UNITED STATES, January 18, 2012: Julie Sahni vividly remembers the first time she had to eat with utensils. Ms. Sahni, a New York-based cookbook author and cooking teacher, grew up in India eating the traditional way, with her right hand. Then, in college, she won a dance competition that would take her to Europe. How, she wondered, would she eat?
Ms. Sahni, 66, mastered the knife and fork, but she has never really liked them. “Eating with the hands evokes great emotion,” she said. “It kindles something very warm and gentle and caressing. Using a fork is unthinkable in traditional Indian eating. It is almost like a weapon.” Ms. Sahni refuses to eat Indian food with a knife and fork, even in the most formal South Asian restaurants in New York. “I don’t care if I’m all dressed up, if everyone else is eating with a knife and fork, if the wine pairing is $80,” she said. “It’s essential.”
Eating with the hands is common in many areas of the world, including parts of Asia and much of Africa and the Middle East. But until recently, you would have been hard-pressed to find many restaurants in the United States –especially those with $20 or $30 entrees– where digging in manually was encouraged. Now, several high-profile chefs are asking diners to get their hands dirty, in the belief that it heightens the sensual connection to food and softens the formality of fine dining.
When the chef Roy Choi surveys the busy dining room of A-Frame, his restaurant in Culver City, Calif., only one thing can dampen his mood: cutlery. “I see people cutting kalbi ribs like a steak, and it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard,” he said. A-Frame, whose eclectic menu Mr. Choi says was inspired by Hawaiian cuisine, is utensils optional. Though a basket of silverware is provided at each table, when the grilled pork chop or market salad arrives, servers advise customers that they’ll be missing out if they pick up a fork.
Etiquette is central to most traditions of hand-to-mouth eating; the artfulness and ritual of the practice is part of what people love about it. Hand-washing often comes first. In many communities, a prayer of thanks comes next. Only then can one reach in –usually with just the right hand– to eat. And dining with the hands is not necessarily easy: in some regions, including parts of India, it is most polite to use your thumb, pointer and middle finger, and to let only the first two joints of those fingers touch the food.