I just smile, make a wait a minute gesture and keep on moving the food to the back -- I found I was essentially putting more food in to help push the previous food to the back for swallowing and even if I stopped putting food in, it took a while to clear the pipeline -- Besides, it's not polite to talk with your mouth full!

Personally, I don't let other people's manners and habits dictate what I do -- Just because they don't understand doesn't mean it's time for me to be embarrassed and leave or stay home -- I have enough problems of my own without being responsible for those of others -- I'll let their mothers deal with that and merely offer silent forgiveness

Depending on who it is, if it is a small party of friends, I will explain up front that I can either talk or eat, but not do both -- Or I might, when my mouth is finally empty, say that it takes that long for me to deal with a mouthful of food and they will have to be patient and understanding with me (the latter puts the ball back in their court, manners-wise).

With friends, I had learned to kind of push the food to one side and talk around it, but that only works for solid food, not soups and stuf like that.

That's all based on my first flap -- Now that the second one has partially failed, across the front and down one side, I don't know how it will all eventually work because now I have less tongue and mobility than before plus I have this rather large empty space that food will fall into and be difficult to move to to my swallower -- I see a lot of table liquid in my future!

Or maybe I can just stash the food in the empty space to talk around it...