Re: CHAT: Which world? Which culture?

On Sun, 2003-07-13 at 06:22, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse �  Roger Mills :
>
>
> >Warning:  on my first trip to Italy, I was taken to task (granted, by
> >another American, but he'd been there longer) for using the spoon---
> >"That's strictly peasant-style!!"
>
> Peasant-style?!!!! Etiquette (the kind of things you have to follow when
> you're at the same table as a crowned head for instance) makes the use of
> the spoon with spaghetti *mandatory*!!! So there's nothing peasant-style in it!
And the fact that eating with only one utensil can be uncomfortable. But
um, if you were eating at the same table as a crowned head, wouldn't
that make you relatively a peasant, and so eating without a spoon could
be considered presumptuous?

> >   Still, it's faster, more efficient, and a
> >little less messy than trying to wind noodles up with fork alone :-))
>
> Indeed! And cutting spaghetti is just plain sacrilege! ;))))
I was told by Italians that that's the normal thing to do. Does that
differ by region or something?

> >And you use bread to sop up the extra sauce....yum.
>
> On the other hand, etiquette says that you *mustn't* sop up the sauce in
> any way. What's left of the sauce in the plate stays in the plate. Doesn't
> prevent me from doing it though ;)))) .
Seems like a waste of perfectly good sauce! Mmm... italian food...

--
Tristan.