Mind The Gap

Here at FS we love our food and relish enjoying food with our friends and families. However, sharing the sights and sounds of said food in your mouth is quite another matter. Drawing attention to yourself is never really advised at the best of times however it is especially repulsive when you do so with a mouthful of food. It's a spectacle. An unsightly one at that.  When partially chewed food falls from your mouth or is catapulted across the table it is ultimately an embarrassment to yourself and, i would even stretch to say, a disgrace.  Why some people feel the need to keep their mouth open during a meal, not only with food, but with chat, is beyond me. Finish your mouthful, keep your mouth closed and then you can speak. i'm sure whatever it is you have to tell me can wait. We all can agree that it is most unpleasant, on your journeys to or from work, when your fellow commuter opens a packet of quavers,  a Pret cheese and pickle, or a kebab from your local chippie and continues to eat its contents, not only obliterating the smell across the carriages, but nonchalantly allowing bits of food to fall on his/her lap, uncomfortably close to your own.  For those of you who stuff fingers in their mouths, or prod forks aggressively into their pie-holes whilst their bottom jaw seems to momentarily drop from its hinges and waggle unforgivingly forming a double chin and skimming their neck, this is not a good look.  No, i do not want to wake up and travel half way across london to witness what can only be likened to some sort of food eating competition. the sorts that you come across in the southern states of America. And no, i do not want to sit amongst friends whilst someone lets down the side and anoints the whole table with dessert.  We have become lazy in tradition.  1 or 2 thousand years ago the Greek and Roman manners dictated that people eat with their fingers while reclining on a couch. i say, fair enough.  Even in this day and age certain cultures allow for hand-eating, floor squatting and so on.  I am all for this way of dining, give me a cushion and a low-leve table any day, however the want for cutlery and furniture has taken over in the west, so perhaps it is time for people to acknowledge this and start to eat with a little more class and a little less crass.