DAILY MAIL – How you eat your asparagus may reveal how ‘posh’ you are, an etiquette expert has revealed – after the actor who played King Charles in The Crown nearly committed a dining faux pas when, in one scene, he used a knife and fork to eat the vegetable.
Speaking to History EXTRA Magazine, Annie Sulzberger – Head of Research at the show – said that while filming, Dominic West tried to reach for the cutlery while tucking into the delicacy.
‘Our amazing etiquette adviser, David Rankin Hunt, stopped him and said: posh people don’t eat asparagus with knives and forks – they use their fingers,’ she said.
‘So we reset and reshot it with Dom picking up the asparagus with his fingers.
‘It’s important to have so many voices who can chime in with their experience, because I don’t think I would have been able to look up the way in which two posh people would have eaten asparagus back in 1992.’
‘You may double-dip in the sauce so long as it is your own portion.’
Speaking to History EXTRA Magazine, Annie Sulzberger said that while filming, Dominic West tried to reach for the cutlery while tucking into the vegetable at Highgrove
Major David Rankin-Hunt, who worked for the royal family for 33 years in two roles, has advised makers of The Crown on everything from satorial choices to salutes and umbrellas.
Speaking to Femail in 2015, one etiquette expert revealed another set of rules when it comes to eating the delicacy.
‘If served as a first course, rather than an accompaniment vegetable, these are eaten with the hands and dipped into the hollandaise sauce,’ William Hanson explained.
‘Brits will eat these with the left hand (leaving the right hand free of grease, ready to shake hands or pick up a wine glass, for example); there are some cultures where eating with the left hand is not the done thing, in this case, they may eat the asparagus with the right hand. (Not many know the left-hand rule today.)
