This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)
Sometimes the littlest arguments are the hardest to settle. And sometimes those nagging little debates aren't actually minor at all.
Take Nina and Michael, from Evanston, Illinois (below)-- their Green Bean Feud has been simmering for well over a decade.
Michael wants to let their three elementary school kids eat green beans with their fingers, but Nina says good table manners are the foundation for successful adult life.
This week on The Sporkful they call in for Dan's advice. But what is this really about?
Nina argues that good table manners are an important life skill. She worries that her children will struggle to find their way in the world if they don't master eating etiquette while they're young.
"I want [our children] to find partners in the world and I want them to move out and have their own lives," she says. "If Mike had sat across the table from me at our first date and had picked up his food with his fingers...I'm not sure that we would be married and having this conversation. Those first impressions are super important."
But Michael is convinced that silverware is nothing more than a tool of oppression.
"I think silverware was imposed upon humanity many centuries ago by the artistocracy as a way to separate the common people from those of wealth," he argues.
Who's right, and who's wrong here? Do Michael and Nina's drastically opposing stances leave any room for compromise?
Listen in to the full episodes to hear Dan's take on this fierce green bean debate.
This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)
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Music in this episode from Black Label Music:
- "Scrambloid" by Kenneth J. Brahmstedt
- "Out To Lunch" by Chris Bierden
- "Sweet Summer Love" by Stephen Clinton Sullivan
Photos: FlickrCC/RossCatrow; FlickrCC/Basheer Tome; FlickrCC/Quinn Dombrowski
