TRUTH IN CUSTOMS
I have a friend who lives in France and she lives on a farm with her husband and animals. (On Christmas Day, she and her husband were helping the sheep they own as they gave birth to lambs!)
I decided to ask her about table customs in France that were different in America and she told me this.
"The French sit at the table with their wrists on the table...never in their lap. This goes back to Medieval times when they wanted to make sure you didn't have a weapon...They will hold their fork in their left hand and their knife in their right hand and will only put them down when the course is over. While chewing, they rest their wrists on the table while still holding the knife and fork.
They eat virtually every dessert with a spoon...cake, pie, etc. Americans use forks."
She goes on to say that the "French believe that we Americans cut our meat all at once into little pieces and then put the knife down. They were told that in the old days, Americans were very poor and only had one knife to a family and had to pass that knife around!"
I told her that today that often happens when the dishwasher has not run in several days!