Etiquette for Cutting a Steak

Modern steak knives by Towle, without the customary, not to mention helpful, serrated edges. Earlier steak knife blades were made of steel.

What Readers Ask— “When you go to dinner with a gentleman and are served a steak, who should cut it and how should the knife and fork be held in cutting the meat.” 

The man who orders the steak may carve it, but it is more usual nowadays for him to ask the waiter to carve at a side table and then pass the steak. 

Needless to say, steel knives should be at each place when steak is served and a special carving knife should be supplied if it is to be cut at the table. In carving, the knife is held in the right hand and the fork in the left. The carver grasps the knife and fork firmly, but takes eare not to let his fingers touch anything bu!t the handle. 

In cutting it on the plate, one cuts off just a morsel at a time. To cut it all up at once is, of course, childish. The knife is held in the right hand and the fork in the left. The European way is to eat with the fork always in the left hand, but it is permitted in this country to take the fork in the right hand if for convenience sake.”— Mary Marshall Duffee, the Morning Union, 1918

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