🚀 go-pugleaf

In message 
<a9a2c1c8-24e8-4bf1-a423-87b163716bb3@hc4g2000pbb.googlegroups.com>, 
fabzorba <myles.abzorba@gmail.com> writes
>WIWAL, I was taught to eat my dinner with a knife and fork used
>together, and with the fork having tines pointing down all the time.
>This was quite an art to master, especially with small items hard to
>pierce, like peas. When I was a child and could get away with it, I
>would often turn the fork tines up so I could use it as a scoop, which
>surely makes sense. I must admit that I do this sometimes when I am
>eating alone, but never in company.
>
>I rem seeing a British academic eating a meal with undergraduates many
>years ago, and the way he handled those pesky peas was wonderful - he
>would glue a few of them on his tines-down fork using some mashed
>potato. Now, this etiquette seems to have largely gone. But I was
>still surprised when I viewed an episode of Hannibal, the new American
>series which has Mads Mikkelsen as the erudite gourmand psychiatrist
>Hannibal Lecter, who happens to have being a serial killer as a side
>line. In this episode, Hannibal once again prepares a sumptuous
>European style feast. I noticed that his guests ate like typical
>Americans, shoveling food into open mouths, and using eating utensils
>as devices to point and make gestures with.
>
>But then I saw Hannibal use the fork tines up! I was totally gob-
>smacked! Surely this cannot be? Or am I getting something wrong?

Being brung up proper, I was taught that unless it was a last resort, 
when eating with a knife and fork, you should to keep the tines down.

However, some 50 years ago, I was at a semi-formal dinner where the 
attendees were university engineering staff and their students. The guy 
I was seated next to was one of the lecturers, and I was surprised when 
he specifically asked the waiter if he could have an extra desert spoon. 
I tactfully asked him why, and he replied that, as there were peas on 
the menu, any engineer with any common sense would use a spoon to eat 
them. I can't say I disagree with him.
-- 
Ian