Hand to mouth

Felipe Fernández-Armesto on the etiquette of finger food

I ONCE SHARED THE TABLE of a former Master of Marlborough College with a guest who looked just like a gorilla. “I don’t want to say who it is,” announced the host’s eight-year-old daughter, “but someone here looks just like a gorilla.” “Don’t be rude about your father, dear,” the Master interjected. Children are invaluable interlocutors if you want to insult a guest without licensing offence. My students read Fernão Mendes Pinto’s account of an entertainment in Bungo in Japan in the 1550s, when the daimyo’s little girl and her schoolfriends put on a play, savagely lampooning the visitors for eating with their fingers. Perhaps, the script ventured, the Portuguese revered votive offerings in the form of the hands of St Amaro because of their own cack-handedness with chopsticks. “Since…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2024

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