I also grew up eating with a fork and spoon. Knives were like…. “What– you can’t eat all the rice with a knife.” You could cut your meat with a spoon… put it on your spoon… and eat it with a big thing of rice all in the same bite. Now I use forks and knives but a lot of my family still chooses the spoon route.

I’ve heard this in several other cultures, but with the fork dropped in place of the knife. The knife would be used to cut meat, with the spoon holding it in place, and then speared again by the knife. I think this might be Scandinavian in origin, but I am pretty uninformed. I think it comes from a belief in these cultures that excess should be cut down on.