The other day in company with my mahjong friends, the conversation turned to picking up a bone off your plate and nibbling at it to chew the last meaty bits off, or slurping out out the marrow as quietly as possible. We’re a pretty international lot, and in addition to my Aussie self, we include a Costa Rican, a couple of Argentinians, a couple of Americans, and English woman who was born in Bolivia, and a couple of South Africans, one of whom grew up in Lebanon. Overall, as in most groups I’ve ever been part of, our Everyday and Best Behaviour manners have a lot in common, and I can’t think of any deficiencies worth commenting on – but then, being a laid back Aussie, I might be perceived to be a bit behind.
But, to take the bone conversation further (and I have no recollection of how we got to that point) it turned out there were varying degrees of what people had been taught were serious faux pas. The meat on the bone thing ranged from someone saying they never do. (surely she was fibbing – I mean, not even in the privacy of her own kitchen, really? 😮 Someone said she only gnaws the bones of those delicious little choppies of the rack de cordero (french rack) from a particular local restaurant. Someone else only chews bones at home, and another gave an almost frenzied demo with elbows raised, bone in both hands, lips curled back and barred teeth chomping rapidly. My contribution was that my mother insisted that ‘If you really must chew your bone, it should be held with one hand only.’ Someone said that was what she’d been taught, too, and a couple responded to that with slightly raised eyebrows! So, it all depends where you come from.
On the weekend we had lunch in a local restaurant and at a nearby table was a couple who were speaking in portuguese, meaning they were most likely Brasilian. I came across one wonderful set of images of various hand holds . Clearly certain styles predominate on each continent, but there was actually a photo labelled ‘how to eat like a Brasilian’ and that handhold was exactly what our neighbours were using.
Table manners have always been important, but in our less formal lives with different meal styles, some have changed and others disappeared. Add to that the fact that people move around the world much more, and faster these days, taking their manners with them – noticing and maybe adopting something along the way.
Mum was pretty pedantic, a bit of a snob really, and now that I think of it, she did most of her travelling in those parts of the world where English etiquette prevails – or Asia, where of course it’s chopsticks all the way. I don’t recall whether she was competent with them, or not – but wherever she would have travelled, it would have been right on the beaten track of course, and she’d have been offered a fork, as most non-Asians are if they can’t manage chopsticks. (I always accept gratefully) I certainly recall that in the matter of table behaviour, she was not at all tolerant of anything beyond the British way of holding your table irons.
To me, it has always been that the really important good manners are mostly about consideration for one’s fellow diners. Eating with your mouth closed, not waving your arms while holding cutlery, elbows off the table, slurping soup, and far far more. I can feel a post coming on about my favourite/worst dining table peeves.
If this topic interests you, I came across a wonderful blog on manners and social behaviour that covers an enormous range of issues particularly aimed at people who want to ‘get on’ on a personal level in business – but so much of it applies to us all. Mike and I try to give the young heathens in the family regular doses of this approach – which is one of the underlying tenets of this blog, of course – but as we don’t live anywhere close to either of them, at times it seems as effective as King Canute’s stand against the tide. Still, as time goes on, as with all parenting and grandparenting, we have sometimes been gobsmacked by one of the offsprings uttering something showing that something stuck between entering one ear and coming out the other. We live in hope.