The cutlery conundrum

Eating with our hands is second nature to us Indians, at least at home. But what do we do when we go out? While it’s silly to think of eating noodles with our hands, what about fast foods like pizzas, burgers, or Indian cuisine at fine dining restaurants and parties?

Does one have to use a fork and knife while eating pizza? Can’t we just pick up a slice with our hand without worrying about looking like a country bumpkin?

Luckily, with pizza, most of the world seems to vote for the hand. Early this year, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was condemned by his vote bank for committing a huge sin: eating a New York pizza with a fork and knife! The fallout was so bad that his office had to go into damage control mode because every sane person in New York — and mostly everywhere else — eats pizza with their hands.

Etiquette experts back home too share the same view. Etiquette expert Scheherazade Javeri says it is easier to eat a slice with your hands because using a fork and knife can be a messy affair. “Toppings tend to fall off and even the cheese can tumble while you are trying to cut a piece.” No wonder all the stars at this year’s Oscars decided to just grab a slice of pizza and eat it with their hands though the occasion was a formal one.

The actors got away with this because their host for the night, Ellen DeGeneres decided to bring in an air of informality by ordering take-away. Otherwise in a formal setting, you are expected to use cutlery says grooming and etiquette expert Rukshana Eisa.

Pizza is an easy food to eat, but what about the more complicated ones like Sushi or de-shelling sea-food? When a journalist, who didn’t know how to use chopsticks went to interview Ajit Gulabchand, the chairman and MD of Hindustan Construction Company, over lunch at Wasabi, the high-end Japanese restaurant at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, the industrialist didn’t approve of him reaching out for the fork. The journalist later wrote, “A good tangri kebab, he says, ought to be eaten with the hands, and Japanese noodles with chopsticks. “Too painstaking,” I shake my head. Easy, he says. “Take a bowl of peas, empty it with chopsticks and put it all back. And then you will have mastered chopsticks for life.”

Now, you can’t waste your time mastering the art of eating with chopsticks in the middle of an interview, but you can certainly practice at home.

Rukshana says, “The Net will inform you about all the nitty-gritties that you need to know. After reading up, practice at home.” Don’t worry if you are a slow learner, instead of making a mess with chop-sticks, you rather stick to the fork and knife. Ditto with prawns and lobsters, if you can’t de-shell them, just tell the waiter that you would like them de-shelled when placing the order for your meal.

If you didn’t get time to read up on the Net and now are starting to feel intimidated or foolish, stop worrying and subtly look at your host. Rukshana says, “In formal setting, the host begins eating first, so you can see how they are eating their meal and follow them.” Otherwise, just wait for the person sitting next to you to start.

When asked how he goes about the situation, actor-cum-restaurateur Dino Morea says, “I eat my pizzas and burgers mostly with my hands.  With other foods I feel it depends on the environment you are in and also sometimes people prefer to use a fork and knife even with Indian food, because the masalas can stain your hands.”

The British used to use a fork, knife and spoon to even eat a mango!

Actress Kangana Ranaut confesses that she rather eat with her hands, “But, if the situation demands I do use cutlery.” And actor Ayushman Khurana, advises people to go with the flow, and believes in the saying, “When in Rome, do what the Romans do”.  The only rules of thumb to always keep in mind are: Close your mouth while eating, no elbows on the table, no double dipping into sauces and when you sit down put the napkin on your lap. Just don’t open out the whole napkin though. Remember to fold it in half and ensure that the folded part is closest to your body.

And when serving tea, remember that the handle should be facing the person taking the cup from you. Also ensure there is a tea-spoon placed on the saucer. We Indians have grown-up eating with our hands, but there really is no need to get scared of cutlery cos it has been designed to make you eat easily.

Scheherazade Javeri too says these are just aides to help you eat better. You shouldn’t be intimidated by them or forced to use them because they are there to help serve and eat food better. “For example, a fish knife is there to help you scale the fish better, steak knife makes it easy to cut the meat, a soup spoon can hold more liquid and a cake knife is a half-fork, half-knife so that you can cut a piece and then put it with the fork to neatly place it on a plate,” says Javeri.

But just because the environment is formal doesn’t mean you don’t use your hands at all, as Dino adds, “You can’t eat fish using only cutlery. Hands need to be used while removing the bones.” He laughingly recalls the time he tried eating a dosa with a fork and knife as a kid. “It just flew off my plate!”

If you are still debating about whether to use cutlery or not in formal settings, the Rajmata of Jaipur, Padmini Devi says, “The British used to use a fork, knife and spoon to even eat a mango, but those days are gone. In India I use my hands while eating Indian food for sure.

Inputs by Lipika Varma