Meh, very often there will be a spoon already out for dessert, and I've often used a spoon with rice dishes that came with a particularly watery sauce and it never once cut or smashed the grains, at most you might need to roll out a clump. I agree that forks normally work better, though. Never been to a western country where anyone would or did care; if there are countries where people would, which are they?

In Italy, you would get more puzzled looks for suggesting eating pasta with a spoon than rice. :)

@FedericoPoloni althought, for politeness and to not slurp too much, sometimes it's utterly necessary... previews.123rf.com/images/stockfood/stockfood1409/…

@user568458: The spoon for dessert is usually a (small) teaspoon, not a (large) tablespoon. That notwithstanding, for this and other "breaches of protocol", don't expect anyone to "care" in such a fashion that you notice. Most people that take note will be much too polite to say anything aloud.

@CptEric: Not at all. Federico may correct me, but at least in Germany, it's commonly (mis-?)believed that the "proper" Italian way is to use a fork as shown in your image for twirling pasta, but the twirling should happen on the plate (e.g. on the clear area near the border) - if necessary, using a knife as some secondary utility to push misdirected pasta into the right direction. That yields conveniently wrapped pasta packages on the fork that can be eaten without any slurping, as well, and goes totally without any spoon.

@Tom: That may be too simplistic a view. What is "too big a bite" can be heavily culture-dependant, and if the OP feels that they want to use a spoon to eat rice because they can eat more conveniently like that, because they can take larger bites and thus finish up faster (not saying that's the reason, but it might be), they may be missing the issue that it's not the spoon that would be perceived as rude, but their intended bite size with the spoon. For comparison, I regularly spend some time in China, and Chinese in the area I visit use chopsticks for rice - by placing the bowl on their ...

... lips. They see no issue of shoveling too much rice into their mouths at a time, and they have learned a long time ago how to eat rice with their chopsticks. Nonetheless, in Western etiquette, even though using chopsticks would be completely ok, placing the bowl at one's mouth would be completely inacceptable.

@O.R.Mapper - Taking too big of a bite with a fork is also possible, stabbing a chunk of meat with a fork and taking a bite out of it is also possible, but neither of these are reasons to avoid using a fork are they? One can find examples of impolite uses of ALL eating utensils, perhaps we should not use any.

@Tom: My point was that if the OP is used to using a spoon in culture A, and a spoon is also acceptable for the same dish in culture B, that does not automatically mean the same ways of using the spoon that are acceptable in culture A are also always acceptable in culture B.

@O.R.Mapper - The OP is wondering about using a spoon being rude or not to westerners. And the answer is not rude, end of discussion. Arguing it might be rude if you try to eat too big of a bite would apply to everything used for eating, knife, spoon, fork, fingers, chopsticks, so basically a useless bit of argumentative nitpicking.

@Tom: And once again, your view is too simplistic. The answer is not necessarily a simple "yes, rude" or "no, not rude". As the comments here have shown, additional factors need to be taken into account, such as the amount of food actually placed on the spoon, etc. Indeed, all of this applies equally to other utensils, which is why the answers for analogous questions about knives, forks, fingers, chopsticks, and any others, would be equally more differentiated than simply saying "yes" or "no".

@O.R.Mapper - perhaps you and mystery user 46207 can define what is too big, what is OK, and be specific how many grams, what cubic volume. If you can't do this, then this is simply argumentative nitpicking.

As a Westerner, I wouldn't be put off by someone eating with a spoon unless the food is piled so high on the spoon it's spilling off, and even then I'd just think it looks silly.

@Tom: I don't think you can deny that expected table manners differ around the world, even between places where the same utensils are used. Evidently, this mere fact can (and, in my opinion, definitely should, in the context of this question) be pointed out without precisely describing each and every variant of manners that are acceptable. Any of your questions about specifics are leading off-topic in this question, but feel free to create separate questions asking for rules of thumb (JAB gave a good example without measuring grams) to apply in specific places you might be travelling to.

@O.R.Mapper - I bow to the all mighty nitpicker. got better things to do, than argue whatifs.

Pasta? o.O @O.R.Mapper you are absolutely right. You don't need a spoon to eat spaghetti. We just twist the fork as we were taught when we were children. :)

"First, a fork is the most common utensil with which to eat in Western cultures." Not sure what Western culture you're from, but I use spoons far more often than forks. I'm really not sure I'm normal, but whatever.