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, 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 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'.
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 seems to have spread somewhat further up the social scale, particularly among younger people, perhaps because of increasing American influences, so one does now see more lower-middle and middle-middle English people eating 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 is 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, pate and toast, breakfast toast and marmalade - is to break off (not cut off) a bite-sized piece of the bread or toast, spread butter/pate/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.
With fish on the bone, the 'small/slow is beautiful' principle requires that we fillet the fish one small bit at a time, lifting each mouthful away from the bone, eating it, then filleting off the next mouthful. Grapes must be broken off in a small bunch, and eaten one at a time, not in handfuls. At the table, apples and other fruit are peeled, quartered and eaten one segment at a time, not bitten into whole. Bananas must not be eaten 'monkey style' but should be peeled and cut into discs, which are then eaten one at a time. And so on.