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  • From: mdnagel@verizon.net
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Are We Culturally Bankrupt, Too?: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Exposes Another Problem
  • Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:30:44 -0500 (CDT)

Just because people don't use all the "normal" eating utensils doesn't mean that they are culturally bankrupt.

I have a bunch of Filipino friends, and in their culture they tend to use spoons a LOT.  Forks are used as well, but not really knives; they use the spoon as a knife.  Lots has to do with the kinds of foods eaten.  I was down in the Philippines recently and had a meal on banana leaves which served as both plate and table cloth- and NO utensils, hands only!  Not an everyday event though...


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA


Apr 12, 2010 05:59:31 PM, livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
>
>
>Are We Culturally Bankrupt, Too?: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Exposes
>Another Problem
>Are we done with manners?
>Gerit Quealy April 12, 2010 10:44 AM
>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerit-quealy/jamie-olivers-food-revolu_b_532446.html
>
>Watching the launch of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution when it aired on ABC
>left me slack-jawed in disbelief. Not just about the bizarre relationship with food
>Americans have, but something even more fundamental. Newsflash: People don't
>know how to eat! And the reason is, they're not taught as kids.
>
>I'll amend that: They don't know how to eat properly. I'm not talking
>about what food to eat, which is what Oliver is addressing; I'm talking about
>physically transporting ingestible matter from the plate to the oral cavity -- which
>is stunning for a civilized nation.
>
>Which begs the question: Are we still a civilized nation? Or are we culturally
>bankrupt, too?
>
>During the two shows, run back-to-back, I was by turns amused, amazed, appalled,
>even outright crying at the situation in Huntington, WV. But in the latter half
>of the second hour, I was as stunned as Oliver when he discovered the schoolchildren
>he was trying to educate about food did not actually use cutlery.
>
>"We're tryin' to figure out how we're going to do this fork/spoon
>business," said Alice, one of the cooks in the school cafeteria. "They
>need a fork." Oliver: "Yeah, and a knife would be nice. They don't
>have a knife?"
>
>"Oh no, no knives."
>
>"You don't get your kids to use a knife and fork?" Oliver replies,
>confusion clouding his boyish features.
>
>In an on-camera narration, he underscores: "[That] means from the age of
>4 to 10, they never use a knife and fork!"
>
>The conversation continues, with an incredulous Oliver: "This is school.
>You teach them how to spell, you teach them to read, you teach them to write --
>you teach them to use a knife and fork!" he emphasizes. "You don't
>want to bring up a nation of kids that only use their fingers and a spoon!"
>
>But the staff was equally amazed that small children in Britain are given these
>utensils --and asked for documentation.
>
>Slight tangent: I hope a neon sign spelling 'irony' is not necessary
>here when noting that we have a British citizen, with the word 'revolution'
>in his show's title coming to this country to teach us how to be civilized 200+
>years after the American Revolution.
>
>I scuttled over to my style library and grabbed The Girl's Guide to Social
>Savvy, Manners for the Modern World, by Jodi R.R. Smith (Barnes & Noble, 2004).
>I don't know what the R.R. is for, but clearly she should have railroaded her
>book down everyone's throat, especially since they're not using a knife
>and fork anyway.
>
>Yep, there it was, Chapter 4: Gracious Dining. The information is out there
>folks, and hopefully not just relegated to bookshelves. And another, Kate Spade's
>Manners (Simon & Schuster, 2004), states, " I don't think table manners
>are passé." Clearly before the advent of Oliver's show. Spade also
>quotes Deanna Troi of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Higher emotions are
>what separate us from the lower orders of life... higher emotions, and table manners."
>There you have it! Space, the final authority from the final frontier.
>
>Oliver opined later in the episode that to have no use for a knife and fork
>was neither a class nor a cultural issue; it was saying we've no use for real
>food. I agree, to a degree.
>
>But I also think it is a distinct marker of a civilized society. Human beings
>in third world countries are forced to eat with their hands -- it is not a choice.
>How you eat reflects your personal style, grooming habits, attention to detail,
>a host of things. Smith's website has this quote from Goethe, "A man's
>manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait."
>
>Several years ago, I was on a quest to discover why Americans practice (or used
>to, anyway) the complicated ritual of switching the fork back and forth between
>hands after using a knife -- unlike our European counterparts who keep the two utensils
>active in each hand while eating. Americans think this looks barbaric. Europeans
>think keeping one hand in our laps is restrictive and illogical.
>
>I found the reason at the bottom of a pool in St. Augustine, Florida. Well,
>the pool was drained and filled with antique shops in what is now The Lightner Museum,
>but Julia, the shopkeeper, had the tidbit I'd been seeking. She was showing
>me what I thought was a crumber -- a silver utensil to push the crumbs from one's
>place at the table. "Oh no," she said, this was for a baby to learn how
>to push its food onto the fork, in lieu of a knife.
>
>A baby! No wonder our nation's children can't use cutlery; we're
>equipped with sippy cups (adult version: to-go coffee mugs) and sporks.
>
>Oh, the reason Americans switch back and forth? In our country's infancy,
>knives were scarce and primarily used for tools in the field, Julia said. The knife
>at the table was placed in the center. You used it to cut your food, then replaced
>it and put your other hand in your lap to make room for all the people crowded round
>the table. The root of the custom was deprivation.
>
>Now, deprived of nothing, and armed with pizza, buffalo wings, mozzarella sticks,
>hamburgers and chicken fingers, who needs cutlery?
>
>Perhaps with a little history of the practice now illuminated, and Oliver enlightening
>us on what to eat, we can employ these valuable utensils again? For real food, that
>requires cutting, and chewing, and digesting.
>
>It's certainly something to chew over.
>
>
>Oliver won the TED prize in February 2010 for his global initiative to change
>our approach to food, and has a petition to that effect anyone can sign.
>
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