Forking Rules

[girasol]

Right hand for fork if I'm eating casually one handed at home on the sofa or at my desk. I use a pasta bowl for most meals specifically because it helps eating one handed.

If I'm in a restaurant and using cutlery and a flat plate, then I'll use both hands and then it's fork in the left and knife in the right because it feels correct. Knife in the left hand just feels wrong at all times.

Spoon is always in the right hand for stuff like soups, but if it's a thai dish or something where they give you a spoon and a fork then I have no idea tbh. I think its spoon in the left and fork in the right but I could be wrong.

So, my thinking is the reason it "feels correct" is because that's a legacy way of thinking about table manners, and how people are trained to eat because it fits a mould of eating etiquette historically dictated by class, iyswim.

 

[girasol]

I dunno about that, I imagine most households would have laid the table for a meal and there would have been a general way the implements were put on the table that was just learned from the previous generation. I have a vague idea that forks are a newer cutlery item than spoons and knives. Gonna have to do some research on the history of cutlery and place settings, interesting

I found these in my 5-min research travels

The fork is a relative latecomer to the place setting. Pronged implements had long been used as cooking utensils, but forks didn’t arrive on European tables until the 11th century, and for hundreds of years afterward were regarded by many as a decadent and vulgar extravagance. Knives and spoons were necessary tools; the fork was just a dainty substitute for one’s fingers. Apparently, Louis XIV forbade his children to eat with forks. It should perhaps come as no surprise that such an instrument would attract a bit of counterintuitive etiquette. [from an article on The Guardian]

Correct dining table layout​

A Victorian dinner party table was set out in a set fashion. Each place setting had a plate, two large knives, three large forks, a soup spoon, and a water goblet set to the right of the plate. If you were serving a fish dish, each guest also needed a fish fork and knife or a small oyster fork, if needed. The oyster fork would be placed to the right of the plate, next to the knives, as would the soup spoon; all other forks were on the left side of the plate. A small plate would be placed to the top left of the main plate, for guests to place bread on. [Source]

 

[Looby]

Poll fail. I’m right handed on everything else but I am ambidextrous when it comes to cutlery and swap knife and fork between hands when eating.

No, you’re not ambidextrous you’re mixed handed. I think ambidextrous means you can use each hand equally well and very few people can.

 

[Saunders]

I was brought up in the UK.

I'm mostly left-handed and always use my left hand for the fork and right for the knife. If I'm just using a spoon it will mostly be my left but not always. If it's something served with a fork and spoon then it's fork in left and spoon in right hand.

I'm not sure left-handedness comes into it that much with me. I just use the utensils the way I was taught except possibly for the solitary spoon thing.

Like Steel Icarus 's former F-I-L, I was taught it was polite to eat peas by combining them with something on the back of the fork. I don't always adhere to that rule when I'm eating on my own.

ETA: If I'm preparing food then I tend to slice things with a knife in my left hand.

If I’m using spoon and fork I use them the ‘wrong’ way round. I definitely can’t easily convey food into my mouth with my right hand. I broke my left hand once and had to give up soup for a week

 

[girasol]

I added 5th option... Hopefully it'll catch the more elaborate/unique options.

 

[A380]

No, you’re not ambidextrous you’re mixed handed. I think ambidextrous means you can use each hand equally well and very few people can.

Mixed handed sounds pretty cool....

 

[Leafster]

I'm right-handed for most things, such as food preparation but I can sand and apply paint left-handed, but top quality needs RH precision.

Eating - usually is knife in right, fork in left, spoon in right. And I do the peas combination thing - that's how I was dragged up ...
I was once taught the full-fat table layout for eating utensils.
Does anyone eat cafe sandwiches with a knife & fork ?

The highlighted bit has reminded me of an inconsistency with my cutlery etiquette (I think )

If there's a side plate with a bread roll, it's on the left with a knife so I tend to use my left hand for that knife.

 

[Elpenor]

I don’t even know what I use

 

[skyscraper101]

So, my thinking is the reason it "feels correct" is because that's a legacy way of thinking about table manners, and how people are trained to eat because it fits a mould of eating etiquette historically dictated by class, iyswim.

I think it 'feels correct' because if I'm eating a steak or something I'm very likely using my dominant right hand to hold the knife and cut it up, so having a fork in the left hand just feels correct. I wouldn't ever use a knife with my left hand to cut up a steak because it isn't my strong hand so I'd get it wrong. So that is more what I mean. It's more about dominant hands and dexterity.

I'll also ask my Brazilian partner later and see if she also does your weird left handed knife thing

 

[friedaweed]

Fork in right hand and I'm right handed. That is the proper way.

That's because you're not allowed knives though isn't it?

The OP's husband is correct to educate the op on this.

 

[Chz]

Raised in Canada, fwiw.
Fork in dominant (right) hand, unless there's a lot of cutting to be done. Then I will switch to the knife in the right. But unlike most Americans, if it's food that involved a lot of cutting I won't swap them back and forth as I go along. I'll just go on using the fork in the left hand until there is no more cutting to be done. I find it quite difficult to use the fork as a makeshift spoon (eg. peas) in my off hand. So both the fork and the knife can be either side, because you need the knife in the left hand to shove the peas onto the fork in the right. That's just a skill I've never mastered the other way around.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Left-handed, knife goes in left hand.

As a kid I would always swap the cutlery over whenever I sat down to a laid table in protest against the inherent bigotry of the lumpen rightest orthodoxy.

 

[Leafster]

Left-handed, knife goes in left hand.

As a kid I would always swap the cutlery over whenever I sat down to a laid table in protest against the inherent bigotry of the lumpen rightest orthodoxy.

Totally off-topic but I used to get a great deal of amusement from handing over a left-handed paying-in book (with the spine on the right) to a bank cashier and watching them struggle.

With the cashless society I don't get the chance very often now.

 

[skyscraper101]

Totally off-topic but I used to get a great deal of amusement from handing over a left-handed paying-in book (with the spine on the right) to a bank cashier and watching them struggle.

With the cashless society I don't get the chance very often now.

I never knew they did left-handed ones. I'd totally forgotten about paying in books tbh. They seem like such a relic now. Like 'cheque guarantee' cards.

 

[Leafster]

I never knew they did left-handed ones. I'd totally forgotten about paying in books tbh. They seem like such a relic now. Like 'cheque guarantee' cards.

I run a small accountancy practice with a few elderly clients who still use cheques so I'm probably one of the few who still use them.

Having said that, I can now scan lower value cheques with my phone to pay them into the bank, so the chances of using the paying-books is diminished even more.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

I use knife with my non dominant (left hand) for cutting food if I'm eating, even steak. If I'm chopping/cooking then the knife will be on my dominant hand - although that's beyond the scope of the poll. I'm assuming everyone uses their dominant hand for chopping up.

Aye - needs more options

What we need now is a knifing poll isn't it!?

I am RHanded

When used with a knife, fork = LEFT (correct) because you use your dominant hand for the more difficult bit, the cutting.
The fork stays still and holds the food being cut in place. The food is usually therefore on the end of the tines.

Fork only = usually right - used like a spork generally - when this is the usage case, the food is usually on the fork as it would be on a spoon, sat on the tines rather than skewered on the end of the tines. Unless it is something soft, like pancakes, in which case you spork it; cut it with the side of the fork and then skewer said pancake. Yummers.

I would struggle to cut up a steak with the knife in my left hand - although I am sure that one could get used to this after a few minutes of awkwardness.

Then again - does any of this matter?
Is it a class thing, probably?
I have heard colleagues talk about Americans chasing their food around the plate rather than picking up a knife. [fuck you Barbara you snotty cow]

 

[skyscraper101]

I run a small accountancy practice with a few elderly clients who still use cheques so I'm probably one of the few who still use them.

Having said that, I can now scan lower value cheques with my phone to pay them into the bank, so the chances of using the paying-books is diminished even more.

Yeah the elderly. Often much easier to get them to 'write a cheque' than explain to them how to do a bank transfer via a smartphone app.

 

[WouldBe]

Right handed. Simple meals fork in right hand, meals that require things cutting fork in left hand.

 

[strung out]

Be interested to know whether the hand the spoon is held in matches the fork hand for people.

My wife will often use a fork and spoon with for meals that don't require any significant cutting (Chinese Malaysian background, so this happens quite regularly when they're eating anything that doesn't involve chopsticks), and doesn't understand why I can't use the spoon in my right hand to eat rice with, preferring to use the fork in my left hand. Using a spoon in my right hand for anything other than basic cutting just feels absolutely wrong - forks and spoons are always in my left hand. As mentioned above, I write left handed, but throw right handed.

 

[Epona]

I'm very strongly right-handed.

If I am using 2 pieces of cutlery, I hold fork in my left and knife (or spoon, where using a spoon and fork is appropriate) in my right hand.

If I am using 1 piece of cutlery, ie. just a fork or a spoon, I hold it in my right hand.

My OH is half N American and I've never been able to get him to hold 2 items of cutlery at the same time, it's like it's genetically hardwired that he can't do that.

 

[WouldBe]

Be interested to know whether the hand the spoon is held in matches the fork hand for people.

Spoon always in right hand although if I used a spoon and fork for spag I'd hold the spoon in my left hand.

 

[seeformiles]

I was taught to use the fork in my left hand and knife in the right (I’m right-handed). However among my left-handed friends (of which I have surprisingly many), there appears to be degrees of left-handedness. One friend is left-handed for everything from cutlery, writing, playing guitar while another just writes left handed but everything else right-handed. It also depends on the food and if it even requires cutlery. If I have egg, beans and chips, I’ll use a knife and fork. However if it’s something like lasagne, I’ll just use a fork or a spoon in my right hand. Spag Bog requires fork in right hand and spoon in left. Whatever floats your boat I suppose. Mind you, the US thing of first cutting up your food and just using a fork to eat it seems weird and more than a wee bit infantile to me.

 

[moomoo]

If I'm using the knife I hold my fork in the left hand and knife in the right. If I'm not cutting something up I hold the fork in my right hand. I'm very strongly right handed.

Likewise

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I'm right handed and hold the fork in my right hand, because that's the way it feels right. Both my children do this too, which drives my husband mad as he was brought up with "knife in right hand" and insists that we're doing it wrong even though it makes NO MATERIAL DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER.

I've never, ever understood why anyone gives a shit about the rules of cutlery-holding. Surely what matters is that people are able to eat neatly and sensibly in company? If I hold my fork in my left hand, that doesn't happen. If I hold it in my right hand, it does.

The evil dinner ladies at the shit CofE primary school I went to tried to force me to use a knife and fork the 'correct' way - it didn't work as it was too ingrained and I thought they were being stupid even back then.