Knife and Fork Question

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I eat the other way round with my knife and fork, but not my spoon. It makes sense to bring the food to your mouth with the right hand if you are mostly right handed rather than switching, thats just confusing and illogical.

My dad teases me because I hold my fork the wrong way. Plus I'll cut the food one way, then I'll switch the fork to my other hand to eat.

For reference.
Where I live it's 'European silverware style': For the whole meal, knife stays in the right hand, fork is used with the left hand.

I was horrible at learning. Although I had above average fine motor skills.
I could use spoons just fine, but I'd get stuck with using my left hand to hold the fork. I wanted to use my left hand to hold the knife!

I didn't learn to eat with knife and fork at the same time until I was in my teens. I couldn't manage to use my right hand to use the knife or eat from my fork with my left. Sometime during elementary school I started to cut the food before I'd start eating, then forget about the existence of a knife for the remaining meal.

I still use my right hand for using the fork. When I need the knife, I just change the fork midway. Take the knife into my right hand. And then change back to leave the knife lying untouched after it.

Last edited by Sora on 28 Mar 2008, 4:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

everone eats with nice left and fork right , well i swap because i am righthanded so i use my knife right

I usually eat with knife and fork held "American" style (although left handed.) If I am seated next to a right-handed person, I will switch over to "European" style, as it keeps us from bumping elbows so often.

When in Eruope in the 60s, I had a couple of occassions to eat with a Belgian family. They always sat me between the two teen-age boys, one of whom was right-handed and the other of whom was left-handed. One of them ate "American" and the other ate "European" style. It didn't matter which style I chose, I was in the way.

Pops

I struggled with it when I was younger.....It was not noticed much unless I was at a neighbor's house for dinner...or not around my parents...I was 7 or 8 and struggling like crazy with my knife and fork...and my neighbors..(who had me over alot, but did not like me very much) were very irritated by it...I said I was having trouble because I was left-handed...and they told me that in Europe, everyone used a fork with their left hand. To this day, I am a messy eater and my knife and fork are all over the place and I wind up with lots of food all over the table (like a baby)....and on the chair...(because I often sit indian style)...and on my shirt....and so on.
Alot of foods I like the best are those I eat with my hands...

I enjoy using chopsticks though. I am good at those...in my early teens I carried a pair of plastic chopsticks in my purse for a while with the intent of exclusively eating with chopsticks...my theory being that the chopsticks forced me to eat more slowly rather than just shovelling the food into my mouth (i was trying to work on not-overeating...as it had been a problem with me as a kid)

I don't know which way I use the knife.. Humm.. But I know when it come to cutting things like apples or something I have my set loud way of doing it and I can't use any other method. It pisses off my step-dad. He thinks I'll cut myself and he doesn't like the noise. Now that I think of it I might be a knife right switch fork right. I don't trust my left hand.

I love how I'm suddenly allowed to eat with my fingers as an adult. I always got punished for even suggesting the very idea as a child. I only do in private or with friends though. If I were to do it in front of the family, at lunch or dinner, they'd have my head for sure.

Not so much problems with cutlery, but my brother (AS) has always had problems with basics like pouring a drink or opening sauce bottles. It used to infuriate my parents, but he wasn't doing it on purpose, they just couldn't accept that he could be so smart and good at sports, but struggle at the basics.

I grew up in Belgium and I never did comprehend once I was in America why people couldn't eat right. European style is in my opinion the most efficient way to using fork and knife.

I started eating often with a fork at my parents' urging when I was 7 or 8, and do fine now but still make a little mess when I eat. (I was okay when I was small too, just a bit clumsier, but I didn't like the taste of metal or plastic when I was eating.) Knives are a pain because I can't hold down meat with a fork, but there are lots of ways to get around that. I usually have someone else cut for me, or hold with my fingers while I cut, or eat things that don't require cutting.

I didn't think it was an autistic thing, because a lot of NT people also have trouble with this. I'm the only one in my family, but I'm also the least socially self-conscious and so had less need to learn to be good at it.

Now that I'm an adult, my parents only rarely scold me about that, usually just if we're out and they think I've forgotten. I think they wanted to be sure that I knew how and could be well-mannered if I had to be, and that's why they said so strongly that I must eat with a fork when I was a child. Maybe it's the same for your parents, and they won't be bad about it now.

Me too. If I'm on my own I'll eat mashed potatoes with my fingers.

LOL! I am 27 and I STILL grasp the fork by my entire hand, wrapped around it as a 3 year old does with a crayon (best description I can think of. I'm not good at getting the knife in between the thingies on the fork, so I just stab things and saw them apart. Sometimes I'll just stab whatever it is and pick it up whole to take bites.

I always find it humorous that my children need me to cut their meat and such, because they would probably do a better job than I do XD I've sent chunks of meat flying across the table in a restaurant on more than one occasion.

I don't have any major silverware impairments, but I have been known to 'miss'.

Yea when I was young I had trouble cutting up my pancakes. My mom would always do it for me.

When I was young, I would try to hold the fork with the right and cut with the knife in my left hand. This was very difficult, and I would usually just end up holding the food with my hand while cutting.

For most meals, if using silverware, I use only a spoon. I hate most meat, so I am not usually in a situation to use the knife and fork.

Now, when eating a type of food that does need to be cut using both the knife and fork, I will cut up the entire course into bite-size pieces before eating the first bite(with the fork in my left hand and the knife in my right), and then put the knife down for the rest of the meal and eat with my fork.

I tear up pancakes with my hands. It takes much less time.

Last edited by matt on 29 Mar 2008, 4:54 am, edited 1 time in total.