Frowned upon in the fatherland, as well. “(…)in Germany, it’s das Anstandsstück, or das [sic] Anstandsrest (…).”
Is it not rude anywhere in the world to take the last piece of anything?
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The article doesn’t really distinguish (unless I missed it) between leaving the last piece in a communal dish and leaving the last piece on your plate. The former could be considered rude. The latter is just wasting food, which I think is a terrible thing to do.
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"[T]he best move is not to eat the last piece yourself, but to offer it to each individual guest. “Say there’s one piece of chicken left–you offer it to your friend, you offer it to whomever is at the table.”
…and then eat it yourself after everyone declines and is gone.
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Except maybe at Casa Harters. Until I read this, I didnt know there was a thing about the last morsel.
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The shameful last bite is a thing in Greece. I didn’t know about it until 2004, in Athens, when I had been taken out to dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant. I had been eating the last bit on each family style platter, because I was raised not to let any food go to waste, and my friend who spent 2 months a year in Greece for most of her life let me know I was committing a faux pas.
I haven’t seen people do the shameful last bite thing in Canada.
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We always served family style at home, and there was always plenty, so I was unaware of this unwritten rule in other homes or countries. My father’s rule, however, was “Take all you want, but eat all you take.” Meaning don’t waste food. He also frequently reminded us during the late 1960s “There are starving children in Biafra.” (Now Nigeria)
And that probably came from what he, his brother, and parents went through for a brief time in the mid-1940s.
My paternal grandparents lived in China and my father and his brother were born there. All Americans, they were briefly held by the Japanese in an internment camp near the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War (known as the “War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression” in China). They lost everything they had in China except what clothes and boxes of photos and a few personal items they could pack, and some jewelry Grandmother was able to sew into the hems of clothing, IIRC.
Once repatriated, Grandmother almost always plated in the kitchen and brought the plates out to the dining room (except for major holidays, where Grandfather would carve at the table, but veg would have already been plated in the kitchen). Portions were smaller than we kids were used to, and the amount of leftovers were less. Grandmother cooked just enough for dinner. She was very frugal with everything, reusing foil, plastic bags, string, etc. Was it because of their internment? Don’t know, as it was rare to hear them speak of that time.
ANNNNYWAAAY…long family history story short, the “don’t take the last bite” wasn’t a thing for our family that I can recall.
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In our family, it was usually the youngest, i.e. yours truly, who would get the most prized morsel. It was mos def not the last thing left on the plate — rather, the first thing eaten. I think within a family, rules tend to be more loose. There was no issue asking whether anyone else wanted to finish X. We also always drank the salad dressing out of our bowls, but not without telling everyone else first “LOOK AWAY!” 
But when we’d have guests, the host would never take whatever last of whatever bite was left. That was for the guests (and if they didn’t eat it, it certainly wasn’t thrown out).
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LOL! OK, I can really visualize that! 
OK, THIS makes sense. Absolutely, if Mom and Dad were hosting friends or Dad’s film coworkers for dinner, they (and we kids) would never take the last of anything.
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Table manners can be strange things. IMO, their chief purpose is to make ourselves feel good for following them, and to make ourselves feel superior when others don’t.
A great example is French folks tut-tutting people for squaring off the point of a cheese wedge.
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I heard both sides at different times. “Don’t clean your plate, because it suggests to the host that there wasn’t enough food.” Or, “Eat everything so the host knows you enjoyed it.” Can’t win!
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Judging from the article, it’s more widespread than just a few insecure snobs.
It’s a prevalent attitude. It’s the opposite of insecurity.
Years ago, on Chowhound, there was a clutch-our-pearls hilarity that centered on the horrors of sharpening table knives. With socially breathtaking overtones, we were told no REAL hosts would ever serve food that requires a sharp cutting instrument and that it would be declasse to put sharp knives at a place setting. It was a transparent feel-good exercise in superiority. Sadly, this is more the rule than an exception
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I agree with this 100%.
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Tut-tutting is far too mild a response to such an act.
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#notalleuropeans 
As a kid the last bite went to dad. Lost him at 36, I was 11. Lost mom later but she would rotate the last bite amongst us 4 brats.
As a guest, I pace myself based on the company.
Restaurant, I get a doggie bag
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Oh, my mom’s BF got all the good stuff. The lettuce hearts, for example, and she’d PEEL HIS TOMATOES FOR HIM 
That is an important point. Communal dish last items are different than cleaning your own plate, at least in the US.
I remember groups of friends just destroying a large pizza and everyone stopping at the last piece like it was sacrosanct or something.
Flip side of the coin, if the food was on your plate, it was rude to leave it there.
Otherwise you might get a “Did you not like the stew I made for you?”
Or worse yet, “There are people starving in &^$*@, eat your da**ed food!”
But the US is an outlier on the leaving food on your plate or not.
My most painful moment on the latter issue was in Nepal, where eating all of the food on that huge steel tray is considered to be an insult to Mama, the cook. I was raised to “Clean my plate” and did so, but when I ate the huge dish of dal bhat and achar, cleaning the tray with the last bit of naan, Mama came to the door to the kitchen, saw what I had done and came to our table with ANOTHER tray of food for me. After which, my friends finally told me that I had just insulted the cook and for my own safety, I might be wise to walk to the next village before sleeping that night.
I am just kidding about the last part but they did fail to tell me about that courtesy until after I had violated it. So I ate a good portion of the second tray and the cook was rather happy about it.
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John, what are the rationale and genesis behind this “must keep the sharp corner” table manner? It has me stumped, because even if some English barbarian clipped off the tip, it is so easily restored.
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