Knife and Fork

I am feeling self-conscious about my American learned table manners. As a child, I was taught the way of my countrymen to use cutlery by my parents. In fact, I went to private girls school and took diction classes where  I learned etiquette that included table manners. We also learned how to faint, like a lady, which I have used a few times.

When I travel abroad, I am conscious of eating in restaurants. I know that we right-handed Americans have the custom of cutting with the knife in right hand with the fork in the left and then switching the fork to the right hand and setting down the knife on to the plate. We use the fork like a shovel and rarely employ the knife to assist. I am conscious of people here using their forks like a spear and of the knife being always busy.

Can one just stop eating the way that they learned as a child? And even if they could, should they?

I know that this causes me to slow my eating down tremendously. I somehow have gotten the idea that if I move slowly and pause a lot, put down my cutlery, interrupt my natural pattern, that I won't be noticed.  This self consciousness has caused me to have coughing spells in restaurants which is much more conspicuous that my cutlery dilemma. I fear that Europeans think that I am just another culture-less American. I am conscious of the difference wherever I go in Europe. I really try to show my good manners which come naturally to me, but is it considered bad manners if you have a different way of doing things and it's not like the people around you at that moment. "When in Rome", do you have to change your ways if they are just as polite as the way of the Romans?

I did a little quick research into why American use utensils the way they do. It seems that back in The Wild West,  it was considered dangerous and rude to hold on to the knife as the knife is a weapon. So everyone would put down their weapon ( knife) when not being used.
I also read that during the time of the Pilgrim there were a limited number of knives, so they had to be shared. You would use it to cut and then put it down for the next person to pick up.

The Nazi's discovered American spies by the way they used their knife and fork. 

I also read that the Europeans used to eat with the cross over method that the Americans employ, but decided to streamline it and changed. We Americans stayed with the old style.

I have given in one old way of eating that I was taught. My Mother loved spaghetti ( which we now call pasta ). When we had it for dinner when I was a child, I would set the table to include a big spoon with which to twirl the spaghetti into edible sizes. She had picked this up from somewhere, I will never know. My whole life I had eaten spaghetti this way. It was so nice to do something a little different for dinner once in awhile. I had thought that the Italians ate it that way. I always found it romantic, that is until I went to Italy and learned that eating spaghetti with a big spoon is frowned upon.

Sadly, I let that family tradition go...but will I, even if I could, learn to spear my food, turn the fork so that it's back is arched upwards and keep the knife dancing. I'm not sure.

My Knife Awaits it's orders.