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Well, it depends a lot on the circumstances and which kind of pizza you are talking about. Pizza with the capital P is the one you can have in a pizzeria. In our pizzerie pizza is nothe cut into slices before serving it, you are given the whole pie on a plate and fork and knife for cutting it how do you prefere. You can cut it into slices by yourself and eat it by hands, or cut smaller pieces and eat it with fork. If the pizza is really thin, the second method is usually the one that works better.
Then you can find various kinds of other variants, some places do sell slices that look like the US ones (but we don't considered those slices as real pizza), there are the "pizzeria al taglio" and "focacce", which are sold by bakeries cut into rectangles and are a good food for a short break. Some places (usually around Naples) make regular round pizza, fold it twice and sell them like this, and you can eat it by hand.
So the answer is: it depends.
My father who was born and raised in Italy and came to the US shortly after WW2, ate all those things with a knife and fork. Using your hands was for him uncivilized.
I understand the thought process - I just don't think it makes a lot of sense. Like I said, it's superfluous. I wouldn't eat English peas with my hands, or soup, or mashed potatoes, but pizza? Fries? A burger? Fried chicken? C'mon, man.
I rarely eat any of that stuff anyway.
For the record, I'm perfectly capable and willing to use a fork and knife on ANYTHING that truly needs it - including all of the above, if they need it. But on the rare occasions that I eat any of that, it's simply not necessary.
And if I was in a foreign country, I for SURE wouldn't be eating any of that. I don't go to a foreign country to eat food that is so readily available in the USA - that I rarely even eat here!
And though I've been to more than my fair share of fancy dinners and restaurants, I have never been served or seen being served pizza, hamburgers, fries or fried chicken in that sort of setting. And once again, if I am at a nice restaurant, the last thing I'd order would be any of the above.
I understand the thought process - I just don't think it makes a lot of sense. Like I said, it's superfluous. I wouldn't eat English peas with my hands, or soup, or mashed potatoes, but pizza? Fries? A burger? Fried chicken? C'mon, man.
I rarely eat any of that stuff anyway.
For the record, I'm perfectly capable and willing to use a fork and knife on ANYTHING that truly needs it - including all of the above, if they need it. But on the rare occasions that I eat any of that, it's simply not necessary.
I agree but for my dad it was how he was raised. He was born in 1917 to a wealthy upper class family and they considered eating with you hands a sign of low class. The war changed all that and he came to the US with nothing but some things are ingrained.
@ civis : as lukas said, I found every American I met "funny, welcoming, polite, talkative". Only one (slight) exception is a former friend, who was passive-agressive (but he's a Sattleite, that explains a lot).
On the other hand, I found the Dutch rather cold , sometimes nasty (I had the rays of the wheels of my bicycle twisted by some malignant folk in A'dam, a burger seller even told me "shut up Franse Ratte" because he felt I was talking too loudly in the queue). And they are far less courteous than the Americans , there is a Dutch family living near our vacation home in the South of France, and they talk very loudly, very careless (and their language is not that pleasant to the ear either).
@ civis : as lukas said, I found every American I met "funny, welcoming, polite, talkative". Only one (slight) exception is a former friend, who was passive-agressive (but he's a Sattleite, that explains a lot).
On the other hand, I found the Dutch rather cold , sometimes nasty (I had the rays of the wheels of my bicycle twisted by some malignant folk in A'dam, a burger seller even told me "shut up Franse Ratte" because he felt I was talking too loudly in the queue). And they are far less courteous than the Americans , there is a Dutch family living near our vacation home in the South of France, and they talk very loudly, very careless (and their language is not that pleasant to the ear either).
From my experiences, Dutch are extraordinary loud and annoying. Especially when travelling on the airplane or train. Good that the dutch train have some stiltje (silence) compartments where people HAVE to be silent. Children and parents tend to behave less decent than other nations and think the world turns around themselves. And I always have a little feeling that they want to cheat on one in business. I don't know how to describe but they often just try to go the "easy way", without proper work. You can see it how the mechanics or craftsmen do their job, but also in research environment. My gf used to be a professor in the Netherlands for a couple of years and she always said that it was difficult to get students to work and especially to work properly with an scientific standard. And they still always asked for so much help of the professor without own input that most other countries professors would have just refused any further supervision.
From my experiences, Dutch are extraordinary loud and annoying. Especially when travelling on the airplane or train. Good that the dutch train have some stiltje (silence) compartments where people HAVE to be silent. Children and parents tend to behave less decent than other nations and think the world turns around themselves. And I always have a little feeling that they want to cheat on one in business. I don't know how to describe but they often just try to go the "easy way", without proper work. You can see it how the mechanics or craftsmen do their job, but also in research environment. My gf used to be a professor in the Netherlands for a couple of years and she always said that it was difficult to get students to work and especially to work properly with an scientific standard. And they still always asked for so much help of the professor without own input that most other countries professors would have just refused any further supervision.
Not too sure about cheating in business, that seems more like an American habit to me, but I fully agree with the rest.
Because ones occupation is your identity here in America. It's a very judgmental state of mind. You'd never ever see a janitor hanging out at a bar with a lawyer. Just the way it is here in USA. Shallow. There's even TV shows made around this premise.
Well the reason why this American asks about occupation is because someone's occupation will provide you with lots of information about the person's interests which in turn leads to more conversations down the road. If I meet someone who works as a physics professor, I know from their profession that science and math are subjects that are important to them and that provides me with a starting point unto which you can get to know them better.
Concerning your point about the janitor and lawyer. This is the case basically the world over. Its a known fact the people generally co-mingle with other people who are on a similar financial and educational level. Its hardly just an American issue, its a people issue.
I don't understand how people on here share their little stories of a couple Americans or a couple of Germans they meet and think they know so much about the cultures based on those people.
When i was in Florida not too long ago you saw sooo many Europeans, many of them German. there is no way in h-ll i could judge the whole culture, they all acted in different ways, some were really loud and annoying and others were really quiet and well mannered.
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