The Sound of Chewsic

 

It’s time for a sound/taste crossover post!

Let’s talk about table manners. We talk about table manners like they’re one concrete set of rules that we are supposed to follow. People say “Learn your table manners” like they would say “Learn your times tables” or “Learn your ABCs”. This results in people growing up with what they believe is a universal standard for how to act during meals. I am here to tell you that this is a LIE. You have been LIED TO. Table manners are a hoax! Though I probably don’t need to tell you this since I’m confident everyone has had an experience where they are taking part in a group meal outside of their familial bubble and feel awkward because everyone else at the table is acting completely differently from them. This is something I witnessed constantly growing up, and I think my experiences highlight a distinction in table manners between religions.

Now let’s tie it back to the sound part of this whole thing. There was one element of table manners that always confused me, that being the rules around chewing. This may sound like a strange thing to be confused about since chewing is a pretty unanimously disliked element of the eating process, especially audibly, but I assure you it’s not that simple. There’s one primary reason for this: My family is Jewish. While Jews are stereotyped in many unfair and inaccurate ways, the way in which they eat is not one of them. In many ways, we take the concept of “good manners” and flip them on their head. I cannot count the number of times I have hurt a relative’s feelings because I wasn’t showing that I was enjoying the food they cooked enough. And the way you often show you’re enjoying your food can be quite… noisy. Loud chewing is not only not considered rude, it is considered standard. This is the way in which I was raised, and it’s the way I took “good manners” to be for most of my life.

Now, time for some family history. The Jewish side of my family comes from my Mom. They are mostly based in the east as my mom’s grandparents immigrated to Brooklyn during the time many other Jews were coming to America. Since my extended family mostly stayed in the east, we saw them pretty frequently as I grew up in Vermont. However, my Dad’s family is very different. My dad comes from a background of devout Christianity. His Grandfather was a pastor in a small rural town in Texas, and he comes from a long line of other Pastors. Going to school to become a pastor is just what a Hartsfield man does. The reason I bring this up is because my Dad was raised very differently than I was. He grew up with what many would consider “traditional” manners. Chew with your mouth closed, no elbows on the table, napkin on your lap, etc. This led to a good deal of culture shock between my two sides of the family. When my Dad first met my Jewish grandmother, he addressed her as “ma’am” and my grandma laughed in his face, a very Jewish thing to do. He frequently tells the story of how overwhelmed he was when he first had a meal with my mom’s family. To him, they seemed incredibly impolite. Everyone was talking over one another, no one waited for people to finish talking before barging in and changing the conversation, elbows were all across the table, and most importantly, everyone was very LOUD. Of course, he now realizes that this was not impolite and was just their normal way of doing things. In fact, he seemed rude to them because he was being so quiet and reserved, which to Jews is a sign that someone is not enjoying themselves. After decades of living around my mom’s Jewish family, we’ve finally broken him in, but it took a long time to get there. I experience something very similar when I go to see his side of the family in Texas. My parents had to constantly remind my brother and I that we have to act differently around these people, which is something very confusing and hard to understand as a young child. But all in all, this shows perfectly how there is no one concept of “good manners”. Just different concepts of manners that evolve through different cultures.