Table Manners
Knife and spoon do the work. The knife spears what needs spearing and cuts against itself, and bread pushes food onto it and wipes the plate afterward. The fork is a Shining Reach refinement that solves no problem, and the rest of the world has looked at it and gone on eating. Eldershore eats with the right hand from the shared dish, and in most of its households a fork would be an obstacle.
Nobody begins before the head of the household begins — the one rule everywhere, and it costs two seconds. Leaving mid-meal is ordinary if the person says why; walking out without a word is rude for the reasons it would be rude anywhere. The head of the household sits at the head, guests nearest him, children where they can be reached, apprentices at the table eating what the household eats. A household with a slave has the slave serving, whatever its size, and that is visible and part of the point; where and when she eats afterward is under A Slave's Day#Eating.
Guests
A guest eats what is given and does not remark on a household's means in either direction. Bringing food is expected among working people, where a contribution is ordinary rather than charitable; bringing food to a household that can obviously afford to feed you is an insult. Above that level a guest brings drink or something for the house. Refusing food outright is the one real offense at a table anywhere in the world, understood as a judgment on the household; a guest who cannot eat something says so quietly beforehand, and any host will have made something else.