Who invented this rule? I consulted a few books. De Civilitate Morum Puerilium, penned in 1530, was not a light read. Better luck with the scholarly musings of a young George Washington. Before he became the first American President, he was a schoolkid practising his cursive on The Rules of Civility \u2013 a comprehensive list of 110 ways to become a better human.<\/p>\n
Sample rules: don\u2019t pick your teeth with a fork. Don\u2019t cut your bread with a greasy knife. If others talk at the table, \u201cbe attentive, but talk not with meat in your mouth\u201d. (It occurs to me there might have been bigger hills to die on, but this is not the first time I\u2019ve struggled to understand a presidential point of view).<\/p>\n
Elbows off the table. Don\u2019t start until everyone is seated. We all know all these rules. In 2026, we might add a new one \u2013 don\u2019t film yourself breaking them.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Piha-based chef and restaurateur Lucas Parkinson struck a chord on Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the f*** happened to don\u2019t talk with your mouth full?\u201d he asked. \u201cEvery time I go on social media it\u2019s people stuffing their faces and talking or, worse, talking while continuously eating, even on videos non-food related. I don\u2019t know about you, but I find it disgusting AF.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parkinson\u2019s post was prompted by a video of a man reviewing a pie.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy\u2019s taking a big munch. Hearty bites. And then he just starts talking about the pie \u2013 there are bits flying out of his mouth. It\u2019s disgusting. His mouth is slapping…\u201d<\/p>\n
Parkinson suspects he\u2019s \u201cone of the subset of humans who just can\u2019t stand the sound of mouths slapping\u201d. <\/p>\n
Add visuals, and \u201cBro, stop that. You are not a dog and that is not a dog bowl\u201d.<\/p>\n
The chef says good table manners were paramount to his childhood. He learned from his grandmothers, mother and four sisters.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy oldest sister…I got into trouble with her once because I was eating an apple. My mouth was closed but it was crunching. There were sound effects…\u201d<\/p>\n
He was 8 years old. He never forgot. At his restaurant Aryeh, he avoids watching diners eat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love feeding people, but the watching part… I will look at the pass, talk to a waitress, do some orders, hyper fixate on the plating…\u201d<\/p>\n
Aryeh restaurant’s Lucas Parkinson wants you to swallow his food before you start talking about it. Photo \/ Babiche Martens<\/p>\n
Parkinson encourages food prep that minimises the risk of ill-mannered visuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the carrot is cut too big, the diner won\u2019t cut it down. They\u2019ll just try to shove it in their mouth. I\u2019m like \u2018look guys, when you break down the potatoes, break them down so they\u2019ll fit in a small woman\u2019s mouth. Your chef does not want to see that mouth open. And that woman will shove half a potato in there.\u2018\u201d<\/p>\n
Parkinson is correct. I am not a small woman, but I do love potatoes and I am definitely guilty of opening my mouth before I have finished my mouthful.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s wrong and it is rude. But it is also, I venture, absolutely necessary. <\/p>\n
Attention spans are shrinking and conversations move apace. A diner must speak now or forever be overlooked. The smart operator does not slow down to swallow steak. In a dog eat pie world, table manners are for people who are content to subsist on the crumbs.<\/p>\n
Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016. She works as a senior journalist on its lifestyle desk and holds a master\u2019s in gastronomy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who invented this rule? I consulted a few books. De Civilitate Morum Puerilium, penned in 1530, was not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[66309,17512,4101,156,3685,6440,2070,33262,185,215576,59037,111,139,69,55401,9640,11230,7563,2044,220277,540,102,14443,1959],"class_list":["post-429928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-acceptable","tag-conversations","tag-debate","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-ever","tag-full","tag-hour","tag-is","tag-manners","tag-mouth","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-remember","tag-table","tag-talking","tag-those","tag-time","tag-walkandtalk","tag-where","tag-with","tag-wont","tag-your"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}