Dining in a social setting can be one of life's finest pleasures, where the wine flows as freely as the conversation. However, certain foods can leave you on a collision course with culinary faux pas where, at best, you're left feeling awkward and, at worst, said dish ends up covering you or your companions. Just ask Ed Miliband, who probably never wants to see a bacon sandwich again after photos of the Labour leader doing battle with a particularly gristly rasher were widely ridiculed. Scroll down for video . Gurning for change: Labour leader Ed Miliband was caught out by a bacon sandwich earlier this year . How not to do it: Nigel Farage, left, and Boris Johnson, right,  have both come unstuck while sampling foods on the political trail . With an election on the way and plenty of opportunities for the nation's politicians to make fools of themselves eating in public, William Hanson, a leading expert and consultant in etiquette and protocol tells FEMAIL everything you need to know about how to eat some of the trickiest foods without rendering yourself a culinary fool. William says: 'Nothing can put one off a fellow dining companion more than seeing them messily tackle what’s on their plate. 'We now see politicians, TV masterchefs and competing dinner guests badly eat their victuals so perhaps now, if it is not too late, I give them (and you) my guide on how to best tuck in to some of the trickiest foods to tackle.' ASPARAGUS . If served as a first course, rather than an accompaniment vegetable, these are eaten with the hands and dipped into the hollandaise sauce. Rules of etiquette: Never double-dip asparagus...unless you have your own personal pot of sauce . Brits will eat these with the left hand (leaving the right hand free of grease, ready to shake hands or pick up a wine glass, for example); there are some cultures where eating with the left hand is not the done thing, in this case, they may eat the asparagus with the right hand. (Not many know the left-hand rule today.) You may double-dip in the sauce so long as it is your own portion. BANANA . If in doubt, go for the banana, says William: the fruit is easy to unwrap with a knife and fork . Fruit is served as part of the dessert course (dessert was traditionally the fruit course at the end of the meal, whereas today people confuse it with the sweet course). At state banquets, such as the recent one for Mexico at Buckingham Palace, fruit is still served as a palate cleanser. A banana is always the easiest fruit to pick. Cut both ends off with dessert cutlery (very sharp), slice down the skin to unwrap, and then cut off slices and eat with a fork and knife. CAVIAR . The Russians tend to consume caviar from the small pad of flesh between the thumb and the forefinger (again, on the left hand). This, however, looks beyond pretentious in a social setting and is thus best avoided. Instead, scoop a small bit on to your plate and use a thin piece of toast or a blini to consume. One-way ticket to inelegance: If corn on the cob is offered, say no...if it's served, then just chow down . CORN ON THE COB . The little prongs you often get given are naff – especially the solid silver ones (a rare instance where plastic would be preferably, but not by much). Hosts really shouldn’t serve corn this way unless it’s a barbecue (and a pretty feral one at that). If you get offered it, politely decline. If you get served it, with naff prongs, then pick it up and gnaw away. Everyone else will be in the same inelegant boat as you. ESCARGOT (OR SNAILS) Special clamps are often used to hold the shell in place whilst a small, two-pronged fork is held in the right hand and used to pierce and scoop the fleshy meat from within. Tricky little fellas! William insists you use a fork to tackle a langoustine and advises against sucking... LANGOUSTINE . Using a small fork upturned in the right hand, scoop out the white fleshy meat from the tail. Your left hand can be used to secure the shell as you daintily perform your excavation (a finger bowl should be provided). You may see some people pick up the animal to suckle the head – these people are to be treated with the greatest of social caution. Moules be sorry: Use empty shells as would-be tweezers to help you pluck the flesh from other mussels, says William...and always make use of the finger bowl . MUSSELS . The most elegant method is to use a fork to loosen and consume the first mollusc within, before using the empty shell to tweeze out the other mussels, discarding redundant shells on a nearby plate. A finger bowl should also be present, to the left of the setting. Dip one hand in at a time to wash away the grease. OYSTERS . A skilled high-society habitué will know that these are really only eaten in months containing the letter R. The upmarket way to eat is to simply tip the contents into the mouth from the shell, having loosened the contents beforehand with a fork. An oyster fork is a Victorian middle-class invention and does nothing a normal fork cannot do. If an oyster fork is set, use it. If not, just use a normal small fork. Peas release me: Scooping is a no-no, spearing is really the only way to go with the little green spheres . PEAS . Good hosts will never serve these at a formal dinner party, but if you find yourself confronted by petit pois or the like resist the urge to turn your fork over and scoop. Instead, use the tines of the fork to spear a collection and transfer to the mouth. If mashed potato has been served, or something similar, use that as a ‘glue’. Eaten, never drunk: Soup should be pushed away from the diner and then gently tipped into the mouth . SOUP WITH BREAD . Soup is always ‘eaten’, never drunk. The soup spoon is held in the right hand and scoops away from you on one side, skimming the surface. Then sip from the nearside of the spoon. Tipping the bowl away from you at the end to help you catch the last few mouthfuls is perfectly fine. If bread is served with the soup (let’s hope not a slice of bread – a bit ‘try-hard gastropub’) never cut the roll. Break a bite-sized chunk off, butter if desired, and eat. It is not the done thing to divide the bread into two, slather with butter and gnaw away. Don’t be caught out as an air-butterer, either – apply the butter to the roll on the plate, not in the air. SPAGHETTI . Spaghetti can be a nightmare for diners and is best avoided in formal social situations...the one golden rule with pasta is never to cut it, an act of culinary terrorism in Italy, no less, according to William (right) This is eaten with a fork alone and never cut with a knife. The idea of using a spoon as well comes from the USA but is not practised in authentic Italian homes or upmarket British ones. Spaghetti can be messy, so avoid ordering this on a date or when dining with clients. The good news is, at a formal dinner (or even a semi-formal soiree) spaghetti will not be served. When in Italy, never cut your pasta – doing so is considered an act of culinary terrorism and insult to the cook. My thanks to one of London’s leading restaurants, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, for their delicious food which, with the above tips, is very easy to eat. Etiquette comes first...but if you get really stuck, then just bluff your way through, says William . Dietary requirements . It is the guests’ responsibility upon accepting an invitation to alert their hosts as to their dietary requirements. Experienced hosts may just wish to check with those who haven’t been invited to their 'casa' before that the guest doesn’t have any life-threatening allergies just to be on the safe side and to stop the impending drama that comes with a guest who suddenly says they are a vegan, rendering your osso bucco (braised veal) useless. If dining in a restaurant, staff should be well versed in what dishes are suitable for your individual needs. Funny food . Occasionally, we get served something that is so tasteless, bland or inedible that persevering is just not an option. In which case, your strategy is to eat as much of it as you can muster, push it to one side and devour everything else. Hosts should not then question you as to whether you liked it or not. If they do, reply, smiling, with ‘I enjoyed what I had, thank you’. What to do when this guide fails you . There may very well be an occasion where a food that is not on my guide is set down before you and you are flummoxed as to how best to tackle the tricky food. Your plan should be to watch what method your host, or the most learned guest, is using to eat the food and copy. Even if it is not technically correct, they will think it is and so you can bluff your way through the meal… and then get home and research the proper way to eat it so you aren’t caught out again!
Etiquette expert William Hanson explains the proper way to eat . Pick up asparagus in your fingers and use a mussel shell to eat mussels . Always scoop soup away from you and never 'air butter' your bread .