Nice People Thread Part 9 - and so it continues

lostinrates

vivatifosi wrote: »

I'm currently reading The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England having previously read Tim Moore's Continental Drifter. Both of which conveniently discuss the use of forks. In Elizabethan England, it was considered foppish to use a fork, though people were starting to return from early grand tours with such implements. Thomas Coryate, who Moore wrote about, was acknowledged as bringing the fork to England.

In terms of how important it is to eat correctly, I recall reading (IIRC Asne Seierstad's With their Backs to the World) how Serbians were affronted with our involvement in Kosovo, stating "they were eating with their hands while we were eating with knives and forks" (paraphrased).

One of the things that always amuses me about people saying no class system in America is that they obvious haven't eaten at a very formal function there. The layers of intense snobbery over 'how its done' are pretty unbelievable and in a way that's very different to the uk way, where it isn't done to worry quite so about how its done.:rotfl:

I just always feel.....its a very much smaller world than it was when I was wee. We just need to relax and do our best not to cause or take offence. I am slightly misphonic and I cope, so I'm pretty sure those who are just uptight can. I always think a happy, noisy table is best as it covers a lot of ills, And if no natural noise of rabble, then music helps. Gives something else to think about.

There is always something one could be intolerant about of one wanted to be, and always a way to get over it.

Spirit_2

PasturesNew wrote: »

Well, yes, but it's nice to know you're eating something right or not....

I mean ... you make those cold soups ... you don't serve them in a wine glass through ignorance

I have served Rasberry Soup in wine glasses.

Spirit_2

PasturesNew wrote: »

But you didn't ask for white sliced bread and ketchup and make it into sandwiches .... through never having seen it before.

In a very smart restaurant in Paris, the chef came out of the kitchen to show us plebs how the salad should be eaten.

He broke the yolk of the poached egg and dressed the salad leaves with it.

It was the 90's, warm salads were novel, we were nonetheless a tad amused.

When we have black pudding salad we often have a poached egg on it, and it makes us smile. A bit like NDG's tale but without the naughtieness.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

Never heard of that. I thought there was only one cold soup, gazpacho (?sp), which I would expect to be green (no idea why, never seen it .... but it sounds green).

It's red.

At my boarding school, we were trained in careful manners. Which glasses for which type of wines and spirits, water glasses, different cutlery, never demanding something is passed to you, but offering someone the salt so that they will then pass it to you, using the soup spoon away from you, all that sort of [STRIKE]nonsense[/STRIKE] useful knowledge.

The key really, I think, is to remember that you use the least useful and hardest way to eat something, so you need to balance peas on your fork carefully, instead of just eating the damn things.

neverdespairgirl

vivatifosi wrote: »

I'm currently reading The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England having previously read Tim Moore's Continental Drifter. Both of which conveniently discuss the use of forks. In Elizabethan England, it was considered foppish to use a fork, though people were starting to return from early grand tours with such implements. Thomas Coryate, who Moore wrote about, was acknowledged as bringing the fork to England.

It's a very interesting book - so is the earlier, medieval one, which I really enjoyed.

lostinrates wrote: »

The layers of intense snobbery over 'how its done' are pretty unbelievable and in a way that's very different to the uk way, where it isn't done to worry quite so about how its done.:rotfl:

Absolutely - the secret is to know exactly how to do it, and then carelessly break a rule or two, rather than be their slave.

lostinrates

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

It's red.

At my boarding school, we were trained in careful manners. Which glasses for which type of wines and spirits, water glasses, different cutlery, never demanding something is passed to you, but offering someone the salt so that they will then pass it to you, using the soup spoon away from you, all that sort of [STRIKE]nonsense[/STRIKE] useful knowledge.

The key really, I think, is to remember that you use the least useful and hardest way to eat something, so you need to balance peas on your fork carefully, instead of just eating the damn things.

Yeah, us too. The worst was eating fruit at school. No one east fruit like that in real life. No one. Its brough to the table prepared or you eat it as my nuns would have wailed 'like monkeys'

neverdespairgirl

lostinrates wrote: »

Yeah, us too. The worst was eating fruit at school. No one east fruit like that in real life. No one. Its brough to the table prepared or you eat it as my nuns would have wailed 'like monkeys'

No nuns at my boarding school, but you could only eat fruit in an unusual way, which involved far more grief and no benefit. The whole point of a banana, surely, is that you peel-and-eat, rather than faffing about with a fruit knife cutting it into chunks.

The only time I've ever seen someone cut apples or bananas etc up into smaller pieces has been when the would-be eater of the aforementioned fruit it too young to hold it / eat it unless it's cut up for him first.

PasturesNew

Spirit wrote: »

When we have black pudding salad we often have a poached egg on it, and it makes us smile.

Sounds disgusting... I'd never eat black pudding. EWWWW.

lostinrates

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

The only time I've ever seen someone cut apples or bananas etc up into smaller pieces has been when the would-be eater of the aforementioned fruit it too young to hold it / eat it unless it's cut up for him first.

I actually love my fruit prepared:o.

DH often does me a 'fruit plate' for breakfast or a meal when I'm not eating what I've cooked. Its quite a loving act, that small consideration.:o

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

They still are in PN-land. I'd not want some oik to break my egg.... and spread it on the pointless green stuff.

Not sure what a warm salad is .... will have to google.


Sounds disgusting... I'd never eat black pudding. EWWWW.

I live black pudding.

ATM the only things I really crave are courgettes, pesto, and raw beef or bloody meat. Short of turning into a vampire I'm not sure I'm ready to start drinking blood to satisfy a craving, but I have upped my iron tablet a little instead of smiling winning ly at the butcher for a strange waste product and lots of very fresh steak.