Table manners - What's important

[Suzanne]

Don’t slurp.
Don’t chew with your mouth open.
Don’t pick at your teeth with your fingernail.

[Rogar]

Being mostly vegan pretty much eliminates most high end restaurants around and I usually end up in ethnic places.

There is a Hispanic place that serves up a popular dish of fries topped with green chili and melted cheese. Some day I'm going to take a get out of vegan jail card and try it.

[jrpoole59]

So! I am not the only lefty that does this?!

[goldensmom]

Interesting perspectives on fries. I routinely eat them with a fork, primarily because they are best doused with ketchup. Using a fork and possibly knife avoids getting the finger gooey with ketchup. I suppose there are fry dippers rather than dousers, but it can still be a messy finger food.

A kindred spirit but I am a dipper.

I go to high end restaurants but they dont serve french fries.

The most highfalutin restaurant we go to is Red Lobster. I don’t like seafood but I do like their fish and chips and I eat the fries with a fork.

[JaneV2.0]

I don't enjoy high-end restaurants. The food generally has little appeal for me, the prices never, and the general snobbery--that often swirls like a miasma--grates (but I love reading their menus for laughs...). I had enough of that at sorority functions to last me a lifetime. I'm sure there are exceptions, but that's my experience.

I think it's worthwhile to learn the basics of good manners, though. You might need them some day.

[iris lilies]

I don't enjoy high-end restaurants. The food generally has little appeal for me, the prices never, and the general snobbery--that often swirls like a miasma--grates (but I love reading their menus for laughs...). I had enough of that at sorority functions to last me a lifetime. I'm sure there are exceptions, but that's my experience.

I think it's worthwhile to learn the basics of good manners, though. You might need them some day.

It depends what you mean by high end restaurants. I wonder if you actually have any, or many, given your distain?
St. Louis has an incredibly rich array of quality restaurants serving Italian and Italian inspired
new American cuisine as well as some Asian fusion high end places, plus hundreds of places where food is taken very seriously. Only a handful would I call snobby. The snobby places are last generation places, ones made famous by our parents.

The most pretentious place we have been to was a high end steak place where they maintained little cubbies in the reception area for people to park their own wine. Good god. And the prices were outrageous. Someone had given DH a gift certificate for this ridiculous place. It is an old place trying to be clubby and apparently set up for business dinners and places where old men bring their young mistresses.

For those who know St. Louis, we have never been to Tony’s the most obsequious serving situation in town.

The new great restaurants here are owned by people younger than me and they are really good at making food.

granted, I am not a good cook and so I like getting quality food outside of our kitchen.

And for the record, I love slopping ketchup onto french fries and eating them with my fingers and yes it is a messy thing indeed.

[JaneV2.0]

No, I haven't been to many. A friend of a friend is a fairly well-known chef in the PNW, and she goes to various places and reports back. I read menus, and honestly--if I can easily make a meal, I'll do that. Steak and seafood aren't appealing to me, so that lets out a lot of places, and I'm not willing to spend $25 on a salad.

I remember one place we went to--Indigine, in Portland--that was a very well reviewed restaurant that served Indian food once a week. First off, we were personae non grata because we didn't order wine; there must have been 10 courses, and I was ready to pass out from the effects of a long day and all the food, and they refused to serve me coffee (maybe I should have asked for caffeinated Cabernet...). At any rate, I'm sure there are places where the experience and/or the food are worth the outlay.

[catherine]

I'm not a foodie by a long shot, but my DH is. There isn't a food blogger he doesn't know about, nor a food network show he hasn't seen. Next to the Bible on our living room bookshelf is a 40 year old copy of La Technique by Jacques Pepin--and woe to me if I ever donated it to the library. So I have definitely accompanied him to nice restaurants. And I've been to many in the course of my work with clients. I have no disdain for them. Good food preparation is an art and a difficult-but-worthy skill, and a good dining experience is purely subjective, but not exclusive to either small family restaurants or 5-star Michelin restaurants.

So knowing good manners cross-trains you for any dining experience you may be obligated to have or choose to have.

Re the fries. I'm a dipper. I hate soggy starches.

[iris lilies]

Steak and seafood are the least interesting things to me on a menu. With our family raised beef, if we cook it carefully, we can equal or beat 90% of quality restaurants for beef.

I want to eat what the chef specializes in.

[profnot]

So knowing good manners cross-trains you for any dining experience you may be obligated to have or choose to have.

VERY well stated!

I will quote you when I speak with my students.

Thanks!