Cultures That Eat with Their Hands (And How to Do It Correctly)

When it comes time to sit down for a meal in a foreign country, travelers may be faced with an array of dining utensils they have never seen before and may not even know how to use. But a completely different concern comes with arriving at a dinner table where there are no utensils whatsoever. In cultures where it is customary to dine using only your hands, here are a few tips for digging in without offending.

When diving into dosas in India, be sure to reach for food and pass food with your right hand. Passing or eating using your left hand may be seen as contaminating as the left hand is culturally less clean than the right hand. When carefully eating the rice served with biryani, forming the rice into small balls can help in transferring the rice from your plate to your mouth.

Ethiopia is another country where eating with your hands is par for the course and typically involves using bread as a utensil. Scoop up meat, veggies and sauces, and check to make sure no sauce drips from the handful of food, which should be eaten between the first three fingers.

In the Mexican state of Oaxaca, locals also use bread to aid them in eating, but instead of a spongy bread like the one used in Ethiopian cuisine, Oaxacans use tortillas. When the meal is finished, tortillas are used yet again to completely clean the plate. The only main rule of etiquette is to keep your hands above the table while dining.