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Style of Eating: American • There's no need to apologize for the way you eat unless you don't know how to manipulate your knife and fork with assurance. • It's difficult to close a deal if you don't know where to place your knife and fork when you're finished eating, or if you're worried about which utensil to use. • There are two styles of eating: American, which we will focus on, and Continental Style. • In American style, we use our knives only for cutting, and then they're placed them on the side of the plate with the blade placed towards the center. • Then, we switch our forks to our right hand and bring the fork to our mouths with the fork's tines up. • Americans and Canadians are the only people in the world who use this method, commonly known as the zigzag method. It makes easy targets when we traveling abroad! • When we're resting in between bites and when we finish this style of dining, we place both knives and forks on the right side of the plate in the 4 o'clock or 12:20 position. Knife on top, fork below, blade inside.
• This alerts the wait staff to clear your plate. Remember, they work for you, and this is your way of telling them, non-verbally, that you’re finished. • When you finish a course, whatever utensil was meant for that course - whether you used them or not - go on the plate in the finished position. If you don’t put it on the plate, the wait staff will. • What's important to remember is whichever style you choose is to be consistent for the duration of the meal. Don't switch back and forth between the two styles. What you begin with, you must end with. Remember balance.
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Lisa M. Grotts |
