Dining etiquette question: when is it ok to eat your food?

[TripletDaddy]

My wife and I had this discussion yesterday and I was interested in the groups take on this.

What is the proper etiquette for eating your food at a restaurant when the food does not arrive at the table simultaneously? And does the rule change the greater the number of people in the group?

I started thinking about it and realized that I have all sorts of approaches I use depending on the sitch.

business meals: if the group if 4 or less, I never eat unless everyone is served. I always encourage others to "please go ahead and eat." I'm often told the same but I will still wait. If the group is 5 or more, again I will always encourage others to start without me. However, I recall being told that at 5 or more, once 3 people have their food it is ok to start, although it is still generally polite to wait for the go ahead. At large groups of 10 or more (banquet type meals) just go ahead and eat when your food comes, as it will generally be served in waves of several people at a time.

I don't even remember where I picked this up but it has stuck with me all this time. It could be way off, though, and I know we have business diners here on the board, so interested in your opinions.

For personal or family meals, things tend to break down a bit. Generally our food comes at the same time and so we follow I instinctively follow the same rules, however for those of you with larger families, what do you at restaurants? For some reason with your own children, seems to make more sense to just let everyone eat when their food arrives. Too difficult to tell children to wait.

[Commando]

I live and die by Flutterman's Rule, which states that when two are served, you may eat.

[Mrs. Funk]

When we were little, my parents would ask the servers to bring the kid food first if it wasn't all coming out at once.

When we got older, it was always our practice to wait until everybody had their food. I prefer to wait for everybody to have their food before eating when I eat out with people (I think 4 or less is a good rule). I don't expect people to do the same.

It's rough being the hungry, foodless person when everybody else is chawing away if the food doesn't all come at the same time for some reason. If I'm that person and it's taking so long that all the other food is going cold, I'll encourage people to go ahead and eat.

[pellegrino]

you should never eat until all the food has been properly blessed to strengthen and nourish everyone.

[Mrs. Funk]

you should never eat until all the food has been properly blessed to strengthen and nourish everyone.

It was always slightly jarring to hear members of the church in France to ask for a blessing upon the hands the prepared the meal. Clearly something brought over by American missionaries.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I never eat with anyone important, excluding once with SeattleUte, but I always wait for all go be served. I am a very fast eater so if I start before others even have their food I will be finished long before them.

[pellegrino]

It was always slightly jarring to hear members of the church in France to ask for a blessing upon the hands the prepared the meal. Clearly something brought over by American missionaries.

I always chuckle at that too, and I'll admit to having said it my fair share as well. Goofy as it may be, it's still a great use of metonymy.

[Mrs. Funk]

I always chuckle at that too, and I'll admit to having said it my fair share as well. Goofy as it may be, it's still a great use of metonymy.

Isn't it more synecdoche in this instance? It's been a long time since I took college poetry, though.

Edit: No, probably metonymy. This isn't an instance of "I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."

Edit Part 2: I've now thoroughly confused myself. I always had a hard time distinguishing the two.

[pellegrino]

Isn't it more synecdoche in this instance? It's been a long time since I took college poetry, though.

Edit: No, probably metonymy. This isn't an instance of "I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."

Edit Part 2: I've now thoroughly confused myself. I always had a hard time distinguishing the two.

you're right, it is synechdoche, a part for the whole

[Mrs. Funk]

you're right, it is synechdoche, a part for the whole

Not that it matters. It was more me trying to remember, as I haven't exercised my literary brain muscles in many a moon.

At any rate, if you came over to chez Funk for dinner, I would 1) not expect you to bless then synecdochical hands that prepared the meal and 2) I would wait to eat until everybody had food.

[TripletDaddy]

you should never eat until all the food has been properly blessed to strengthen and nourish everyone.

The other Sunday I was told "go ahead and eat...the food has already been blessed"

[il Padrino Ute]

Etiquette schmetiquette. It's every man for himself in my book.

[old_gregg]

it also depends on the food and atmosphere. le bernardin or daniel is a bit different from grabbing a few cheesesteaks. then again, a restaurant that is worthy of waiting for everyone to have their food should generally have it all out at the same time anyway.

[TripletDaddy]

it also depends on the food and atmosphere. le bernardin or daniel is a bit different from grabbing a few cheesesteaks. then again, a restaurant that is worthy of waiting for everyone to have their food should generally have it all out at the same time anyway.

I find it quite common for food to come out at different times even at nice places. That is also only referring to mains. Sometimes someone gets a soup or salad or something that comes out first and nobody else ordered that.

I agree that fast food probably doesn't apply.

[Katy Lied]

The better we know the other guests, the faster we (and they) eat. If I don't know them very well, I always wait.

When entertaining in my home, I either serve up buffet style, or family style, both cases people eat when they are ready.

In my culture, the teen aged boys customarily always wait on the others and eat after everyone else is done, although once they are done serving they still sit around the dining table and participate in the conversation. Whenever I visit the old country, I am amazed at how casual teen boys can be just sitting there without a single comment or glance conveying that they are hungry.

Once they turn 20, they dont have to wait on everyone else anymore. The younger teen boys then wait on them.

I notice the men of my country start to pack on the pound in their early 20s.