Hands vs. Cutlery

While there are many other important battles to stress about, there is this one battle which catches everyone's attention while dining in public: hands vs. cutlery. The cutlery keeps gazing at you as the steaming plate of food arrives, and you're often left thinking whether you should choose the easy way out and forget about the positive table manner image you planned to create.

I bet you can never deny that eating with hands always makes you feel comfortable. While eating with hands, there is no constant pressure of cruising your spoon through the meal, stabbing your chicken with a fork, and of course, finding it tough to take out the fork when the chicken's stiff. Plus there is no harsh sound arising from the friction between the fork and the plate; even writing about it makes my ears cringe.

If you're worried about spilling your food off the plate and be considered a little kid in the body of an adult trying to grasp the art of eating, hands are your best friends. That being said, chances are high that the mouth-watering, grilled chicken will beg you to stab it, and when you do so, the bony chicken might fly away into the next person's plate. Anyway, the hassle is always less while eating with hands – be it smoothly tearing the chicken apart or not sweating profusely thinking whether the way you're holding the fork is wrong.

Despite having major pros, there is one con. That is, you cannot show off your cutlery skills and create a 5/5 table manner impression. Some might argue that using cutlery to eat is always the better option as it keeps your eating hand clean. 

I'm not athletic, but I can definitely jump to the conclusion that eating with hands is more satisfying while using cutlery is more graceful. What do you think?

Shah Tazrian Ashrafi wants his life to be like stormtroopers: always missing easy kill shots. Send him prayers at tazrian1234@gmail.com