Table Manners

Consider this scenario: You decide to make eggs for breakfast. What do you do? You would probably lightly grease the pan with oil to make cleanup easier, cook the eggs in whatever fashion you prefer, and then eat them with just a fork. Not if you’re Nicaraguan. If you’re Nicaraguan, you would probably pour so much oil into the pan that you practically deep fry the eggs, then you would drown them in salt, and eat them with a spoon.

Here’s another scenario: You sit down for a lunch consisting of beans, rice, cheese, tortillas, and some veggies. How do you eat it? Maybe you use a fork or a spoon to make a burrito, then eat it with your hands. Maybe you mix everything together (minus the tortilla) and eat it with a fork. Not if you’re Nicaraguan. If you’re Nicaraguan, you may very well tear the tortilla up into strips, and use them to pick up your food to eat it (seriously, I have yet to see anyone else here make a burrito).

One more scenario: You sit down for a dinner consisting of mostly steak. How do you eat it? You would probably cut it up into manageable pieces with a fork and a sharp steak knife, then eat those pieces with the fork, right? Not if you’re Nicaraguan. If you’re Nicaraguan, you would probably just pick up the steak with your hands and rip off pieces with your teeth.

The above statements are based on my own experiences here, eating with
three Nicaraguan families. Also there was some obvious exaggeration.

I’m not trying to imply that all Nicaraguans cook and eat the same way; that would be as ridiculous as saying that there’s no variety in the ways that Americans eat. I’m also not trying to imply that Nicaraguans are backwards people who need to learn how to eat properly. My point is that the idea that there is a proper way to eat, that there’s some way that you’re supposed to act at the table, is complete bullshit. Proper table manners don’t really exist, they’re just a social construct most likely designed by people who want to make themselves feel superior to others. The difference between “food” and “finger food” is basically nonexistent here (pretty much just soup). That doesn’t mean that people always eat with their hands, just that they can if they want to.

The definition of “politeness” varies hugely between cultures. In this sense, table manners are a lot like language, in that nothing is ever truly “right”. There is no right way to talk, there are only various culturally accepted ways to talk; there is also no right way to eat, there are only various culturally accepted ways to eat. If you’re telling someone how they should eat in a certain social situation, remember that you’re not giving them a set of objective facts, you are giving them your opinion. And if somebody is being a stickler for “proper manners”, just quote The Dude: “Yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”