I have been an American all my life - which is longer than I like to think about, but still not as long as I hope to achieve - and have never seen anyone over the age of 5 do this.
I'm sorry to say that I've seen it far too often; once, in particular, a busload of elderly well-to-do American tourists in quite a posh Highland hotel who all sat, cut up all their food at the beginning, planted elbows on the table and then ate their dinner with only the fork. This is what under 5s do in Europe. Not grown-ups.
I also have a slightly dilapidated copy of Fodors France here somewhere which has a specific warning that the French consider it impolite to do such a thing and then suggests that it's "one of those funny French things" or words to that effect.
From my experience, it is not a habit shared by Canadians. It's pretty much just you guys. And toddlers.
You can tell that this is a bugbear of mine. A bit like the way the some southern Europeans don't understand the concepts of "rounds" during a night in the pub......

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