When I was young, there were endless rules about how to eat and drink, and how to do it politely rather than rudely. Thank goodness most of these pointless rules have now been binned and we can be more relaxed about what should, after all, be an enjoyable experience rather than a nerve-racking test of good breeding.As a child, I was constantly admonished for speaking with my mouth full, slurping my drinks, eating with my fingers, eating too fast or too slowly, putting too much in my mouth, playing with my food, and countless other shocking habits. No wonder not many people actively enjoyed their meals in those days, seeing them more as fuelling stops than sources of pleasure.
I suppose one of the few advantages of my boarding school years was that teenage boys ignore every rule about eating and just shamelessly stuff their faces in whatever manner suits them. The school staff had clearly long given up trying to instil more suitable behaviour, so mealtimes were always wonderful uninhibited binges free of the petty criticisms of home.
Nowadays the emphasis on enjoying your food rather than showing off your table manners means that most of the old dos and donts have bitten the dust and we eat and drink in whatever way we're comfortable with, and we're happy for our eating companions to do the same. And if someone else has cooked the food, wholehearted appreciation of what they've provided is more important than exactly how you're eating it.
Obviously I'm not saying you should shovel your food into your mouth like a pig at a trough, but what's wrong with emptying your plate enthusiastically if the contents are mouth-wateringly tasty? Why take dainty little portions when you could take a good hearty mouthful?
I guess the increasingly relaxed attitude to how we eat stems largely from the surge in foreign travel and our discovery that people in other countries actually see food as a feast for the tastebuds rather than an etiquette check. And if you're picking delicately at what's on your plate rather than eagerly tucking in, they don't think you're being polite, they think you don't like the food. Mamma mia, non hai appetito?*
* Mamma mia, don't you have an appetite?
