Eating with your hands

Well technically eating with your hands means eating with small pieces of bread. Eating food with your hands in today’s society is observed as being unsanitary, unclean, bad mannered and even gross. Eating with your hand instead of using a fork and spoon is a skill that can be gratifying when done in the approved manner. Etiquette should be observed when dining in any culture that eating with your hand is a tradition. The hands must be thoroughly washed; hands are washed before and after eating. Typically you eat with your right hand since bodily functions are taken care of with your left hand. Therefore, obviously it is considered rude and improper to use your left hand.

You may think you are reaching into the plate of food with your naked hand however; you will actually use a small piece of bread to scoop up the food. Just think of it as you are replacing utensils for pieces bread the same way some recipes replace a bowl for a large loaf of hollowed out bread. You will reach for food with your bread in hand from the side of the bowl that is facing you, not across the bowl. This is your space in which you eat but please don’t lick your fingers. Eating is a physical and social act and you should enjoy eating with your hands as much as possible. Eating with your hands enables you to feel closer to people you are dining with because you are sitting around the same table sitting close together eating from the same plate. Still think eating with your hands is weird? Well consider the fact that you eat with your hands from shared plates when you:
1.       Eat dip at a social event
2.       Eat from a large platter of wings

4.       Eat shared appetizers such as nachos
5.       Let me have a piece… ok, I did not bite from that side go ahead and break off a piece