kaitlynjeong Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:47 amJust when you thought your life was complicated, a little something known as dining etiquette came and slapped an “er” on the end, making your life a whole lot complicated-er. Between tests, quizzes, labs, and extra-curricular activities, we as high school students barely have time to eat, let alone worry about how to correctly shake out, or rather, unfold, our napkins. Sure, refraining from talking while chewing food is considered a part of dining etiquette, but there is a fine line between common courtesy and etiquette to the extreme. The question is: why should we try to complicate our already hectic lives with the do’s and don’ts of dining etiquette when we already have so much on our plates (figuratively speaking)?
Take the napkin for instance. It seems simple enough, but after looking at the list of napkin no-no’s, suddenly it changes from your cloth buddy used to keep your face clean and nose dry to a stainable demon whose sole purpose is to bring stress into your life. A napkin is not to be shaken out, but “placed gently on the lap” and is to remain there until the end of the meal; wiping the face, nose, or cutlery with it is strictly prohibited. If I may ask, Miss Manners, what exactly are napkins for? What’s that? Decoration, you say? Okay. Whoops.
There’s a saying I once heard: “Happiness is not a destination but the journey itself.” With dining etiquette, that is definitely not the case. It is customary to scoop food away from you rather than towards you. I don’t know about you, but I’m always happier when the food is going towards my mouth, not away from it and when the journey between food to mouth and mouth to stomach are relatively short.
Not only is the process of getting food into the mouth long, but the process of getting the food onto the fork/spoon (depending on the size of the food, its flavoring, the size of the fork tines, etc.) is also slow as well. Fun and fast “finger-foods” such as French fries and bacon with fat are forced to be eaten using forks and knives. Crisp bacon, however, may be crumbled into pieces using a fork and only then may be eaten with your fingers. Right, because eating crumbs with your fingers is a ton easier than eating a whole strip of bacon. You, know I can be so dense sometimes.
So dense, in fact, that I would probably need a song to remember all of the different types of utensils used (or not used, in my case) in a single dinner, though singing probably violates another dining rule. It would be something to the effect that “Your salad fork sits on your ve-ry left, the salad fork is followed by your din-ner fork, your soup spoon is found on your far right, the soup spoon is followed by your bev’-rage (beverage) spoon…and the most important part is your dessert fork!” For best results, it should be put to the tune “Your Hip Bone’s Connected to Your Leg Bone” or whatever that song is called. You’ll still need to study up on place settings to fully understand the song, though, but honestly, who has time to study more? Maybe you should just stick with the song.
The fact of the matter is we really don’t have to make our lives any more difficult than they already are. People aren’t going to care whether or not you placed an entire sushi roll in your mouth because “it’s meant to be eaten whole;” they’ll care more about who you are as a person and whether or not you’re eating your French fries right. Believe me. Oh, and by the way, I was just kidding about the real question being “why do we need to complicate our lives with dining etiquette?” The actual questions are “who came up with dining etiquette and where does he/she live so that we can set their houses and precious cloth napkins on fire?”
Take the napkin for instance. It seems simple enough, but after looking at the list of napkin no-no’s, suddenly it changes from your cloth buddy used to keep your face clean and nose dry to a stainable demon whose sole purpose is to bring stress into your life. A napkin is not to be shaken out, but “placed gently on the lap” and is to remain there until the end of the meal; wiping the face, nose, or cutlery with it is strictly prohibited. If I may ask, Miss Manners, what exactly are napkins for? What’s that? Decoration, you say? Okay. Whoops.
There’s a saying I once heard: “Happiness is not a destination but the journey itself.” With dining etiquette, that is definitely not the case. It is customary to scoop food away from you rather than towards you. I don’t know about you, but I’m always happier when the food is going towards my mouth, not away from it and when the journey between food to mouth and mouth to stomach are relatively short.
Not only is the process of getting food into the mouth long, but the process of getting the food onto the fork/spoon (depending on the size of the food, its flavoring, the size of the fork tines, etc.) is also slow as well. Fun and fast “finger-foods” such as French fries and bacon with fat are forced to be eaten using forks and knives. Crisp bacon, however, may be crumbled into pieces using a fork and only then may be eaten with your fingers. Right, because eating crumbs with your fingers is a ton easier than eating a whole strip of bacon. You, know I can be so dense sometimes.
So dense, in fact, that I would probably need a song to remember all of the different types of utensils used (or not used, in my case) in a single dinner, though singing probably violates another dining rule. It would be something to the effect that “Your salad fork sits on your ve-ry left, the salad fork is followed by your din-ner fork, your soup spoon is found on your far right, the soup spoon is followed by your bev’-rage (beverage) spoon…and the most important part is your dessert fork!” For best results, it should be put to the tune “Your Hip Bone’s Connected to Your Leg Bone” or whatever that song is called. You’ll still need to study up on place settings to fully understand the song, though, but honestly, who has time to study more? Maybe you should just stick with the song.
The fact of the matter is we really don’t have to make our lives any more difficult than they already are. People aren’t going to care whether or not you placed an entire sushi roll in your mouth because “it’s meant to be eaten whole;” they’ll care more about who you are as a person and whether or not you’re eating your French fries right. Believe me. Oh, and by the way, I was just kidding about the real question being “why do we need to complicate our lives with dining etiquette?” The actual questions are “who came up with dining etiquette and where does he/she live so that we can set their houses and precious cloth napkins on fire?”
