Bread Etiquette


Eating Etiquette (How to Eat...)

Table manners for eating bread. Bread is broken or cut before it is eaten, depending on the texture (soft or firm), the temperature (hot or cold), and the shape (long and narrow or small and cubed).

Table manners for eating soft bread. Bread with a soft texture, such as rolls or muffins, is broken in half with fingers. A bite-size piece is pulled from the broken half, held against the side of the bread-and-butter plate, and buttered a bite at a time.

Table manners for eating firm bread. Bread with a firm texture, such as a sweet soft pastry or dry toast, is cut in half or quartered.

Table manners for eating warm bread. Hot sweet rolls and toast are buttered entirely and held by the sides (rather than laid flat on the palm of the hand).

Table manners for eating bread sticks. Bread sticks are made from sweet dough and do not require butter. However, when butter is applied, the length is buttered entirely or the end is buttered a bite at a time. To avoid excessive crumbs, proper table manners require that a bread stick be broken in half gently.

Table manners for eating croutons. Croutons are toasted cubes of buttered bread added as texture to food. Because the cubes are buttered, croutons are somewhat greasy and are spooned over food (rather than handled with fingers).

resting knife and fork etiquette

Our resting utensils etiquette section covers the rules (american and continental) for resting your utensils when taking a break from eating, when you are finished eating, and when you are passing food [...]

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