Apparently I've been eating bread wrong my entire life. I read something in a book recently that suggested that I have been departing from societal norms, so I looked it up. Here's Rule #3:
"The only correct way to butter and eat your bread is to:Using a knife, put a bit of butter on the side of your bread plate first;Then, tear off one bite-sized piece of bread at a time and butter that piece only, right before putting it into your mouth.Many people make the mistake of buttering the whole slice of bread and then biting into the slice."
I quite understand not to do any "communal dipping" into olive oil (Rule #7) (and not to double-dip nachos into the group salsa), but who determines that bread is placed on the left (Rule #2) and passed to the right (Rule #6), or that at formal/business dinners, bread should not be eaten until the first course is served (Rule #1).
Hygiene and health-related rules are fine, but other prescriptivist dogma seems archaic and silly. IMO.
I suspect these are made up by people with a particularly sadistic bent - and too much time on their hands.
ReplyDeletewithout "prescriptivist dogma" men might think it's ok to dress like 8 year old boys and criticism of what's popular and commercially profitable my been seen as haterade and then you wind of with a shitty monoculture full of slobs and giant logos.
ReplyDeletemen might think it's ok to dress like 8 year old boys
DeleteYou mean comfortably?
a shitty monoculture full of slobs and giant logos
Because all men wearing dark suits and ties is not a monoculture, amirite?
I was always taught never to 'bite ones bread'. After all it hardly looks decorous to spend time gnawing on a chunk of baguette.
ReplyDeleteI assume that bread is placed on the left to avoid conflict with the glasses, and passed to the right just because, with the exception of port, everything is.
Of the many minor slights and breaches of table manners drilled into me as a child strangely the bread is one of the only ones I retain.
This is why I do not go to eat in public anymore. I know, the economy is suffering and restaurants have closed because if this.
ReplyDeleteI heard or read long ago that good manners consist of knowing which fork to use and not noticing when others don't.
ReplyDeleteAlso that manners, at their core, are about helping make others more comfortable. Like helping someone them with a coat, not being gross at the dinner table, holding a door for a mom with a stroller....
I am blind when someone uses their oyster fork to spear the olive in their martini, which they should have finished or abandoned on the butler's tray before hitting the dining room, but I wouldn't do it. ;-)
I would not eat the bread anyway! All it does is fill you up (and boost your blood sugar) so you feel too full to enjoy the real meal.
ReplyDeleteAll it does is fill you up (and boost your blood sugar) so you feel too full to enjoy the real meal.
DeleteYou should try celiac disease. You might enjoy it!
Thank you, but I will pass on both the bread rolls and the celiac disease.
DeleteMy grandmother taught us all the simple phrase "Eat to the left, drink to the right." So we know where our drink glass and bread plates are. The other grandkids and I all agree it is one of the best pieces of advice we have ever received.
ReplyDeleteIn honour of this post, just spread butter on a whole slice of toast with a fork.
ReplyDelete