I was educated in Germany mainly in the 70s, in a middle-class family that did emphazise proper etiquette. From that education, I learned that is OK to use a toothpick at the table - but ONLY if you do it behind your napkin. Nobody is supposed to see anything but your napkin.

However, that was at a time when toothpicks were generally available from a dispenser at the table. Those dispensers have vanished since. I cannot recall any quality restaurant I visited in Europe during the last couple of years that had a toothpick dispenser. So... customs change - and a 50-year-old book might not be a good reference.

Today, I would not ask for a toothpick in a European restaurant - and thus would use none. If I happen to run across a table-side toothpick dispenser, I might still consider using it. After all, if the toothpick is offered in such a way, it should be reasonable to assume that it is OK to use, isn't it?

No!

Google is your friend:

http://www.etikette-und-mehr.de/oftgefragt.html#20

Kann ich den Zahnstocher im Restaurant unbedenklich am Tisch benutzen?
Stehen Zahnstocher bereit, dann können Sie diese benutzen, aber bitte niemals am Tisch. Es gibt keine elegante Art, sich mit vorgehaltener Hand Speisreste zu entfernen. Suchen Sie also dafür bitte die Waschräume auf.

Zahnstocher = Toothpick = never to be used at the table.

colonius, anyway, after all, you wouldn't do it ... right?

Happy Trails
 

In Italy and France it is OK to use a toothpick as long as you cover your mouth with the opposite hand.

Even in parts of Asia it's the hand-cover that makes it generally acceptable.

Austria. I was there recently and there were toothpick holders on every table. Many people were using them at their tables while covering their mouths with their other hand.

umm. what? link? where else would you use a toothpick?

food and water are necessities to life.

cheers.

In parts of Asia it is very acceptable to throw chicken bones on the carpet and to belch loudly after a good meal.

There is not elegant way at all to work on your teeth with the opposite hand covering the mouth. I would neither consider it acceptable nor "ok". The given fact that some people simply do it and do not know how to behave does not make it generally acceptable as good manners. In a good restaurant or in the company of business partners or clients, I would never even dream of using a toothpick at the table and I would be really confused if one of my partners started it. If you go to a McDonalds or a Pizza Hut and eat with you fingers or do not know how to deal with knife and fork, well....

As USAFAN pointed out very correctly, take the toothpick and go to the washing room.


By the way: We are not the only ones discussing it: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/349592

In both Norway and Sweden people use toothpicks at the table. I haven't attended extremely formal dinners, but in many restaurants there are containers of toothpicks on the table, right next to the salt and pepper. They're usually those triangular interdent stimulators, individually wrapped ("Jorden"). I've gotten used to my dining companions digging away as we wait for the coffee, fairly discretely but not behind a napkin.

According to my dentist, public toothpick use is also common among the Chinese. As she put it, it's a cultural variant.

says who? do i have to goto the restroom to wipe my mouth too?

Says any book written in German language on formal behaviour.
But feel free to missbehave....

I was brought up (in the U.S.) to believe that using a toothpick at the table is never acceptable. This idea that hiding your mouth with a napkin or (even worse) your hand makes it OK is very strange. Would it also be OK to vomit at the table as long as you covered your mouth and the food you were removing from yourself that way?