well this has turned out to be very interesting and rather amusing, thanks for the replys everyone, we here in NZ just cannot manage without our knives and forks, it is like having bacon without eggs, it is just the norm here, and I think we take a lot of our traditions from our British ancestors who first settled here.

Some of us,like to load up. like we eat say a bit of mashed potatoe, some peas and the meat altogether in conjuction with our fork, of course some people like to eat their food separately, again its a preference thing.

I don't consider it uncivilised versus civilised, it is just customs that occurr in different countries, as you would think us weird using both ,we think it weird not using both.

However there are sometimes I might just use my fork like eating scrambled eggs with no toast underneath, then I would just use my fork.