife isn't like chop sticks where there actually a proper way and technique to use them otherwise you own't really get anything or drop most things.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

Surely you'd put the knife in your writing hand to make it easier to cut your meals, no? So yeah, knife in the right hand, fork in the left, if I were left handed I would do the inverse.

 

[Vykrel]

fork left, knife right. but i cut up my meal before i start eating, just to save myself the trouble of having to cutting while i eat. once im done cutting, i eat with the fork in my right hand, as i am a rightie.

 

[Jenitals]

I'm a waitress/busser which means I have to set out the cuttlery, amongst other responsibilities. I have to set out cuttlery repeatedly from 18:00 til 00:30 every weeknight and sunday. If I see someone show the complete and utter lack of appreciation that is picking up their knife with their left hand I die a little inside. If I caught myself doing this I'd have to jump off a bridge.

 

[Kizi]

I never learned to use cutleries, so I just cut the food with my right (dominant) hand and then put the knife down and pick up the fork. Makes me look like an idiot in public but I couldn't care less.

 

[Amphoteric]

i'm right handed so right.

Anyone who says that there is a correct way to eat food deserves to be slapped.

 

[DrPepperMD]

The British do it differently than Americans do. But I am left handed, so I voted for knife left and fork right, because that is what I do.

 

[Ashendarei]

I change mid-meal.

Edit: Not to be difficult, but I really do. I carve my food, then switch around.

This, although if I don't need to cut my food with a knife (can get away w/ a fork) I'll just use the fork in my left hand.