Sunday, September 6, 2009
I grew up in a milieu that might be rightly described as working-class. I learned my table manners, few as they were, and behaved myself. I didn't put my elbows on the table. I didn't eat spaghetti with my hands. Etc. I was chatting with a friend today, a friend who grew up in a very different milieu (I'm getting to like that word). Anyway, she said that in her family, a family with old money I should add, no one was allowed to blow on their food. No blowing on the hot spoonful of soup. No blowing on the hot piece of pork on your fork. Not allowed. It was considered uncultured. Never in my life have I heard of such a thing, so I'm asking my friends out there to tell me: were you brought up with such a pretentious, boneheaded rule? Of course if you were, and you still agree with it, you shouldn't fear to tell me. "Deloney, you blow," you might say and I won't get mad at you (I will). So pipe up, comrades, are you cultured or uncultured?
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7 comments:
Blow on your food, ok.
Standing in a wedding buffet line smelling your food and saying "mmm," not ok. I have a "cultured" friend (meaning his parents had way way more money than mine) who insists on sniffing all his food. It gets really unappealing fast.
I was taught that blowing on food was ok at home. But not in polite company. We had lots of rules like that! Obviously we were uncultured at home, and pretenders to culture in public.
Blowing on food was never an issue. I mean, I don't remember any rules about it conveyed by my parents or grandparents. But I grew up in a blue collar family in a small town. Our idea of cultured was a Red Lobster restaurant.
' save your breath to cool your porridge ' but of course by the time the posh people's food came up from the kitchens it was lukewarm anyway. Chafing dish, anyone?
working class milieu? Oxymoron, surely?
I haven't ever heard of the no-blowing-on-the-food thing. I'm just happy when people—including me—swallow their food before engaging in conversation.
LOL....I read your post while blowing on summer squash just removed from boiling water. It's true. There I was, holding up some squash on my fork and blowing away when I got to the part about blowing on food.
Yes, I was raised to believe that was bad manners (hey, I'm sitting here by myself!). Ditto elbows on the table. Another one I remember (and never follow) is that to get the last bits of soup (a concept that was probably considered crass in itself), one should tip the bowl away, not toward oneself. Don't ask me the rationale behind that one.
Oh, and during the year my grandmother was studying French (with remarkable success, I might add), I had to ask for everything at the table in French.
A Gallic milieu, one might say.
We we forced to eat at a table. I thought that was the height of culture, as I much preferred sitting in front of the TV.
Mrs. Slocombe, I think it's not an oxymoron if pronounced mill-ee-ew.
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