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The next time you eat something with your hands, take a moment to notice how it feels on your fingertips before taking a bite. If it’s a burger, are the buns smooth or covered in a smattering of sesame seeds? When you put pressure on them with your fingers, does the bread squish down or is it more of a crumby affair? Then, when you finally take a bite, notice how satisfying it is to sink your teeth through its layers; soft bun giving way to crunchy lettuce or onion, to oozy cheese to, finally, juicy patty. Now think about how different it would be if you had used a knife and fork. Eating with one’s hands is an immensely pleasurable experience. While in the West, the act is usually confined to foods encased in bread or pastry, Indian, African and some other Asian cultures are more adept at using their fingers for dishes that might seem too “messy” or “sticky” on this side of the world. One of my favourite dishes is banana leaf rice, which at its core comprises of rice, vegetables and curry. I mix each element of the dish and use a pinching motion with all five fingers to construct the perfect bite, before sweeping it up in a quick motion and delivering the food to my mouth. I find that it forces me to really consider each bite, from what flavours and textures I want it to contain, to how large a portion I can manage. Up until a few months ago, I never really thought about how often I eat with my hands. Like many people, I associated it closely with Indian meals and always thought that Western culture was too obsessed with polite society to really dig their fingers in. This is still true, to an extent – many South Asians who grew up eating with their hands report being looked at with horror when they attempted to do the same in public here. But, after witnessing my very white British husband happily dig into banana leaf rice when we began dating, and having conversations with friends about the topic, I’ve come to realise that eating with our hands is a much more universal act than I thought. For example, burgers, pizzas, hot dogs and chips are all eaten by hand – unless you’re eating one of those beastly burgers that tower too high and need to be deconstructed. Then there’s things like fried chicken or shellfish, which are simply easier to pick up, pull apart and pry open using your fingers. Foods like Mexican burritos and tacos or Japanese sushi are commonly picked up by hand and devoured. Some people enjoy eating salads by hand, finding it easier to use pieces of lettuce filled with dressing and other ingredients like edible spoons. A surprising proponent of this was Sylvia Plath, who wrote in the third chapter of her 1963 novel The Bell Jar that she observed a poet eating a salad “with his fingers, leaf by leaf”, making it “seem to be the only natural and sensible thing to do”. The more I think about it, the more I realise that my hands are my favourite utensil. No one is delicately picking up crisps with chopsticks or forking a French fry. All manner of flat breads – from parathas and naans to injeras – beg to be torn apart by hands and used to mop up dhal and curry. I would never think of eating a sandwich with a fork and knife, any more than I would for a Taiwanese bao. It just seems wrong. On this side of the world, cutlery has reigned supreme until very recently. Primitive humans have been carving knife and spoon-like implements for centuries, while the fork is a surprisingly modern invention. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, a Byzantine princess debuted a golden fork at her wedding feast in Venice 1006, which disgusted locals who ate using their fingers and knives. One Venetian apparently condemned such a tool and said: “God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks – his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to him to substitute artificial metal forks for them when eating.” There’s perhaps also an aspect of self-consciousness being thrown out the window when we eat with our hands. It banishes the concept of formality and Anglocentric ‘table manners’ Surekha Ragavan Despite the initial rejection, forks became a mainstay across Europe after 1533 when Catherine De Medici, wife of Henry II, hauled a collection of silver forks from Italy to France in 1533. Three hundred years later, the full set of silverware as we know it had integrated itself into everyday life in Europe. Manners-obsessed Victorians then made up all sorts of etiquette rules, from how to hold a fork, to the myriad of different-sized cutleries with very specific purposes – like fish knives and dessert spoons. These became class markers, separating the upper echelons of society with their dinky utensils from the lower classes, who worked too much to care about which spoon went where. But one thing could be agreed upon – eating with one’s hands was considered impolite and vulgar in almost all culinary situations. That is, until about a decade ago when DeBrett’s, the British authority on etiquette and behaviour, declared in their 2012 guide that “table manners are no longer about adhering to a rigid, and outdated, code of conduct”. The experts named foods like pizza and calzone as “acceptable” foods to be eaten using your hands. It also advised such adventurous eaters to create “as little mess as possible”, sit up straight and ensure you “never put your elbows on the table”, proving that some old habits die hard. Bristol-based restaurateur Rashintha Rodrigo, one of the five founders of Sri Lankan restaurant group The Coconut Tree, says he eats almost anything with his hands – even a roast dinner. “I start with a fork and knife but always find myself picking pieces of chicken or potato off my plate with my fingers towards the end of the meal,” he laughs. He also grew up eating rice and curry with his hands in Sri Lanka, and felt self-conscious about doing the same when he moved to Britain. But these days, he finds it liberating. “It’s become more accepted in the past five or six years and more people are curious about it,” Rodrigo says. Surekha Ragavan, founder of Periuk, a digital archive of heritage Malaysian recipes, also finds freedom in the act. “There’s perhaps also an aspect of self-consciousness being thrown out the window when we eat with our hands. It banishes the concept of formality and Anglocentric ‘table manners’,” she says, reminding me of another observation by Plath in The Bell Jar. The author’s liberation is slightly different, though, as she wrote: “I’d discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at a table with a certain arrogance… nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty.” Those who advocate eating with hands often also say it makes the food taste better, but no one seems to be able to pinpoint why. Jose Pizzaro, the acclaimed Spanish owner and founder of the Pizarro group of restaurants, describes it as “the best way to eat”. “It’s a visceral pleasure that’s really hard to beat,” he says. “It creates a sort of magical connection between you and the food. If you’ve never eaten a big, fat, juicy prawn covered with garlic and lemon with your hands, and then go through the ritual of pulling off the legs and the shell and then sucking the brains out – you haven’t lived!” But why is the tactile sensation of touching food so delightful? Some opine that touching your food is beneficial because you can gauge food temperature better with your fingers, and so run a lower risk of burning your tongue. Others claim that your fingers have “healthy bacteria” on them that get transferred into your digestive system when you eat with your hands, but these are difficult to quantify. However, Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, believes the pleasure lies in our perception of food, as opposed to any other physical benefits. In his review of how the experience of eating changes when people eat with their hands instead of cutlery, Spence found that having more direct, tactile contact with food appears to “enhance the experience” of eating and drinking. “There’s a lot of sensory input that happens even before we put the food in our mouth,” he says. “Just by using our sensitive finger pads, we almost anticipate how tasty something is going to be before it reaches our tongue.” There’s practicality in using our hands to eat, too. We can determine how ripe a fruit is by squeezing it gently, or figure out if something is going to be soft or crunchy before biting into it. Of course, there are some dishes that are simply not hand-friendly. Noodles, pasta and soups obviously require cutlery to eat, but there’s nothing to stop us from taking more joy in the foods we can eat with our hands. If you’ve never tried handling anything beyond a sandwich or a pasty, I fully encourage you to try something new. Take a leaf out of Plath’s book with your next salad, perhaps, or take the plunge into some rice and curry. It will require practice to develop the skill of eating without dropping rice absolutely everywhere, but I promise you, it’s worth it. Read More Adorable, cuddly… evil? How the Furby took over the world ‘You think it’s going to be a money making machine’: How modern life killed the hobby The dish that defines me: Mallini Kannan’s baked honey-soy salmon 30-minute summer recipes for all the family to enjoy What to cook this week: Tomato tart, sweetcorn pasta and other summery suppers The dish that defines me: Mallini Kannan’s baked honey-soy salmon

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Erik ten Hag told his players that their drop-off in the defeat at Tottenham was unacceptable as the Manchester United boss accused some of the team of not running or sticking to their jobs. Having finished third in the Premier League and won the Carabao Cup during a promising first season in charge, Ten Hag began the new campaign with a 1-0 win against Wolves but United were fortunate to get anything from the game. The Red Devils were then beaten 2-0 at Spurs after a fine start faded in the capital last Saturday, but the manager hit back at suggestions his midfield was to blame. “You also have to make clinical analysis and that assessment is not right,” Ten Hag said. “It’s not about the midfield. “It was about the back and the front. That’s why we were open.” Pressed on what those areas of the team were not doing, the United boss retorted: “They didn’t run, or they run in the wrong moment, too late, especially the front, didn’t recover. “It happened, you can’t turn it around. But it’s a demand here, if you want to win games. “First 35 minutes, we were so good and we dominated the game totally. We should have scored minimum once, but I think two. “They were nowhere, nothing, and then things happen in the game and they got distracted, not doing their jobs anymore. That’s not a demand from a Manchester United player and from our team. “I am not used to it from this team because they always do (it). The demand for Manchester United is you do it 90 minutes and you do it every game, no matter what.” The 53-year-old’s frustration was made clear in the press conference previewing Saturday’s match against Nottingham Forest, just as it had been to the players in the build-up. “I told them, I gave them the feedback that this is not acceptable,” Ten Hag said. “We have to work as a team, we have to do it with togetherness. Every individual has to take responsibility.” Asked if they are big enough to take that responsibility and accept criticism, the United boss said: “Oh, yes. We are in the same boat. I am responsible for it, me as well. “We have to do that in togetherness and we have to face the first two games were not good enough, but still one we won. “From the other we can take the positives. If we do the right things in the first 35 minutes, we have a very good team and we will win games if everyone is doing their job.” The loss at Spurs also saw Bruno Fernandes face some criticism, particularly the recently appointed captain’s appeals for a first-half penalty and comments about the decision afterwards. “Of course I back him and I think he has also to make his point,” Ten Hag said. “It’s justified and it was a clear penalty, so then you can express it. “But also don’t get distracted by it. You have to keep focusing on your job. “Last season when he (was captain), he did already brilliant. Now as well. “He’s an inspiration, he’s an example for the team, he has the personality, so he’s a very good captain.” Fernandes and United will attempt to right the ship at Old Trafford, where fans are planning to protest against the Glazers with a sit-in after Saturday’s match. The club have lost their place at the top of English football during their ownership and look short, in terms of a quality and depth, of a title bid ahead of next Friday’s transfer deadline. Ten Hag ruled out signing a striker but is understood to be keen to bring in a midfielder, while Fenerbahce goalkeeper Altay Bayindir has undergone a medical ahead of a potential move. United may now also move for a left-back after Luke Shaw suffered an injury, with back-up Tyrell Malacia also absent and Brandon Williams departing on loan. “It can be, because I think always we have to anticipate on situations,” Ten Hag said. “If there are good opportunities, yes, but it has to be the right player otherwise we have to deal with the current squad.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Dina Asher-Smith upbeat about Olympics after worlds bid hit by mystery problem Jenni Hermoso labels Luis Rubiales kiss ‘sexist’ as Spain squad refuse to play Keely Hodgkinson out for revenge in bid for 800m title at World Championships

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