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I'm from Munich. "Table manners" are a bigger deal when bringen children up in Germany, I think, to the point where it's hard at first to put them aside (even t

by anyfoo 7y ago

I'm from Munich. "Table manners" are a bigger deal when bringen children up in Germany, I think, to the point where it's hard at first to put them aside (even though they are just a local custom, in the end). When I moved to the US, I was a bit confused at first that people did not follow the same table manners even when they were using fork and knife. Sometimes they cut food first and then only used the fork. Often they would leave the other arm below the table, which I have been taught not to. It is perfectly normal to not to finish your plate in the US. I've got over it, and do the local way now. I do not notice whether I or someone else leave their arm hanging. I especially enjoy the ability to not finish my plate and take leftovers home instead (which is possible in Germany, but the instinct of finishing, sometimes forcibly, your plate made it less common). Customs are just customs.

cmrdporcupine 7y ago
I should have mentioned, my father is German (from Mainz originally) and table manners were ... important ... around our dinner table. The experience at the Ethiopian restaurant certainly wasn't my first experience with the differences in German attitudes about dining. Eating with my father or my Oma and Opa was quite markedly different from eating with my Canadian farmer grandfather :-) But leaving food on the plate wasn't acceptable in my house not because my father was German, but from my mother, too, because they grew up (or parents grew up) in a time when there often wasn't enough to go around and wasting food was a ridiculous and rude indulgence. About the knife and fork thing, I believe that might partially be the difference between continental and Anglo-American style of handling the fork. [1] [1] https://theetiquetteconsultant.com/blog/2018/1/26/styles-of-eating-american-continental-european-british-which-is-correct https://theetiquetteconsultant.com/blog/2018/1/26/styles-of-...

by anyfoo 7y ago

cmrdporcupine 7y ago

I should have mentioned, my father is German (from Mainz originally) and table manners were ... important ... around our dinner table. The experience at the Ethiopian restaurant certainly wasn't my first experience with the differences in German attitudes about dining. Eating with my father or my Oma and Opa was quite markedly different from eating with my Canadian farmer grandfather :-) But leaving food on the plate wasn't acceptable in my house not because my father was German, but from my mother, too, because they grew up (or parents grew up) in a time when there often wasn't enough to go around and wasting food was a ridiculous and rude indulgence. About the knife and fork thing, I believe that might partially be the difference between continental and Anglo-American style of handling the fork. [1] [1] https://theetiquetteconsultant.com/blog/2018/1/26/styles-of-eating-american-continental-european-british-which-is-correct https://theetiquetteconsultant.com/blog/2018/1/26/styles-of-...