Table manners are a contentious subject, especially where cutlery is concerned.
The ‘proper’ way to eat with a knife and fork is to have your fork in your left hand, your knife in in your right with your index finger along the top for pressure and control.
In Europe you would typically have the fork prongs facing down, while in America they tend to have the prongs face-up, shovel-style.
Traditionally, you aren’t supposed to switch your fork over to the right either.
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But, let’s face it, good table manners and good cutlery use aren’t necessarily one and the same. If you aren’t chewing with your mouth open, talking through your food, or trying to eat soup with your hands, by and large you won’t be making many enemies at the dinner table.
Still, having basic control of your cutlery is hardly a major challenge. If you’ve got thumbs and fingers and you’re in good health, it really isn’t rocket science.
Unfortunately for one American woman on TikTok, it might as well be rocket science.
Amy Gordy, posting on her @amygordy1 TikTok account, has gone viral with a clip of her attempting to eat the ‘European way’ – in other words, using a knife and fork as described above.
Whilst narrating her intense difficulty with it, she just about manages to use a knife and fork like a grown adult while a male voice from off-camera airs his bafflement at the surgery being performed before him.
Amy struggles to control her urge to put her knife down and switch her fork over to her right hand, and she also seems pained by holding her knife and fork in the conventional fashion.
And of course, this being the internet, Amy’s lacking cutlery nous was soon pilloried by the table-mannered masses.
“Americans are so primitive for world leaders!!!” said one X comment. “Hold your knife in your right hand! It’s your dinner sword. Watching Americans eat is worse than nails down a blackboard.”
“This has spun me out, I’ve never thought about how I use cutlery,” said another who, presumably, is also a stranger to wielding the most basic of implements.
Two million views later, and the comments keep coming. Some have noted their own confusion at the off-camera voice describing Amy talking to him whilst holding both utensils as ‘rude’.
“Him saying you’re doing it wrong and that it’s rude to hold your cutlery when speaking,” noted one disbelieving comment.
“Am I missing something??!?” asked another. “Eating properly is rude in America??”
“… Dude sounds like a piece of work,” another suggested re the disembodied male voice. “People talk with utensils in their hands all the time, it’s never been rude.”
“It’s not the ‘European Way,’ it’s THE CORRECT WAY,” frothed another.
Another chimed: “I’m confused, so how do Americans use cutlery?”
The Atlantic has scarcely seemed wider.
Featured Image Credit: JGI/Jamie Grill/Getty ImagesTopics: US Food, Social Media, TikTok
Rachael Davis