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When it comes to eating, there’s an etiquette rule for nearly everything. Even small things, like spreading butter on a croissant, has guidelines. While in the modern day there are some etiquette rules you should follow and others you can do without, back in the day, defined propriety was applied to nearly everything, down to eating your vegetables.
Back in the 1950s, there was even a way to properly eat asparagus. The directive was simple: Cut the asparagus in half before eating it. Specifically, the asparagus should be cut at the stalk horizontally, shortening the length of an asparagus stalk by half before eating it.
The point of this edict was to prevent the unfortunate and rather embarrassing appearance of a limp asparagus hanging out of your mouth. What’s most ironic about it was that it was quite a stark change from previous etiquette for eating asparagus. However, trends change, and even now, the way we eat asparagus is a far cry from how it was eaten in the 1950s.
Old vs. modern etiquette
For years, asparagus was considered a finger food that could be eaten as-is, no fancy manners required. This belief remained strong in other countries, like in Britain; it seems that etiquette shifted more so in America specifically.
According to Emily Post in the 1975 iteration of her book “The New Emily Post’s Etiquette,” the reason behind this alteration was for appearance’s sake. On top of avoiding the unusual look of half an asparagus stalk hanging from your mouth as you eat it, cutting it would help avoid potential mess. Gone would be the embarrassment of sauce dripping from a long asparagus stalk onto your lap or onto the table.
Nowadays, we’re less concerned with how we look while eating asparagus, and as a whole we don’t see it as a societal requirement to cut asparagus in half first. In a modern era, it’s more about the setting; if you’re eating a formal dinner, then maybe consider using your fork and knife rather than eating the asparagus with your hands. All in all, this rule seems to have been left in the past, right alongside the gelatin salads of old and other unusual vintage appetizers.
