Granny Knows Best - Table Manners

Granny is here once again with a good old fashioned nuggets of wisdom for us. This time it's basic table manners and all we can say is, the contestants of Come Dine With Me have a lot to learn!


1. Make sure you sit up straight and don't put your elbows on the table. No one likes a sloucher. It's not a good look.

2. Place your napkin on your lap while eating then at the end of your meal, lay it beside your plate - don't fold  it up.

3. The usual procedure for cutlery is to work from the outside inwards, but if you are ever in doubt, wait and watch what the first few people who start eating do.

4. Never, never dip or break your bread bread up in your soup.The correct thing to do is to put your bread on the side plate and break off bite sized pieces one at a time then butter each before you eat it.

5. Don't stuff your mouth full of food and don't talk with your mouth full. Seeing the contents of your mouth may well put the person opposite you off their meal.

6. While you are eating your meal, when putting down your cutlery, lay your knife and fork down with the prongs downwards and at an angle. Then when you have finished eating, place them side by side with the prongs of the fork pointing upwards in the 4 o'clock position (European style) or the 5 o'clock position (American) to indicate to your waiter/host that you have finished.

7. Make sure you hold your cutlery correctly! Don't hold them like pencils - make sure the handle of both your knife and fork are buried in the palm of your hand.

8. Never smoke during a meal - it is extremely bad manners. If you're absolutely gasping, wait until everyone has finished before you ask permission to smoke.

9. It's also very bad manners to reach over your fellow diners to pick up food or other items at the table. If you need something that is out of your reach, ask a fellow diner nearer to it to pass it to you.

10. Now we'll finish with the biggest no-no of table manners that I know. If someone is good enough to feed you then you eat what you are given! When I was a girl, people didn't have alot of food, so if you were given food by your host (even if you could spot a hair in it off the chin of the woman of the house) it was still considered the height of rudeness to refuse the food.