Eating with your hands
In many cultures, eating with your hands is perfectly normal, but in the Netherlands it is considered rude and unhygienic. Still, I much prefer eating with my hands. And yes, sometimes in restaurants too.
As a child, my mother was always there to correct me when I was eating. Elbows don’t belong on the table, and you bring your food to your mouth instead of the other way around. It largely worked. I still can’t stand it when people hunch over their plate and shovel their food in, or when people can’t hold their cutlery properly but clutch it in their fists. Yet there is one rule I have never fully integrated, and that is that you should always eat with a knife and fork.
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Tastier
Luckily, certain things are meant to be eaten with your hands: pizza, tacos and corn on the cob are all perfectly acceptable to pop into your mouth by hand. I prefer to take it a step further and eat pieces of broccoli, lettuce and meatballs with my hands too. Somehow, eating with your hands feels more like snacking. As if you spot another tasty piece somewhere and secretly pop it into your mouth. And I don’t know why, but I genuinely think it tastes better too.
Feeling
Maybe it’s because you add an extra dimension to your food: feeling it. You taste with your eyes, nose and mouth, so why not with your hands too? Giving a piece of sponge cake a little squeeze to feel how incredibly light it is makes the next bite taste even better to me. Are there still some crumbs and sauce left on the plate after dessert? I would much rather run my finger through them a hundred times than painstakingly push them onto a little spoon. Easier and tastier.
Empty plate
At the start of the meal, I can usually still restrain myself and begin neatly with a knife and fork. Once I’m halfway through, I start grabbing. And yes, even when I’m eating out. Meat that has already been cut into slices, green beans, fried potatoes—I shamelessly pop all of it into my mouth with my hand. Eating chicken off the bone is of course generally accepted, but I prefer to pull the outer meat off the bone with my hands. Only when I’m almost down to the bone do I start gnawing. I always mop up leftover sauces on a plate with bread, but when that’s gone, it’s my finger that brings the sauce to my mouth. Until the plate is completely empty.
Secretly
I don’t believe that people in the service industry or other guests ever take offense. They’re probably all secret hand-eaters too, reaching for their cutlery anyway because of society’s social norms. Because come on, who doesn’t enjoy scraping leftover cake batter from the bowl with their finger, or picking loose the crispy bits stuck to the bottom of the pan?
