I've noticed lately in a few American movies, that Americans use cutlery differently.
When I eat, (Australia) the knife and fork stay in my hands the entirety of the meal. Placing both down when finished.
I did a bit of research and there's the zig-zag method. Cutting with a knife in the right hand, placing it down, switching the fork to the right hand, eating a bite. Repeat.
When watching a movie recently (Hereditary) there's a dinner scene and I was focusing more on how he was eating, than anything else.
I'm not saying there is a right or wrong way, I just find it interesting.
Do all Americans eat this way? Or does it differ by region or state?
Cheers.
35 comments
349 million people aren’t going to “all” do anything the exact same way.
Yes. Google American vs. European table etiquette
Yeah Americans zig zag a lot I guess. I feel in general we also just have much more casual table manners in general compared to Europeans who usually ask this, and perhaps Australians as well. I feel more than anything Americans in a group setting unless they’re famished are constantly putting down and picking up their silverware as they talk(and emote with their hands), and are never continuously holding onto it
I definitely cut first and then put my knife down and switch hands.
This varies a lot, I don’t think there is any “one” use.
The method you describe is common, but it’s hardly universal. I’m not even sure it’s dominant.
I used to, but after a couple months in Europe many moons ago, I found it sooo much easier.
Is the zig zag method the American method? That’s how I’ve always ate.
Spoon or fork in right hand to bring food up. Then if I need the knife. I move the fork to the left hand and cut with the knife. Once I finish cutting, fork goes back into my right hand.
I usually eat Chinese food though so mostly chopsticks.
Yes, most Americans do use the zigzag method, if that’s what it’s called. When I traveled to Europe, the difference in how everyone else was using utensils to how I was doing it was very obvious. I adopted fork in left hand, knife in right while I was in Europe to avoid feeling out of place, and still eat that way occasionally for meals where it’s easier to have the knife available to push food into the fork.
Using the knife with your dominant hand, right for most people, then placing it down, and shifting the fork to the dominant hand, is the standard way Americans are taught to use cutlery. The left hand then is free for a drink, or a napkin.
Personally I just cut everything at the beginning, put the knife down, and then eat. If it’s something like a large steak with a lot of cutting and potential to get cold I’ll cut like 1/2 at a time
I know most people here zigzag though I just get annoyed at picking stuff up and putting it down repeatedly
Just easier to use my dominant hand to cut, and that hand also has more coordination for operating the metal pointy thing coming towards my face.
I’m (partially)* left-handed. I hold the fork in my left hand, knife in my right. I don’t switch.
I’ve seen people do this switching thing, and it baffles me.
* I write with my left hand, and hold a fork in my left hand. If I have to do a task that requires some kind of precision, I’ll hold the required tool in my left hand. Most other things, I do right-handed. I’m right eye dominant, so I shoot a gun or bow right-handed.
In general Americans do tend to switch, but if you don’t, no one cares. Just don’t shovel the food into,your mouth or make a mess.
Why do we eat this way? It’s a holdover from 18th/19th century French etiquette, which upper class Americans greatly admired at that time. This custom died out in France by 1850. We hung onto it.
As a mostly left handed person, the fork remains in my left hand the whole time, and I only hold the knife if I’m cutting something. At home I use my fork to cut my food, outside of my home I will use a knife though (not using a knife at home means one less thing to wash afterwards). The zigzag method is very British
No
My wife is English, but moved here as a child. She still mostly eats with knife and fork, with the fork turned downward, like her parents.
I use a knife when something needs to be spread or when I need to cut something the fork won’t cut. That doesn’t happen very often; if the edge of my fork won’t go through a steak… the steak is crap. So, yeah, like a savage, maybe, but at least I’m not trying to balance peas on the convex surface of a fork.
I’m a (left handed) American, and I don’t do the American cross. Fork stays in my left while eating, knife in right as needed.
Do you not drink anything while you eat? Is the knife for defense?
I do it the European way and I’ve seen plenty of other Americans who do as well, but the majority do the switching thing.
If I’m eating something that needs to be cut as I eat it I have my fork in my left hand and knife in my right hand. I don’t put my knife down to talk a bite. If my meal doesn’t require much cutting though I’ll just have my fork in my right hand
I do not use the zig zag method at all. It seems inefficient.
I guess I do zigzag.
I can’t even imagine not cutting something with my non dominant hand, and I put my knife down when I’m not actively using it.
I’m not all Americans but I keep both in my hands the entire time I’m eating
I think we use knives less while eating in general. Personally, I literally only use a knife when eating a cut of meat.
I guess I naturally do it the European way — knife in right and fork in left and I just eat with the fork in my left hand. Are people actually taught stuff like this? I can’t imagine in what context I would actually formally learn how to use utensils like this, it just feels the most natural.
Of course only applies for meals that need a knife, most of the time I only use my right hand
Who needs a knife when you can cut most things with the side of the fork?
I eat the European way. So do my parents and most friends.
I was taught zigzag as a kid, but once I learned about the European method I switched.
I was taught to eat with the knife in my right (dominant) hand and fork in my left. It’s slightly more formal but not uncommon.
Sometimes I’ll switch the fork to my right hand. For example I might be holding a takeout container with my left and eating with my right (dominant) hand.
I use the fork in my dominant (right) hand and the knife in my non-dominant (left) hand. I haven’t zig-zagged since I was a young kid. I find it inefficient.
When the use of cutlery became standard in Europe (and it was later than you may think; Louis XIV of France always ate with his hands, and not with a fork) it was considered bad manners to put food in your mouth with your left hand, or to eat while still holding onto the knife with which you just cut your food. Up until the early 1800s, the only acceptable way to eat was to put down the knife after cutting your food, transferring the fork into your right hand, and then continuing from there. Furthermore, since the use of the fork was patterned after how spoons (which were in use for centuries before forks) were used, forks were held like spoons with the tines up, and for some items used to scoop rather than spear food. These rules came to America with the earliest settlers, and they are the ones still unconsciously followed by Americans — as you noticed, we put our knives down after cutting our food, and we use the fork in our right hands, just as all polite people in Europe did before about 1830.
However, fashions began to change in Europe around that time, and younger people started eating in a way that, while more efficient, their grandfathers would have thought low class and ill-mannered. Specifically, people never put their knives down, and because they now had knives in their right hands continuously, they stabbed their food with the forks they now held in their left hands with the tines down, or mashed it against the back of the tines if it was something such as peas or potatoes that weren’t easy to stab. Over time, this practice spread throughout European society, but the older (and arguably more polite and elegant, but less efficient) practice of putting knives down when eating, and using the right hand to transfer food from the plate to the mouth. was retained in the US.
Fork in the left, knife in the right. Those are the sides that the cutlery are placed. Likewise, place the knife down when you are reaching for your beverage. The beverage is on the right side, after all. That’s the etiquette.
I’m not going to judge someone for deviating at the family table though. Unless they’re zig-zagging at a fancy restaurant, I don’t really notice. And even then I’m only slightly embarrassed for their minor faux pas. Not offended at all.
I’ve seen this and couldn’t identify with it. I’m an American who is right-handed. For me, the knife is in my right hand doing the hard work and the left hand has my fork shoveling the cut pieces into my mouth. I don’t get this switching off
I’ll put down my knife after cutting, but I keep my fork in my left hand and knife in my right, dont bother switching. Just inefficient to swap
Nobody taught me “proper etiquette,” growing up so I figured with the fork in my right hand, I’d use the knife in my left.
It makes much more sense than putting things down every other bite.
Since you’ve gotten plenty of answers I would just like to say how wild it is to watch the movie where the demonically possessed teenager accidentally decapitates his little sister while driving, continues to drive home before going to bed, leaving the body in his truck for his mother to discover first thing the next morning, issuing one of the most haunting, bloodcurdling screams ever put to film, and come away from it like “they eat kinda weird at the dinner table, that was my main takeaway”.
No shade, I just legitimately thought that was hilarious.