Watching the English

by Kate Fox

  You would think that the English, with our desperate need for social ‘props and facilitators’, not to mention ways of detracting from the inevitable awkwardness of money-talk, would seize upon and embrace this tried-and-tested tradition. And, indeed, I am convinced that the current misguided disdain for the business lunch is, to borrow a term from the environmentalists, ‘unsustainable’, and will prove to be a temporary aberration. It does, however, provide further evidence to support my argument that the English generally do not take food seriously, and in particular that we grossly underestimate the social importance of sharing food, of eating together – something most other cultures seem to grasp instinctively.

  In this respect, the middle-class ‘foodies’ are often no more enlightened than the rest of us. Their obsessive focus on the food itself – the fruity virginity of the cold-pressed olive oil, the gooey ripeness of the unpasteurised Brie de Meaux – is often curiously devoid of the human warmth and intimacy that should be associated with its consumption. They claim to understand this social dimension, waxing lyrical and misty-eyed about the conviviality of mealtimes in Provence and Tuscany, but they have an unfortunate tendency to judge their English friends’ dinner parties, and restaurant lunches with business contacts, on the quality of the cooking rather than the friendliness of the atmosphere. ‘Well, the Joneses are very nice people and all that but, really, they have no idea – overcooked pasta, boiled-to-death vegetables, and God knows what that chicken thing was supposed to be . . .’ Their patronising and sneering sometimes makes one long for the old, pre-foodie-revolution days, when the higher classes considered it vulgar to make any comment at all on the food they were served, and the lower classes defined a good meal as a filling one.

  Breakfast Rules – and Tea Beliefs

  The traditional English breakfast – tea, toast, marmalade, eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc. – is both good and filling, and breakfast is the only aspect of English cooking that is frequently and enthusiastically praised by foreigners. Few of us eat this ‘full English breakfast’ regularly, however: foreign tourists staying in hotels get far more traditional breakfasts than we natives ever enjoy at home.

  The tradition is maintained more at the top and bottom of the social scale than among the middle ranks. Some members of the upper class and aristocracy still have proper English breakfasts in their country houses, and some working-class people (mostly males) still believe in starting the day with a ‘cooked breakfast’ of bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans, fried bread, toast and so on.

  This feast may often be eaten in a ‘caff’ rather than at home, and is washed down with industrial quantities of strong, brick-coloured, sweet, milky tea. Lower-middles and middle-middles drink a paler, ‘posher’ version, Twining’s English Breakfast, say, rather than PG Tips. The upper-middle and upper classes drink weak, dishwater-coloured, unsweetened Earl Grey. Taking sugar in your tea is regarded by many as an infallible lower-class indicator: even one spoonful is a bit suspect (unless you were born before about 1955); more than one and you are lower-middle at best; more than two and you are definitely working class. Putting the milk into the cup first is also a lower-class habit, as is over-vigorous, noisy stirring. Some pretentious middles and upper-middles make an ostentatious point of drinking Lapsang Souchong, without milk or sugar, as this is about as far removed from working-class tea as they can get. More honest (or less class-anxious) upper-middles and uppers often admit to a secret liking for the strong, rust-coloured ‘builders’ tea’. How snooty you are about ‘builders’ tea’, and how careful you are to avoid it, is quite a good class-anxiety test.

  Tea is still believed, by English people of all classes, to have miraculous properties. A cup of tea can cure, or at least significantly alleviate, almost all minor physical ailments and indispositions, from a headache to a scraped knee. Tea is also an essential remedy for all social and psychological ills, from a bruised ego to the trauma of a divorce or bereavement. This magical drink can be used equally effectively as a sedative or stimulant, to calm and soothe or to revive and invigorate. Whatever your mental or physical state, what you need is ‘a nice cup of tea’.

  Perhaps most importantly, tea-making is the perfect displacement activity: whenever the English feel awkward or uncomfortable in a social situation (that is, almost all of the time), they make tea. It’s a universal rule: when in doubt, put the kettle on. Visitors arrive; we have our usual difficulties over greeting protocol. We say, ‘I’ll just put the kettle on.’ There is one of those uneasy lulls in the conversation, and we’ve run out of weather-speak. We say, ‘Now, who’d like more tea? I’ll just go and put the kettle on.’ A business meeting might involve having to talk about money. We postpone the uncomfortable bit by making sure everyone has tea. A bad accident – people are injured and in shock: tea is needed. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ War breaks out – a nuclear attack is imminent. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’108

  You get the idea. We are rather fond of tea.

  We are also very partial to toast. Toast is a breakfast staple, and an all-purpose, anytime comfort food. What tea alone does not cure, tea and toast surely will. The ‘toast rack’ is a peculiarly English object. My father, who lives in America and has become somewhat American in his tastes and habits, calls it a ‘toast cooler’ and claims that its sole function is to ensure that one’s toast gets stone cold as quickly as possible. English supporters of the toast rack would argue that it keeps toast dry and crisp, that separating the slices and standing them upright stops them becoming soggy, which is what happens to American toast, served piled up hugger-mugger in a humid, perspiring stack on the plate, sometimes even wrapped in a napkin to retain yet more moisture. The English would rather have their toast cool and dry than warm and damp. American toast lacks reserve and dignity: it is too sweaty and indiscreet and emotional.

  But toast is not much use as a class indicator: everybody likes toast. Some of the higher social ranks do have a bit of a prejudice against packaged sliced bread, but only the very class-anxious will go to great lengths to avoid it. What you choose to spread on your toast, however, can provide clues to your social position. Margarine and most other butter-substitute ‘spreads’ are regarded as decidedly ‘common’ by the middle and upper classes, who use butter (unless they are on a diet or have a dairy intolerance, that is). Marmalade is universally popular, but the dark, thick-cut Oxford or Dundee marmalade is favoured by the higher echelons, while the lower ranks generally prefer the lighter-coloured, thin-cut brands such as Golden Shred.

  The unwritten class rules about jam are much the same: the darker the colour and the bigger the lumps of fruit, the more socially elevated the jam. Some class-anxious middles and upper-middles secretly prefer the paler, smoother, low-class marmalades and jams, but feel obliged to buy the socially superior chunky ones. Homemade jam or marmalade is favoured by the higher social ranks, who often labour the point by making it even more lumpy than the shop-bought varieties, and sometimes also watery (not enough pectin) and sharp (not enough sugar). Only the lower classes – older-generation lower-middles in particular – try to sound posh by calling jam ‘preserves’.

  Table Manners and ‘Material Culture’ Indicators

  Table Manners

  English table manners, across all classes, have deteriorated somewhat but are still, as the humorist George Mikes acknowledges, fairly decent. The genuinely important aspects of eating etiquette – showing consideration for others; not being selfish or greedy; general fairness, politeness and sociability – are known to, if not always strictly observed by, most English people of all social classes. No class has a monopoly on either good or bad eating behaviour.

  Although proper ‘family meals’ may nowadays occur on average only once a week, rather than every day, most English children of all classes are still brought up to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when asking for and being given food, and most adults are also reasonably polite. We all know that we should ask for things rat
her than just grabbing them; not serve ourselves huge helpings leaving insufficient food for the others; wait until everyone has been served before starting to eat, unless urged, ‘Please start, or it will go cold’; not take the last piece of anything without asking if anyone else wants it; not talk with our mouths full; not cram vast, unsightly amounts of food into our mouths or masticate noisily; take part in the conversation without monopolising or dominating it; and so on.

  When eating at a restaurant, we know that in addition to the above we should be polite to the waiters and, in particular, never, ever try to summon a waiter by snapping our fingers or bellowing across the room. The correct procedure is to lean back in your chair with an expectant look, endeavour to make eye contact, then perform a quick eyebrow-lift/chin-lift. Raising a hand is permissible, as is a quiet ‘Excuse me?’ (or preferably, if irrationally, ‘Er, sorry?’) if the waiter is nearby and has not noticed you, but this should not be done in an imperious manner. We know that orders should be phrased as requests, with the usual full complement of pleases and thank-yous. We know that it is unseemly to make a fuss or a scene or in any way draw attention to oneself when eating in public. Making any sort of fuss about money is especially distasteful, and ostentatious displays of wealth are as bad as conspicuous meanness. People who insist on calculating in detail exactly who had what when it comes to dividing up the bill are despised, not just because they are miserly, but also because such discussions involve a prolonged breach of the money-talk taboo, which is hugely embarrassing for everyone.

  We may not abide by all of these codes, but we know the rules. If you ask English people about ‘table manners’, they may assume that you mean prissy, pointless etiquette about which fork to use, but if you start a conversation about what is and isn’t acceptable when eating with other people, what they were taught and what they teach their children, these rather more basic, universal, classless courtesies will emerge. Many of them, if you look closely, are essentially about that perennial English preoccupation: fairness.

  Some lower-class parents – particularly ‘respectable upper-working’ and lower-middle mothers – tend to be, if anything, more strict on these basic points than some middle-middle and upper-middle parents, who are influenced by ‘child-centred’ parenting books that frown upon rules and regulations, and encourage unfettered self-expression.

  Those at the top of the social scale, as so often seems to be the case, have more in common with the working classes than with the middle ranks: upper-class mothers tend to be quite strict on basic good eating manners, although upper-class men do not necessarily practise what their wives and nannies preach to their children. Some aristocratic males are notorious for their appalling table manners, in this trait resembling some lower-working/under-class males, who also do not care about other people’s opinion of them.

  But these are just minor and patchy variations: on the whole, the basic courtesy rules are fairly classless. It is only when you look beyond these essential courtesies that the significant class divisions start to appear. The more arcane, esoteric rules of table etiquette – the peas-on-the-back-of-the-fork minutiae for which the English are famous and widely ridiculed – tend to be the preserve of the higher social classes. Indeed, one could be forgiven for suspecting that the only function of such rules is to distinguish these classes from the lower ones, as in most cases it is hard to see what other purpose they might serve.

  ‘Material Culture’ Indicators

  Many of these class-indicator rules concern the use of objects and implements – knives, forks, spoons, glasses, bowls, plates and so on. Which is where ‘material culture’ comes in. I remember a conversation I had during my first week at Cambridge with a rather earnest and self-important graduate student in the coffee room of the archaeology and anthropology library. He told me he was writing his thesis on ‘material culture’ in something or other. ‘What do you mean by “material culture”?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, now,’ he replied, ‘let me explain.’ He took a deep breath, and launched into a long, involved, jargon-ridden disquisition. I listened attentively, for about twenty minutes.

  When he had finished his lecture, I said, ‘Oh, I see. You mean “things”. Pots and knives and clothes and so on. Things.’ He was most put out, although he agreed huffily that, yes, I could put it that way if I wanted to be simplistic. I’ve been longing for an excuse to use the gloriously pompous term ‘material culture’ ever since, but actually what I mean is just ‘things’.109

  The Knife-holding Rule

  The bossy Debrett’s etiquette guide tries hard to pretend that there is some rational point to all the minutiae of English material-culture table etiquette, that it is all about consideration for others, but I find it difficult to see how the precise positioning of your fingers on your knife – whether the handle goes under your palm (correct) or, like a pencil, rests between the base of your thumb and your index finger (incorrect) – could in any way affect your dinner companions’ enjoyment of their meal. And yet Debrett’s insists that ‘on no account’ should you ever hold your knife like a pencil. The only possible effect your pencil-method could have on your fellow diners would be to activate their class-radar bleepers and alert them to your inferior social status. So one must assume that, for the class-conscious English, this is in itself a good enough reason not to do it.

  Forks and the Pea-eating Rules

  The same goes for the prongs of your fork. When the fork is being held in your left hand and used in conjunction with a knife or spoon, the prongs of the fork should always point downwards, not upwards. ‘Well-brought-up’ English people must therefore eat peas by spearing two or three peas with the downturned prongs of their fork, using their knife to hold the peas still while spearing, then pushing a few more peas on to the convex back of the fork with their knife, using the speared peas on the prongs as a sort of little ledge to help stop the slightly squashed, pushed peas on the back of the fork from sliding straight off. It is actually much easier than it sounds, and, when one describes the procedure in proper detail, marginally less idiotic than all the jokes about English pea-eating would suggest. Although it must be said that the lower-class pea-eating methods – turning the fork over and using the knife to push a larger quantity of peas onto the concave side of the fork, or even abandoning the knife, transferring the fork to your right hand, and shovelling up peas with it as though it were a spoon – are clearly rather more sensible, or at least more ergonomic, in that more peas per forkful are transported from plate to mouth. The socially superior spear-and-squash system carries no more than about eight peas at a time, at best, while the prongs-up, scoop-and-shovel technique can hold up to about thirteen, by my calculations – depending on the size of the fork, and the size of the peas, of course. (I really should get a life.)

  There is obviously, then, no practical reason for Debrett’s and other etiquette guides to insist on the prongs-down method of pea-eating. And again, it is hard to see how adopting the lower-class prongs-up practice could possibly have any adverse effects on one’s eating companions, so the consideration-for-others argument doesn’t wash either. We are forced to conclude that, like the knife-holding rule, the pea-eating rule is a class indicator and nothing more.

  In recent years, the ‘uncouth’, prongs-up style of pea-eating has spread somewhat further up the social scale, perhaps because of increasing American influences, to the extent that the majority of lower-middle and middle-middle English people now eat their peas in this fashion (it used to be just those of working-class origin, inadvertently revealing their roots). Most upper-middles and uppers, however, resolutely continue to spear and squash.

  The ‘Small/Slow Is Beautiful’ Principle

  And it’s not just peas. I chose peas as an example because people poke fun at English pea-eating – and because peas are somehow intrinsically more amusing than other foods – but our codes of class-indicator table etiquette prescribe the prongs-down, spear-and-squash method for all eating that i
s done with a knife and fork. And as almost all eating is supposed to be done with both implements, almost all foods must be speared and/or squashed onto the backs of forks. Only a limited number of specified foods – first courses and salads, for example, or spaghetti or shepherd’s pie – may be eaten with the fork alone, in the right hand, with the prongs pointing upwards.

  When using both knife and fork, only the lower classes adopt the American system of first cutting up all or most of the food, then putting down the knife and shovelling up the food with the fork alone. The ‘correct’ – or, rather, socially superior – approach is to cut up and eat your meat and other foods one small piece at a time, each time spearing and squashing a little selection of food on to the prongs and the back of your fork.

  The same ‘small is beautiful’ and ‘slow is beautiful’ principles seem to be at the root of many of the class-indicator rules, or at any rate a large proportion of these rules appear to be designed to ensure that only small amounts of food are transferred from plate to mouth at a time, with clear pauses between mouthfuls for cutting, spearing and so on. The cut-spear-squash system for peas, meat and pretty much everything else on your plate is the main example, but these principles extend to other foods as well.

  Take bread, for example. The correct (‘posh’) way to eat anything involving bread – rolls and butter, pâté and toast, breakfast toast and marmalade – is to break off (not cut off) a bite-sized piece of the bread or toast, spread butter/pâté/marmalade onto just that small piece, eat it in one small bite, then repeat the procedure with another small piece. It is considered vulgar to spread butter or whatever across the whole slice of toast or half-roll, as though you were making a batch of sandwiches for a picnic, and then bite into it. Biscuits or crackers served with cheese must be eaten in the same way as bread or toast, breaking off and spreading one small, bite-sized piece at a time.