Is it rude to lick your fingers while eating in a restaurant?

Question

Or eating anywhere, period? Maybe it's just me, but I find it to be very rude. Isn't that what napkins are for?

Answer 1

It's rude, just like it's rude to blow your nose or pick your teeth. The person should use the napkin. If that doesn't work, he (or she) should excuse himself (or herself) and wash his (or her) hands in the restroom.

Answer 2

It's rude and disgusting. In a restaurant, workplace, school or anywhere public where other people will have to touch the same things that finger licked fingers will touch.

Answer 3

Licking of fingers is reserved for "outdoor" dining and not indoor, where napkins are the proper "utensils" for cleaning of the fingers, when finger-food is offered and eaten inside of a restaurant. Licking of fingers must be done with grace, however, and not accompanied by loud, sloppy, slurping of one's mouth.

While licking fingers is impolite, it does not necessarily cross the line of rude, or very rude. Those are reserved for when someone ELSE licks YOUR fingers without your permission!

Have a polite day!

Answer 4

You could get away with it at a picnic, but it is rude in a restaurant or in "polite company."

There are some other places it might be okay, like in survival school when you are getting the last little bit of nutrition out of that rattlesnake you just killed and roasted over an open fire.

Yum! Tastes just like chicken without the feathers.

Answer 5

If I'm eating anywhere upmarket -- silver service, white linen tablecloths, wait-staff in bow-ties -- I wouldn't be eating with my fingers at all.. so no licking of fingers!

If you've been served shrimp / king prawn, you usually get a bowl of hot lemon water (or tea) to *wash* your fingers in...

You're right with the secondary Q - that's what napkins are for .. wiping off your fingers. Me, I wouldn't lick my fingers in "polite company", or important dinner events.. but among good friends and family, with e.g. ribs, I *might* _sneak_ a quick finger-lick to savour the BBQ sauce! ;)

NEVER EVER on dates, Gentlemen, please! =D
(Unless you happen to have taken her to KFC! Then it's almost REQUIRED -- "finger-lickin' good!")

... but as a couple people have mentioned, in some cultures and therefore some "traditional" style restaurants, it would be acceptable.. especially where people would normally eat with their hands, e.g. (East) Indian food, BBQ-style, etc..

Answer 6

Probably, but I don't really care about that too much at a regular restaurant. I don't want my family to do it. BUT what really bugs me, is that at buffet style restaurants people are eating ribs and other things that you typically use your fingers to eat and then they lick their fingers and go back to the buffet and grab the utensils with those same licked fingers and get more food! EWWWW! We don't go to buffets anymore.

Answer 7

it depends what type of restaurant and it depends where that person who did it is from...for example if you go to an indian restaurant that is considered normal...
and mostly Indian/Pakistani people tend to eat with their hands...and same with Arabs for the most part...it is in some cultures proper to lick your finger tips after you finished eating with your hands...whereas in the "American culture" it is considered not very proper...it really depends...but try not to be ethnocentric...and be more culture-bound when you see people do this...b/c it is more than not a culture thing...some people from other countries find it difficult to integrate in the American society especially the older folks...

Answer 8

Yes in most western countries it would be seen as rude but in some other cultures it is seen as a compliment to the food and thereby the chef.

Answer 9

Yes, it is rude to lick your fingers, especially if you are at a buffet.

Answer 10

In an elbows-on-the-table kind of way. Yes, that's what napkins are for.