GeoBeats Science's video: Dinner Etiquette: Entree

Formal Dining: Entree - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. When your entree arrives it will be arriving from your left and taken from your right. Here we know we are having an entree because we have the cutlery that we know is appropriate for an entree. That is a large dinner fork and a regular size knife. Again, we are going to eat like this, with our forefinger on the back of the fork. It is one cut, move forward, bring the bite to your mouth. You do not eat all of your meat first and then move onto the carrots or the potatoes, but you would take a bite of each. If something is on your plate that you do not care for, you just work around it and do not make a big to-do about it. You would actually move forward and do the cutting and bring the item to your mouth and of course, chewing with your mouth closed. Now, you will notice on this plate that there are peas, which of course, is difficult to eat along with rice. So here, what you would do is put some meat on your fork, and then you would actually add the peas to it and then bring it to your mouth, making it very easy to eat. If you are taking a rest, the cutlery is facing up, including the fork, setting it on the outside of your plate. Never like oars on a boat, coming off the plate, but like this. Then prior to having a sip of your beverage, you would use your napkin or speak to your other guests. Then pick up your cutlery, again, upside down, cut, move forward and eat. When you have finished your entree, then the cutlery would be placed together like this, indicating to the wait staff that you are finished. If you are a slow eater, you want to speed up a little bit and if you are a fast eater, you need to slow down so that all of the guests are finished approximately at the same time. Another key point is the hands must always be seen. So an easy rule is, always, sometimes and never. No elbows on the table. The old rule was the hands were only seen when you are actually eating and the rest of the time, they are on your lap. That is obsolete and inappropriate in today's global society. So it is always, sometimes and never.