Over the last few weeks, I’ve been intermittently binge-watching prior seasons of Hannibal. Mads Mikkelsen is amazing as the titular character, and though he may be cooking up people, he does so with aplomb; the finished dishes are presented as some of the best on-screen food porn since Big Night and Babette’s Feast.

In the show, Hannibal eats in Continental style – fork permanently in left hand, knife permanently in right – rather than in the American, zig-zag style – switching the fork back and forth for cutting and eating. It seemed a touch of daily class, an appealingly small yet snotty marker of good taste. So, for the past few days, I’ve been trying to eat Continental myself.

Much like with a Dvorak keyboard, it turns out there’s a gap between theoretical efficiency and practical incompetence. Normally, I can get the food from plate to mouth without conscious thought; now, it takes all kinds of concentration, and still ends a bit of a mess. But for the next week or two at least, I think I’m sticking with it. Hannibal would be proud.