Table Manners: Mobile Phones and Condiments
Gareth Knight waits for the texts to come through while splashing ketchup on his plate.
22 Jan 2012, 11:30
Bad Manners: phones in restaurants
A few days ago I wrote about the importance of good manners to foster respect and how that makes us a better society and I promised a series of rants regarding table manners – something I believe is fundamental to the way we interact with each other.
I cannot understand how any vaguely decent parent can allow their children to grow up without teaching them the basics of how to eat properly. This is not a class thing, I know of people who attended public schools and have had thousands of pounds of parents’ cash thrown at them who have terrible manners just as I know of people without a qualification to their name or a penny in the bank who have excellent etiquette.
My top 10 table manner faux-pas, in no particular order, start with two of the most infuriating.
New technology inevitably means it takes a good few years for the etiquette around that technology to take hold but as near-universal ownership of mobile phones has been common for just over a decade, the etiquette regarding mobile phones is pretty much in place. That said, there are still enough people who prioritise their mobile phone over their dining partners for the problem to infuriate many people.
Pretty much everyone has taken the hint from fellow diners that having your mobile phone blurting out some stupid noise is extremely poor form and I very rarely hear ringtones going off all over the place as was common five years ago. Setting your phone permanently to ‘vibrate’ is the default setting for most mobile phone users, and that is massive progress. But this has led to a tiny minority continuing to place their mobile phone on the table, as if the ringtone itself was the problem, and not the use of the actual phone.
If you put a mobile on the dinner table you’re sending out one message “there is nothing here that is of more interest or importance to me than what may or may not come through on my mobile”. It is a massive insult to your guests, hosts, companions or fellow diners that you’d much rather be kept informed of what is going on outside the company you’re in than dedicate yourself to that company.
One argument that could come back is that we now live in a 24/7 world where people are expected to be ‘on-call’ all the time and that those who work in any business with a media or online presence may be actually ‘on-duty’. That is fair enough, but it doesn’t excuse putting your mobile on the table. If you’re on-call or on-duty, or genuinely expecting some specific and important news, you should inform your dining companions at the start of the evening, keep the phone on ‘vibrate’ in your pocket and politely excuse yourself to take the call or read the text or e-mail away from the table. If you’re just wondering if your mate is going to text you about something or you’re just following Twitter, there’s no reason at all why that cannot wait until you take a bathroom break.
The Condiment Culture
A chef prepares your food to a fine balance of taste, then you come along, chuck salt and pepper on and squirt a ton of generic sauce on top, all before you’ve tasted anything.
This is the condiment culture – the idea that whatever you’ve been given, you’ll always want to whack extra stuff on top. Apparently there is a real historical explanation for this... condiments were not rationed during and after the war and so baby boomers grew up putting ketchup, brown sauce, mustard, ‘mayonnaise’, salt, pepper and vinegar on their bland rationed food to make it taste of something. As the baby boomers had children, they passed on the fad and this has continued to this day, filtering down through the years to the point where it remains common for people to instinctively season and sauce their food before they’ve even tasted it. Apparently the condiment culture even has a map – the closer you are to the outside edge of the M25, the more you’re likely to use condiments. This is because the impact of rationing was, broadly speaking, felt most by Londoners as those outside London had more access to locally grown products and gardens. As the Londoners of the 1940s and 1950s moved out into the suburbs, the home counties have become the home of the condiment.
There are undoubtedly some foods where condiments are as much part of the dish as the dish itself – fish and chips, intentionally unseasoned food designed for people with who need to cut down on sugar and sodium, but in the most part it’s not necessary. Almost all food is seasoned as it’s cooked, so taste first.
The condiment culture is not just a huge insult to the person cooking the food, it spoils the taste.
Several years ago at a fundraising lunch I was ‘waiting tables’ to our volunteers and after ensuring everyone had food (a great dish cooked by a very talented party member), cutlery and a drink, I was accosted by an older gentleman who hadn’t touched any food despite having had it for several minutes. He looked at me as if I were the scum of the earth and said at the top of his voice “I’m waiting for the salt!” (cue looks of disapproval from others present). As anyone who has worked with volunteers knows, you don’t stand there and argue, so I made a beeline for one of the ladies carrying the food from the kitchen and asked one if she could get some salt, but unlike those of us who were trained in the need for diplomacy when working with volunteers, a fellow volunteer who had spent hours slaving away was having none of it. She walked straight up to him and told him that the food is already salted and that if he didn’t like the way it was cooked he should cook it himself next time. Not wishing to make more of a scene, he ate the food and never complained.
Next up: eating too fast and eating huge mouthfuls
Comments (1)
Subscribe to this posts's comments feed
Blimey Gareth, what sort of people do you eat with? Best forget about trying to train them and just present them with a trough of baked beans garnished with a dead dog. And of course tie their hands behind their backs.
22/01/2012 18:32