A question of table manners & human relations

[Bull City]

A couple of times a week, I play soccer with a group of older guys. Afterwards, we go to a pub for beers and a bite to eat. One of the guys, who is a bit odd anyway, has a disgusting way of eating a salad. First, he leans over the plate and lowers his head so that his mouth is only a few inches above the salad. Then he uses a fork in one hand and the fingers of the other to shovel the salad into his mouth.

He is not from a primitive or aboriginal society, unless you count an Irish-American from Baltimore as such. He is an employed, mechanical engineer, married with two or three grown children and a grand child.

It is like nothing I have ever seen, except perhaps in movies about Vikings (although they didn't eat salads). A few of us have noticed it and agree that it's uncouth. Should we say anything to him? If so, what? "Are you enjoying your salad?" Should we all order salads and try his technique?

[kimbottles]

We Celts don't have much couth. We are savages after-all.

[Orestes Munn]

A guy I used to train with was an amazingly boorish eater--like a dog with hands really. My brother has a supremely annoying habit of chewing with his mouth open (schmatzing) while breathing heavily and audibly through his nose. My mother in-law, may she RIP, used her thumb to push food onto her fork or spoon in the most infantile way. I think a common factor here is eating alone a lot.

As my wife will tell you, I am not the neatest eater in the world and have other, more disgusting, habits, but this stuff bothers me too. I probably wouldn't say anything to your sportsfreund, but it would be a strain for me to eat with him.

[Bull City]

We once went to a zoo where you could feed Romaine lettuce leaves to a giraffe. The giraffe was more dainty than this fellow.

[Bull City]

A guy I used to train with was an amazingly boorish eater--like a dog with hands really. My brother has a supremely annoying habit of chewing with his mouth open (schmatzing) while breathing heavily and audibly through his nose. My mother in-law, may she RIP, used her thumb to push food onto her fork or spoon in the most infantile way. I think a common factor here is eating alone a lot.

As my wife will tell you, I am not the neatest eater in the world and have other, more disgusting, habits, but this stuff bothers me too. I probably wouldn't say anything to your sportsfreund, but it would be a strain for me to eat with him.

Does your brother have a deviated septum?

Interesting point about manners and eating alone. Kind of the chicken and egg question.

[Orestes Munn]

A guy I used to train with was an amazingly boorish eater--like a dog with hands really. My brother has a supremely annoying habit of chewing with his mouth open (schmatzing) while breathing heavily and audibly through his nose. My mother in-law, may she RIP, used her thumb to push food onto her fork or spoon in the most infantile way. I think a common factor here is eating alone a lot.

As my wife will tell you, I am not the neatest eater in the world and have other, more disgusting, habits, but this stuff bothers me too. I probably wouldn't say anything to your sportsfreund, but it would be a strain for me to eat with him.

Does your brother have a deviated septum?

Interesting point about manners and eating alone. Kind of the chicken and egg question.

No, he's just a deviant. In these cases, the people ate alone for other reasons.

[JoeP]

A couple of times a week, I play soccer with a group of older guys. Afterwards, we go to a pub for beers and a bite to eat. One of the guys, who is a bit odd anyway, has a disgusting way of eating a salad. First, he leans over the plate and lowers his head so that his mouth is only a few inches above the salad. Then he uses a fork in one hand and the fingers of the other to shovel the salad into his mouth.

He is not from a primitive or aboriginal society, unless you count an Irish-American from Baltimore as such. He is an employed, mechanical engineer, married with two or three grown children and a grand child.

It is like nothing I have ever seen, except perhaps in movies about Vikings (although they didn't eat salads). A few of us have noticed it and agree that it's uncouth. Should we say anything to him? If so, what? "Are you enjoying your salad?" Should we all order salads and try his technique?

Dear Bull,

I think you need to take a thoughtful and reasoned approach to this problem. The next time you are at the pub and your friend starts to eat so annoyingly gently lean over in his direction, take the palm of your hand and and in a swift graceful motion wacky him upside his head while firmly and loudly yelling STOP EATING LIKE THAT! He should get the message and thank you for correcting his poor behavior.

Yours,
Abby

[Ish]

A couple of times a week, I play soccer with a group of older guys. Afterwards, we go to a pub for beers and a bite to eat. One of the guys, who is a bit odd anyway, has a disgusting way of eating a salad. First, he leans over the plate and lowers his head so that his mouth is only a few inches above the salad. Then he uses a fork in one hand and the fingers of the other to shovel the salad into his mouth.

He is not from a primitive or aboriginal society, unless you count an Irish-American from Baltimore as such. He is an employed, mechanical engineer, married with two or three grown children and a grand child.

It is like nothing I have ever seen, except perhaps in movies about Vikings (although they didn't eat salads). A few of us have noticed it and agree that it's uncouth. Should we say anything to him? If so, what? "Are you enjoying your salad?" Should we all order salads and try his technique?

Dear Bull,

I think you need to take a thoughtful and reasoned approach to this problem. The next time you are at the pub and your friend starts to eat so annoyingly gently lean over in his direction, take the palm of your hand and and in a swift graceful motion wacky him upside his head while firmly and loudly yelling STOP EATING LIKE THAT! He should get the message and thank you for correcting his poor behavior.

Yours,
Abby

That sounds like a splendid idea. Make sure you have someone filming the whole thing.

[SloopJonB]

On our first date back in '79 my wife & I were eating lunch in a soup & sandwich shop. There was a guy eating there who I recognized as one of the local business people. This guy was late 30's, very good looking in an executive way, drove a new 633 CSI, was always perfectly groomed & dressed in expensive clothes etc. When he got his soup he put his face about two inches above the bowl and spooned it into his mouth. We couldn't believe our eyes - it was fascinating in the way a snake is - couldn't take our eyes off it. It was so extraordinary that we've both remembered it all these years.

It's always surprising when otherwise sophisticated people have terrible table manners. Spiking their food down with a fork held in their fist while they cut it and such things. How can they not know?

Sometimes it can be merely amusing though. We were at my wife's office Xmas dinner one year. It was held at one of those snotty business clubs - washroom attendants and all. Her boss and his wife were pretty pretentious - a small town bank manager who thought that still rated as high social position even in the big city. The club laid the tables with every piece of cutlery in the drawer - 4 pieces above the plates if you get the idea. The boss & his wife were lording it over the table while they buttered their rolls with their fish knives.

We restrained ourselves until later when we had a good laugh at their expense.

My mother was a bit of a wheel in the local art community years ago and at dinner one night she mentioned that the local adult "sorority" had invited her to be their "social convener". My father snorted "Shit, they just want you to teach them which fork to use".

Your grandmother was right - breeding counts.

P.S. Bull - I doubt anything you say will do anything but upset or anger the guy - he's eaten that way all these years and is unlikely to change now. Is he married? If he is, that would only confirm my point because women are generally far less tolerant of this stuff than we men are.

[Bull City]

Jon, very amusing stuff. Years ago, we saw a young woman very politely consuming the contents of her finger bowl as if it were soup. To her credit, she didn't slurp.

The fellow in question is married and has a son and a daughter. Surely they must have made an effort at some point.

[Orestes Munn]

Jon, very amusing stuff. Years ago, we saw a young woman very politely consuming the contents of her finger bowl as if it were soup. To her credit, she didn't slurp.

The fellow in question is married and has a son and a daughter. Surely they must have made an effort at some point.

They probably all eat like that.

[kimbottles]

A table manner discussion on a sailing board!
A business/economics discussion in one of the other threads!

(I love this place!)

[SloopJonB]

Jon, very amusing stuff. Years ago, we saw a young woman very politely consuming the contents of her finger bowl as if it were soup. To her credit, she didn't slurp.

When our daughter was around 4 we were in a good restaurant and beginning to teach them "public" manners. When they brought us finger bowls I said "Oh good, lemon soup". Marissa looked at my wife and said "Which spoon do I use mommy?"

I laughed & felt bad at the same time - is that poignant?

[kimbottles]

Bad Jon, bad Jon, bad Jon.........

[Bull City]

I would say something, but my mouth is full.

[Panope]

I can't help but think of the film "Human Nature" and Tim Robbins' character who bases is scientific research on teaching table manners......... to mice.

Steve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGPO15FSepQ

[Orestes Munn]

I can't help thinking of Mr. Creosote.

[Bull City]

I can't help but think of the film "Human Nature" and Tim Robbins' character who bases is scientific research on teaching table manners......... to mice.

Steve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGPO15FSepQ

Looks very amusing. Just added to my queue.

[SloopJonB]

"When in doubt, don't do what you really want to".

Good advice.

[kdh]

Table manners are like putting on a suit for an interview. Easy, n0othing to lose yet a lot to gain.

Here's an etiquette question. When leaving the table temporarily, for the bathroom, say, does one leave his napkin on the chair or on the table?

To me, ideally, eating is a social experience.

Our table was a free-for-all growing up. My parents had big families so if you didn't eat fast you didn't eat. Fortunately Ann's grandmother is a proper Anglo Saxon so she could teach me how to eat.

[SloopJonB]

On your chair but that is one of those bits of overdeveloped etiquette that appear to be dying out - like the absurd amount of silverware in the club table settings I referred to earlier.

I guess it matters if you are lunching with the Queen but that sort of hyper refined etiquette was developed for and by people who had nothing but time on their hands - like being above or below the salt.

They had different clothing for every meal as well and staff to take care of it all.

Not slurping your soup or eating salad with your hands is another thing entirely.

By the way, even the Queen touches up her lipstick at the table now.

[Orestes Munn]

On slurping, it took me some effort to learn to eat soba with appropriate Japanese gusto.

I take my napkin with me to the bathroom.

[Tucky]

Here in Maine, we have lobster, which is a great test for how people eat. I don't eat lobster in the shell in restaurants so can not be called out, but seeing folks with the silly bibs and instructions on the table mat is a hoot. I once saw a woman from Greece (my sister was marrying one) eat an entire lobster, shell and all. Very politely and it was a soft shell, but I was impressed. I also once watched avery proper young woman from Connecticut successfully eat a lobster with a knife and fork. It was a tour de force that would have made her family proud, and did amaze us less couth folk.

Lobster tastes best eaten on the rocks and with rocks as the only utensil. Manners don't enter into it.

[kdh]

Tucky, I'm intimately familiar with the lobster anatomy and know the location of all edible morsels. I agree lobster in the rough is the way to do it.

Beal's in Southwest Harbor comes to mind. In the "more money than brains" category I'll even fork out $56 for the twin one pounders at Abel's.

[LarryHoward]

I thoroughly enjoy having "City people" over and treating them to a crab feast. A crab knife, a mallet and a tray of crabs. No need to pick a fork. We don't provide them. Some get right into it and other try to be dainty and "proper'. Although with enough beer or wine, they eventually figure out that we do it outside for a reason.

We also provide chicken and sausages for those that just can't adapt.

[Ajax]

As a Navy enlisted man, "meal time" was usually condensed to about 10 minutes for my entire career.
In boot camp, it was just a bodily function to get through as quickly as possible.
In actual, military life, there was simply too much work to do, and too many men to feed, for us to eat slowly, politely, and lounge at the table with a toothpick between our teeth.
It became habitual.

As a result, I am a horrible eater and I have to consciously remind myself to slow the hell down, come up for air and remember who's around me.

My recent trip to Italy was good practice to eat like a well-mannered human being in public.

[Orestes Munn]

Compared to the things one does to crabs, dismembering a lobster is a genteel affair.

Ajax, I never noted you as being any uglier an eater than I am.

[BeauV]

Compared to the things one does to crabs, dismembering a lobster is a genteel affair.

Ajax, I never noted you as being any uglier an eater than I am.

If you haven't seen an Otter eating a crab, you've never seen truly bad manners.

[cap10ed]

Posted elsewhere. have a great day
Saffron Alexander

The next time you find yourself sighing in annoyance at your colleagues' inability to munch their crisps quietly, take solace in the fact that this could mean you are a genius.

A new study from Northwestern University suggests that the inability to filter out competing sensory information is a common occurence in the creatively talented.

The study cites creative geniuses such as Charles Darwin, Anton Chekhov and novelist Marcel Proust, who notoriously wore ear-stoppers and lined his bedroom with cork to block out noise whilst he worked.

Lead author of the study Darya Zabelina said: "The propensity to filter out 'irrelevant' sensory information....happens early and involuntarily in brain processing and may help people integrate ideas that are outside the focus of attention, leading to creativity in the realanswers as they could to several unlikely scenarios within a limited amount of time. Participants were then asked to take a "Creative Achievement Questionnaire" where they reported their creative achievements across 10 verticals, including: visual arts, creative writing, scientific discovery and culinary arts.

Their answers revealed a strong link between those with the most creative answers and achievements and those sensitive to background noise whilst working.

[Bull City]

^^ I will show this to my wife and declare that she is very lucky to have me.