Generally Accepted Table Manners

Eating out is enjoyable. When you eat at an eatery, you get an opportunity to attempt new dishes. There are a few kinds of fast-food restaurants, if you are eating at a formal place, your habits or eating manners should properly match the occasion. This sells you as a mannered and a well-respected person. Wash your hands before eating Right from childhood, we were instructed that washing our hands is an essential need before placing foods in our mouth. This is generally accepted and spoken, to teach us that hygiene prevents us from sickness.

Before sitting at a table, you should remember that your hands might touch something it shouldn’t, or you might have shaken someone whose hands were unclean. Washing hands keep germs from getting into your body. More so, washing hands make you comfortable to pick food on the plate with your fingers. Some food may not necessarily demand you touching but rather no one can tell when your fingers grab a specific food on your plate, like a chicken slice.

Stay healthy. Dispose of chew gum before sitting at the table It is important that you remove chewing gum before eating; this is to help you appropriately discard them before sitting at the table. Bringing the chewing gum to the table may appear disturbing at the table and what’s worse; you might be compelled to have them stuck up under the table. This act is an unacceptable table manner.

Chewing gums may also disrupt your appreciation for the meal. Ensure you discard chewing gum somewhere around 10 minutes before supper, to set you up for that sumptuous meal. Do not talk while your mouth is full of food Most of us are guilty here yet is commonly inadmissible. Try not to talk when your mouth is full. Talking while your mouth is full may stifle you. Imagine been choked and end up coughing in front of everybody present. This will only make people lose enthusiasm for eating.

Therefore, mind your manners. Do not bite food with your mouth open Well, it’s almost like the initial submission, aside from talking while your mouth is full, you should attempt as much as you can to abstain from chewing food with your mouth open. This is to avoid spitting out food onto the table. You may unconsciously spit out food at someone close to you. You chew food with your mouth closed and talk once you are finished eating. Do not use your fingers except to eat finger foods See why it’s vital to wash your hands.

There are several restaurants that make provision for you to have your hands washed. Ensure to wash your hands properly when eating finger foods. Finger foods could include chicken fries, French fries or pizza. You may use tissues alright, but it doesn’t cover your hands totally. With foods likes banku and okra soup, or fufu and soup or other soupy foods, you are free to also use your hands. In the Ghanaian setting, well-eating fufu or banku with spoon or fork, especially in public is gruesome, since it’s a food that demands the use of your fingers.

Cutlery In The International Restaurant

At the international restaurant, I sat with a student named Maddi. She was nice and she tried her best to follow etiquette and manners. I was also trying my best to follow etiquettes however I was so hungry, I started eating some bread in a basket in our table and I hand up using the wrong knife to put the butter in the bread. Maddi laugh and told me I was using the wrong knife.

After all that, Maddi and I order salads, I didn’t know which knife to use at first because I never follow any etiquettes at a dinner table before and then I remember that utensils are used from the outside and then inside. “With numerous forks, knives, and spoons on a table someone may feel panic attack when trying to know which one to use, the only solution is to start from the outside and work your way in” (Corish, 2016). “Therefore utensils on the outside of a dinner table are the ones that use first, and the preceding course will be the pair of utensils nearby to your plate” (Corish, 2016). I order a beef sandwich and French fries while Maddi order a hamburger and fries as well. I was trying the used the cutlery to cut my sandwich but the bread was too hard so I hand up holding the bread with my hands and eat. Maddi at the other hands holding and using cutlery style, where her hands handle the cutlery at the palm of her hand, while her index finger stabilizes the top of the utensil.

Maddi also used the American style after cutting, by placing her knife at the top of the plate with the knife-edge facing the middle of the serving dish. She then swapped the fork to her leading hand and turned with the tines up, to help assigning the food to her mouth. Even though Maddi and I tried to have etiquettes and manner at the table, we were also chatting about school work, last year summer vacation and more. One thing I realized about me was that I was constantly looking at my phone and texting my friend who was nearby which I admit was rude. Maddi looked at her phone sometimes but me I was mostly on my phone looking to see whose texting.

One friend was texting me a lot and I did not stop texting her when she texted. According to the Emily Post Institute (2019), at a dinner table, everyone should keep their phone absent from the table and fixed to mute or vibrate and no one should be answered to calls and texts until everyone are finished and gone from the table. I believe the reason I used my phone so often at the dinner table, it was because Maddi and I are not friends and we were just happened to sit at the table together, so when my close friend was texting me I just text back which was not nice in my part. Next time I will make sure to give anyone at a table with me my undivided attention and make sure I silent my phone.

Reference

  1. Corish, E. (2016, June 04). What Your Cutlery Says About You. Retrieved January 31, 2019, from https://eatdrinkplay.com/what-your-cutlery-says-about-you/
  2. Emily Post Institute – Top Ten Table Manners. (2019). Retrieved January 31, 2019, from http://emilypost.com/advice/top-ten-table-manners/