I was in a restaurant in Minneapolis last night. Towards the end of the meal, I turned towards the table next to me and watched as a man licked and sucked on every one of his fingers. He began by sucking on his index finger, then pulled it out of his mouth, inspected it, and moved on to the next finger.

This wasn’t a rib joint or a finger-licking chicken place. The restaurant was a hip and trendy Italian place filled with all of the Twin City’s supposed “beautiful people.” The man making the loud sucking sounds at the table next to me was dressed nicely, he was with an attractive woman, he was wearing the typical uniform of the urban hipster— black on black, accessorized with more black, and Bono glasses— and he was smacking and licking his fingers throughout the entire meal.

It’s too bad that a good-manners manual doesn’t come as a complementary gift with every pair of John Varvatos boots.

As I was eating dessert and looking around the restaurant, I noticed a man at another table licking and smacking as he sucked on every one of his fingertips, also pausing to inspect each finger before sticking the next in his mouth. Maybe it’s a Minnesota thing, I thought, then I remembered another event.

Several months ago, my wife and I were at a cocktail party in a stately home in the Garden District of New Orleans. One of the party’s guests, a very notable and high-profile New Orleans businesswoman, walked up to us, began talking while eating some type of hors d’oeuvre. She was licking, smacking, and sucking on every finger while not missing a beat of the conversation.

People… can we stop all of this finger licking! Enough already.

Licking ones fingers instead of using a napkin certainly shows a lack of etiquette, but besides that, it’s just nasty. More importantly, in these days of Swine Flu, Rotavirus, and all sorts of other communicable diseases, no one should be licking their fingers.

Note: This column has NOT turned into male version of Miss Manners. I tried to do my typical treatment with this subject— make a few jokes, rip on Minnesotans, then tie in a few humorous anecdotes, but I was too grossed out by all of the finger-licking.

One of my wife’s pet peeves is when people blow their noses in restaurants. I don’t like that either, but I can stomach nose blowing before I can finger licking. It freaks me out. Someone’s going to lick their fingers and then shake hands with you. Or worse, sneeze into their hands, lick their fingers, and then shake your hand. Don’t get me started on the sneezing-in-the-hand thing.

That’s all for my finger-licking soapbox speech.

By the way, Minneapolis is cold. I’m not talking about you-better-put-your-heavy-coat-on-before-you-go-outside-in-Mississippi cold. I’m talking about REAL cold, so cold it’s silly. It got down to negative 14 degrees last night. It’s January in Minnesota and I have no idea why these people live up here.

One last observation (just to make sure we have covered the bases for a “food” column): The brats at the Minneapolis Metrodome aren’t as good as the brats at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. And yes, it’s a breach of etiquette to lick ones fingers after eating a brat at a football game.





Crescent City Grill 1000 Island Dressing:

2 cups Mayonnaise

1 /2 cup Chili Sauce

2 Tbl. Bell Pepper, small dice

1 Tbl. Onion, minced

3 Tbl.Sweet Pickle Relish

pinch Salt

1 1 /2 Boiled Eggs, chopped



Combine all ingredients thoroughly



Robert St.John is a restaurateur, chef, and author of the newly released “Dispatches From My South.” He can be reached at www.robertstjohn.com.