Knife and fork vs. eating with your hands

Regarding use of knife and fork, do you switch hands or not when you use the knife to cut up something? I am a hand-switcher. I grew up using my dominant hand (left) for the fork, but switch hands when cutting up food (right hand has the fork to hold the food; left hand has the knife).

Apparently switching hands is an American thing. My English friends do not switch hands. This issue came up with the Monty Python team. The Pythons were filming on location in Torquay and stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel. The hotel's rude and acerbic owner was the inspiration for Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers. Among the rude things the owner did was to criticize and mock Terry Gilliam (the American Python) for switching hands when using knife and fork.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I also am a switcher. Pick up fork with left hand, use knife with right hand, cut, put knife down, move fork from left to right, eat.

It's inefficient. I've tried to learn to shovel things on the back of a fork like the British do, but I can't learn it. And I'm a fast eater so it's probably best that I do the slow thing anyway.

Restaurants refusing to follow a patron's wishes is a tough one. I can see both sides of that - on one side patron is paying and wants what they want, but on the other side, a fine dining restaurant does food the way they think it should be done and declining to alter it to order is understandable. I once saw a diner ask for ketchup in a French restaurant and they were refused although the maitre d' did offer to bring them some other course - they wanted to dump the Heinz on seared foie gras.....

That's in an old "I Love Lucy" episode! She orders snails and then wants ketchup to cover them up.

I am not a switcher. I've learned enough dexterity with my left hand to get food to my mouth three out of four times.

I am a 'when in Rome' guy. If the chef said it's good like this, well, after all, I'm paying for his opinion....

I'll eat with my hands anytime I can. Part of that comes from a lifetime of kitchen work and the necessity to eat quickly. Part of it comes from coming home, being wiped out, and eating because of need, not want. And another part is simply an IDGAF attitude.

[Jenise]

I'm a big fan of anything hot and oozy that can be slathered on a crispy chunk of bread, hopefully pulled away from a larger loaf, like a French miraton. Put that with the right bottle of wine, and the right partner....oh damn, I miss Bob so much!

Growing up, I heard the story, most likely aprocryphal, that US soldiers in WW2 who were trained to infiltrate enemy lines had to be trained not to switch hands when eating as it was a sure giveaway that they were Yanks.

One of the oddest restaurant practices I have seen was a woman who ate a cob of corn with a knife and fork - very laborious!

[Jenise]

Bill, I can't even imagine how that's possible.