"ChattyCathy" <cathy1234@mailinator.com> wrote in message
news:Vjmti.258$9W6.154@fe103.usenetserver.com...
> Julia Altshuler wrote:
>>
>>
>> I'm curious about how we learn these things. I don't recall my parents
>> ever showing me how a knife and fork were used specifically. They'd
>> correct me at the table if I did anything overtly disgusting, but they
>> were lax about specifics. I do remember a time in elementary school when
>> I was eating with a friend. I was holding my fork in my left fist and
>> having trouble managing the meat. My friend's mother showed me how to
>> hold the fork correctly. Other than that, I think I learned everything
>> from observation. Now it's so ingrained that I'd have trouble using
>> another method.
>>
>
> I think we just "do what our parents do" without really thinking about it,
> and that's what we get used to. Even though my Mom is "left handed" in
> every other aspect, she still uses her knife and fork the way most
> right-handed people do to cut up her food. I suppose her parents did it
> that way, so she did it too. She says she can't cut her food properly if
> she holds the knife in her left hand and the fork in the right And she
> doesn't "switch" to eat her food once its cut up either...
> --
> Cheers
> Chatty Cathy
>
> Garlic: the element without which life as we know it would be impossible
>

my family's always been the fork in left hand, knife in right, no switching
(I'm born and raised in Australia, European parents), which I continue

we always got corrected when we were kids :)

setting the table, fork on left, knife on right, spoon to the right of the
knife, napkin usually under the knife, no bread plates (you just don't see
those in the Italian households I've been part of)

cheers
MG