The Proper Way To Use Your Spoon When Eating Soup

There is a reason the dish ran away with the spoon: It needed it for scooping and slurping up all that delicious homemade soups the two, undoubtedly, enjoyed together without being bothered with table etiquette. But alas, knowing how to properly use your spoon when you are dining on soup with others is a life skill. If you want to nosh on this dish in public spaces, it's important to remember it's all about the hand motion. 

First, you want to hold your spoon by its handle and row it in your bowl of soup, away from your body. This technique ensures that when the spoon touches the back of the soup bowl, any excess liquid or chunks of meats and veggies will drip or dribble off right back where they came from and not into your lap or onto the tablecloth when you bring it up to your mouth. It's also a good fail-stop so you don't overfill your spoon. If it seems a little hoity-toity, we get it, but your pocketbook will thank you when you don't have to stop at the dry cleaners to clean soup stains from your clothes.  

When you bring your soup spoon — the larger of the two spoons — up to your mouth, resist the temptation to put the tip of the utensil in your mouth. You want to sip your soup from the side. This is actually a much neater method of shoveling all those delicious purees and broths into your mouth. 

But how you move your spoon and where you sip from are not the only rules of etiquette you should note. When you are done eating your soup, don't leave the spoon in the bowl. It could fall out when the dishes are cleared, splashing soup remnants all over the place. You want to place it on the plate on which your soup bowl sets. The only time the spoon stays in the soup bowl is if you are taking a momentary pause to chit chat or dab at your mouth with your napkin.