Let us know what you think about table manners.
Reviewed
by Dr. George Simons at diversophy.com
Tanya Kosh has a
both brilliant and entertaining writing style, easy to read, yet stimulating
and surprising at the same time. When I took notice of her book, being an
inveterate foodie as well as an interculturalist, I asked to review it
immediately. Travel and food and foreign company are inevitable in my line of
work, and table manners seem only to be lightly touched upon in most of the
literature about business abroad and expatriation. When They are dealt with,
advice is largely behavioral – one gets tips about do’s and don’ts, but very
little insight about the logic behind local customs and the inner discourse which
supports them as well as raises feelings about their observance or violation.
This book is
much more a reflection on the philosophy behind what we do at table rather than
an international tour guide. I don't think I would be far off to describe it as
auto ethnography, in that the author largely speaks from her own experiences as
an extremely well-traveled professional. In addition, there are anecdotal
treasures found in the author’s interviews and discussions with others. For
those of us who love stories, this approach adds to the pleasure of the read.
The line from Crow and Weasel, a children’s
book, always reminds me, “Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to
stay alive.”
On the other
hand, coming from a working-class immigrant family to the USA, I have had a lot
of contradictory etiquette to sort out. I also have many sins to confess and
repent of. Perhaps the most egregious and precocious of these was, as a four-year-old,
gobbling all the maraschino cherries topping grapefruit halves on an elegantly
set table, while my parents and their hosts chatted in the parlor.
The roots and
variations of table manners (even if we eat sitting on the floor), like many
sacred dogmas, are often rooted in practicality and survival. Whatever our
kosher or halal, or our behavior consuming it, it is likely to find its roots
buried in the safety, security, and community concerns of our cultural group
ancestors, if not explicitly exposed, as in the present day abundance of
contemporary “food religions”. These root considerations sprout into spiritual,
ethnic, national, class, and myriad other distinctions, and may be critical in
contexts of business and diplomacy. In interculturalist terms, it is important
to recognize that table manners are part of one’s own identity discourse and an
identity marker for others, while yet, in the age of globalization, the
frontiers are increasingly porous.
Kosh’s book,
though it cannot precise your behavior, helps you stay you alert and keep your
head about you, a useful passport when crossing alimentary frontiers. In
closing, one point that stuck out for me was the author’s clear emphasis on the
fact that you can’t eat and digest well or at all when you are afraid. Knowing
good manners reduces that fear, as does the kind whispered advice of a cultural
informant sitting next to us in an unfamiliar dining context. It is not only
important to act correctly in the situation, but also to quell the
gastro-intestinal butterflies by knowing that we are doing it right and helping
fellow diners to that same comfort. Bon
apetit!
