Properly Holding a Knife and Fork

It’s not just forks which are regularly held improperly — Above - The improper way to hold a knife: The handles of both the fork and the knife should be hidden in the palm of the hands. The fork handle is in the correct spot in the palm of the hand, but the knife handle is incorrectly sticking out between the index finger and the thumb.

Q. - How should one hold the fork to cut meat so as to avoid that "banjo grip?" I've read a number of etiquette books but don't play a banjo, so don't quite get the point. - Yvette

Properly holding one’s utensils can help one appear much more elegant when dining, especially in public. When we are out with others, we want to “dine,” not merely “eat.”Above — The proper way to hold both one’s knife and one’s fork in one’s hands when dining.

A. The fork should be held near the top of the handle with the prongs downward. The index finger is placed on the shank so that it points to the tines (or prongs) and is supported at the side of the thumb. The other fingers close underneath and hold the handle tight. 

As for the "banjo grip," some folks call it "immigrant fashion." It is clutching the fork perpendicularly in the clenched fist, while sawing across the food at its base with the knife. — From “The Log of Life” column in the San PedroNews Pilot, 1943

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Bad Table Manners Are a Give-Away

Gretchen whacks and stabs at roast, potatoes and vegetables, reducing all to mince-meat before she eats. She brandishes elbows in mid-air, holds her fork awkwardly, and spreads her napkin like a blanket on her lap.

                                                

Gretchen thinks she's passing herself off as a person of culture. But her table manners are a dead give-away. She whacks and stabs at roast, potatoes and vegetables, reducing all to mince-meat before she eats. She brandishes elbows in mid-air, holds her fork awkwardly, and spreads her napkin like a blanket on her lap.

Well-bred diners cut off only one piece at a time and keep elbows lowered inconspicuously while cutting. They hold the fork easily with forefinger extended along the handle. And they lay the napkin across the lap in a double or triple-fold unless it's a tea napkin. Learn little points of etiquette that make you welcome at smart places. – Santa Ana Journal, 1936

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

A 1916 Lesson in Table Manners

Left to Right : Correct way to hold the soup spoon, How to hold the knife and fork for cutting food, Position of fork when carrying food to the mouth, Holding the cup — the spoon in the proper place

A Requested Lesson in Table Manners

Every newspaper editor often finds this kind of a query in the mail; 

Dear Editor—My early training in etiquette was much neglected. Now I have made a fortune, travel considerably and am often embarrassed by my ignorance about table manners. Will you aid me? — Signed “WORRIED”

 Table manners are, of course, for the home table all of the year around, but it is at the holiday season when dinner engagements are most numerous, that a great many persons require a little extra preparedness.

The experienced hostess will see that forks and spoons are placed in the order in which they are to be used. If the dinner is of many courses, the appropriate silver is laid with each course. Soup should be dipped away, never toward the individual. If clear soup is served in cups, a small round bowled spoon is used, or the boullllon may be sipped from the cup. 

The knife should never be held in the left hand, but the fork may be transferred to the right hand. The English way of keeping the fork in the left hand is the present fashion among very fastidious society folk. At the end of the course the knife and fork should be placed side by side with the tips in the middle of the plate and the handles resting on its edge. — By Biddy Bye, 1916

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia