Etiquette for Japan’s Dining Rooms

Table etiquette of 1895 had “elaborate rules, which high-bred ladies and gentlemen must strictly follow.” —A late 19th century collectible cigarette card, honoring “Flower Day” in Japan.

The Japanese Dining Room

In Japan the family never gathers around one table as the European or other Asian people do, but each person has his or her own separate small table, a foot square and a foot high, and always highly decorated. When they take their meals they kneel upon the mat, each taking his table before him. 

The little lacquered table generally contains a small porcelain bowl, heaped up with deliciously cooked rice, and several lacquered wooden bowls containing soup or meat, and numbers of little porcelain plates with fish, radishes and the like. 

The way of cooking of course is entirely different from the European. Two pretty chop sticks, made of lacquered bamboo or wood, silver or ivory, are used, instead of knife, fork and spoon, and all people use them with great skill. 

All foods are prepared in the kitchen, so as to avoid any trouble to use knife and fork. Soup is to be drunk from the bowl by carrying it to the mouth by hand, in the same way as people drink tea or coffee. 

Table etiquette has elaborate rules, which high-bred ladies and gentlemen must strictly follow. A maid servant always waits, kneeling at a short distance, before a clean pan of boiled rice, with lacquered tray, on which she receives and delivers the bowls for replenishing them. 

Fragrant green tea is always used at the end of the meal, but sugar and cream never. — Placer Argus, 1895

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette for Eating Bananas

If you are not given a fruit knife and fruit fork… “one may turn the skin back part of the way and hold the fruit in her fingers if she chooses, without shocking the proprieties.” – What Have We Here?  A sterling, gilded age banana server variation, with a matte gilded finish on the bowl and tines. One may get as formal as one likes when it comes to serving fruits at the table.

Charming Fruit Manners

“She has such charming fruit manners,” said a girl of a famous belle. “She doesn't know it, but she dips her strawberries in the powdered sugar, or holds her banana at breakfast, as if they were roses or violets You forget that eating is a material process, and are sure it is poetry. 

“I had seen so many people eat their bananas with a knife and fork that I looked for banana etiquette. I found that one may turn the skin back part of the way and hold the fruit in her fingers if she chooses, without shocking the proprieties.” – San Diego Union and Daily Bee, 29 May 1904

 🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Etiquette: French Marriage Milestones

For a Silver Anniversary, “The lady is again called the bride, and her toilet is superb, supposing her position in the world justifies it. The flowers which she is expected to wear are large white ox eyes - known in France as reines marguerites. The bridegroom wears a dress coat.” – An1880’s Bridal Set. Design by M. Benoit (23, rue Royale), Drawing by L. Mesnil

Silver marriages are very pleasing festivals in France. When a couple have completed twenty-five years of married life the event is celebrated with all the show of joy and festivity possible. In the first place, there is a religious ceremony in church, which has a good deal of the outward forım of a genuine wedding. The lady is again called the bride, and her toilet is superb, supposing her position in the world justifies it. The flowers which she is expected to wear are large white ox eyes - known in France as reines marguerites. The bridegroom wears a dress coat. The pair are surrounded by their children and grandchildren- if there are any. All relations are invited, for a grand family muster is considered essential. 

A dinner is given, followed by a ball, which is opened by the newly remarried couple, the lady dancing with her eldest son and her husband with his eldest daughter. Golden weddings are much rarer than silver weddings. Death only allows a very small proportion of married people to live fifty years together. The ceremony is the same as in the case of silver weddings. There are now great-grandchildren as well as grandchildren present, and the old people open the ball with the eldest of the last generation of their decendants. -Paris Co. Boston Transcript, 1887

 🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Noble and Royal Etiquette

Etiquette enjoins many formal customs on the great. It requires, for example, that no one shall it in presence of the Queen while she is standing, or remain covered where she is. There is only one exception to the latter rule. There is an Irish Lord who, because of some deed of an ancestor calling forth Royal gratitude, inherits the privilege to keep his hat on in presence of Royalty.

English Etiquette and an Irish Lord 

It is said that when Gen. Grant was in London recently, and went to dinner at the Prince of Wales, he was obliged to go out to the table behind the titled Nobility. English etiquette, it is declared, requires that an untitled foreigner, however eminent, should give precedence, as it is called, to Englishmen of rank. Whether this is true or not, it is certain that etiquette is carried to a great extreme in England, as in other European countries. The structure of society is such that men and women of rank think it of importance that they should be formally honored wherever they may be, not only before those who are without rank, but those persons who hold a rank inferior to their own.

This etiquette runs through nearly all phases and even nearly all grades of English society; in the private mansion, in receptions at Court, in the Army and Navy, in official and diplomatic circles, and also to some extent among the mercantile and middle classes. At a dinner-party, for instance, the hostess on repairing to the table always claims the arm of the guest highest in rank present. A member of the Royal family always comes first; then a Duke, a Marquis, an Earl and so on. The rest of the guests go out in the order of their rank, the one of the lowest rank going out last.

This rigid rule is, however, sometimes relaxed in favor of a guest in whose special honor the dinner may be given. In such cases the hostess leads this guest out, even before persons of a higher rank than himself; and however it may have been at the Prince of Wales, it is probable that Gen. Grant was usually accorded this honor when he went as the guest of an English house. 

There is an official table which decides the precedence of each of the Royal family, the Nobility and the great officers of state; and this table determines how the company shall be placed on all public occasions, and in what order they shall walk or drive in processions and stage pageants.

According to this "table of precedence," the Sovereign comes first; then all her sons in order of birth; then all her daughters in the same order; then her grand-children in the same order; finally her uncles, aunts and cousins. After the Royal family the Archbishop of Canterbury holds the highest rank of precedence; then the Lord High Chancellor; then the Archbishop of York; then Dukes, then Marquises and so on. 

Etiquette enjoins many formal customs on the great. It requires, for example, that no one shall it in presence of the Queen while she is standing, or remain covered where she is. There is only one exception to the latter rule. There is an Irish Lord who, because of some deed of an ancestor calling forth Royal gratitude, inherits the privilege to keep his hat on in presence of Royalty. No one, also, must address the Queen until she speaks to him or her first.

A lady of rank who goes shopping in London will never allow herself to be seen carrying a parcel from the shop to her carriage. This is always done by the shopkeeper, who crosses the pavement, head bare, and deposits the parcel. No lady of rank carries her prayer-book to church. Her footman goes before her with it, and opens and closes the pew door. These are but examples of the minute things in which etiquette imposes its law. A breach of any of the rules of etiquette, a forgetfulness what to wear or how to act at the proper moment, is regarded by English society as a very grave offense.

So despotic are the laws of etiquette in high European society that often the peace of nations has been imperiled by a neglect to treat a Prince, a Nobleman or an ambassador with the required formality. There was serious trouble in the English Royal family when the Duchess of Edinburgh, the daughter of the Czar, went to live among them, and insisted on “taking precedence” of the Princess of Wales. According to the English rule of etiquette she was obliged to do so; but she insisted that the daughter of a Russian Emperor ought to walk before the daughter of a King of Denmark.

An amusing story is told of a certain King of Spain who was one day discovered by somebody to be on fire. This somebody had no right to touch the King. So he hastened to the Chamberlain, and the Chamberlain to the Marshal, and the Marshal to the Steward, and the Steward to the Groom of the Bed-Chamber, whose duty it was to take care of the Royal person. While these formalities of etiquette were being gone through with, however, the poor King burned up. – Youth's Companion, January 1878

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

A Unique Opportunity for Our Readers

Join Etiquipedia Site Editor, Maura J. Graber, and Contributor, Elizabeth Soos, for a Unique Online Opportunity in April!

Dining Etiquette: Where Etiquette Meets History… 

Traditions, Manners, and Modern Insight

When? Friday, 25th of April, 2025

Time: 1:30am - 3:30am PDT 

Online Event: Zoom

Type: Group

Course Overview:

Join us for a unique opportunity to enhance your etiquette knowledge and have your questions answered. Author, teacher and etiquette historian, Maura J. Graber will be joining Elizabeth Soós of Auersmont Etiquette for an online seminar in which they plan to enlighten, educate and entertain with the true reasons our dining etiquette rules exist, the history of the rules and the backstories behind them.

Course Contents:

This 2 hour course is designed for individuals of all backgrounds and professions, especially those in the field of etiquette! Attendees to this online seminar will discover how increasing one’s knowledge of etiquette can assist in making one more prosperous in business and social endeavours. We live in a world of many “Whys.” Why not join in the discussion?

Questions Which Need Answers:

Please submit any questions you have about dining etiquette, as the course will be tailored to address them. Please be as specific as possible in your questions. All questions must be submitted by April 15, 2025, via this link: Google Forms https://forms.gle/DXbMfA3LFvsc...

Examples of questions: 

What practical reasons lie behind the specific materials used in utensils for serving or spreading one’s caviar? 

When did handles appear on tea, chocolate or coffee cups? Some etiquette professionals say handles were not placed on cups before the early 1800's, but others say this is wrong.

Why is it best to keep one’s elbows off of the table? Was this ever an actual etiquette rule? Why was it taught?

If I have utensils above the plate for dessert, does it matter which utensil is placed above or below the other utensil? I read the spoon needs to go above the fork. Is this true?

Course Curriculum:

• Introduction 'Where Etiquette Meets History'
• Module 01: Understanding the Differences Between Etiquette & Manners 
• Module 02: Popular Etiquette Myths and Troubling Trends 
• Module 03: Understanding Table Ware 
• Module 04: Navigation of a Multi Course Meal, the Place Setting & Utensils 
• Conclusion: Concluding Remarks and Question Period with Participants

Certificates:
Certificate of completion - Digital certificate included.

Accessing Course Recordings for Review:
Do you have a scheduling conflict? You can always watch it at your leisure another time. A link will be sent to you a few days after the seminar.

As a beginner, is this event suitable for me?:
Beginners are welcome, and we hope that you enjoy the event.

Event pricing:
Pricing will be set as AUD - Australian dollar.

Where are my course emails? And will I be notified about the course before it starts?:

Please check your spam, or other folders that your email account might have forwarded to. We send a series of emails via Humanitix every week leading up to the event.

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette of “Japanese Service”

As for European table setting, here the Japanese are more focused on beauty. Often, when serving French or English, special stands for forks and knives are used, thus trying to adapt European table setting to Japanese reality: so that cutlery, like chopsticks, does not touch the table.

Japanese Food Service

The Japanese are known for their long lives. This is due to both their lifestyle and traditional Japanese cuisine. The history of Japanese cuisine dates back to the Jōmon era - the Neolithic period, up to 400 BC. In those distant times, the inhabitants of the Japanese islands ate mostly vegetarian food. These days, the Japanese prefer natural, minimally processed foods. When cooking, few seasonings are used and they are rarely fried. They try to follow a meal schedule. At the same time, table setting and food culture are important.

The lifestyle in Japan is harmony with the outside world, therefore, dishes served at the Japanese table must correspond to the time of year. The Japanese are confident that during all four seasons it is necessary, first of all, to consume those products that nature itself bestows at this time. It’s spring now, which means the diet includes plants with a bitter taste, such as young bamboo, in the summer - vegetables and shrimp, in the fall - lotus roots, sweet peppers and mushrooms, and in the winter - Japanese smelt fish, which is plentiful during the spawning period.

Flowers decorating rooms should also correspond to the time of year. Therefore, now it is customary to decorate with a blooming plum, literally, a week later - with sakura, for example, in June, during the rainy season - with hydrangea with beautiful blue or soft purple flowers, at the end of June - with roses.

Note the lack of a Western tradition of using serving utensils in one color and style. If you wish, of course, you can buy a set with many bowls, various plates and saucers, but this is not a requirement of good form.

Serving rules:
I live in Japan, and I can say that Japanese manners are distinguished by restraint and grace. They value politeness in foreign guests, especially when the latter show interest and respect for Japanese table traditions. Japanese table setting is quite remarkable, I would call it a kind of work of art. There are special rules and characteristics of serving.

First of all, I would like to note the lack of a Western tradition of using serving utensils in one color and style. If you wish, of course, you can buy a set with many bowls, various plates and saucers, but this is not a requirement of good form. Dishes can be made from completely different materials: porcelain, wood, and even plastic.

The most important thing is an aesthetic and always successful color combination. Alternating dark and light tones or red and black is encouraged. The shape of the dishes can also be alternated, for example, round with square, square with triangular, oval with rectangular, etc… Rice is usually served in dark dishes - think dark brown or black - so that it sets off the whiteness of the rice. Wooden stands are usually used to serve sushi.

Sake is served in small jugs (decanters) without handles, and drunk from small glass, porcelain or wooden shot glasses. The name of small jugs is tokkuri. A tokkuru is strictly a serving tool. Sake is transferred from the bottle to the tokkuri, then poured in the drinking vessel. Green tea is always offered in small teapots before meals. The Japanese offer tea before meals, during meals, and after.

The place of each participant in the feast should be separated - for this they use beautiful trays or napkins. Only those dishes that will be eaten by one person are placed in this place. Shared dishes are placed in the center of the table. 

Chopsticks are closest to the person sitting. They lie parallel to the edge of the table on special stands - hasioki, so that the tips with which they take food do not touch the table. This rule is very rigid and is strictly observed everywhere. A bowl of hot rice is placed behind the chopsticks on the left.

To the right of the bowl of rice is a bowl of soup. Further to the right, but behind the bowl of soup, the main dish is placed, cooked over low heat. Often these are baked fish or meat. On the left, behind the bowl of rice, there is a dish with vegetables, usually boiled. Between these two rows of dishes there can be containers with sauces and small dishes with pickled vegetables, fish and snacks.

In Japan, it is important that the setting corresponds to the time of year or holiday that is celebrated in a particular month. Special New Year’s table settings are very popular. Japan is a country with a pronounced seasonal culture; its residents very carefully preserve the tradition of adjusting their daily life to this or that time of year.

Not only dishes prepared from seasonal products are served at the table, but some element characteristic of the given time of year is always added to the serving. When the cherry blossoms bloom, both the food and the table design will use motifs of cherry blossoms and branches.

As for European table setting, here the Japanese are more focused on beauty. Often, when serving French or English, special stands for forks and knives are used, thus trying to adapt European table setting to Japanese reality: so that cutlery, like chopsticks, does not touch the table.

We can say that for the Japanese, a meal is a journey into the world of beauty and harmony, which is why elegance, grace and tradition are so important in table setting.

                                                                    

By contributor, Elena Gavrilina-Fujiyama especially for Etiquipedia. Elena is a specialist in Japanese protocol and etiquette, and European social etiquette. The founder of the project Etiquette748, Elena is also a member of the National Association of Specialists of Protocol. She authored the best-selling book “Japanese Etiquette: Ancient Traditions and Modern Rules” after living in Japan for over 20 years. Elena recently was awarded the Diploma of the World Prize “Woman of the Russian World” in the category “Entrepreneurship” (Japan). The theme of the 2024 award is “Preservation and strengthening of the traditional family values.” 

 🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Gilded Age Wedding Etiquette & Rituals

A gilded age wedding party of 1897 – At the altar the groom, if he is a millionaire, makes his wife his equal by saying: “With all my worldly goods I thee endow;” but until he has uttered these words she has no claim on his purse for clothes or cards, or household furnishing, or anything but those articles that come under the head of such gifts as it is a lover’s privilege to make.

Duties and Preparations of Contracting Parties

The etiquette of weddings is remotely founded on the early savage history of mankind and which bears fruit in our later and more complex civilization, still reminding us of the past. In early and in savage days the man sought his bride heroically and carried her off by force. It is still a theory that the bride is thus carried off. Thus the long-cherished theory bears fruit in the English ceremonial, where the only carriage furnished by the groom is one in which he drives the bride away to the spending of the honey-moon. 

Up to that time he has had no rights of proprietorship. Even this is not allowed in America among fashionable people, the bride's father sending them in his own carriage on the first stage of their journey. It is not etiquette for the groom to furnish anything for his own wedding but the ring and a bouquet for for the the bride, presents for the bridesmaids and the best man, and some token to the ushers. He pays the clergyman.

He should not pay for the cards, the carriages and entertainments, or anything connected with the wedding. This is decided in the high court of etiquette. This is the province of the bride's family and should be insisted upon. At the altar the groom, if he is a millionaire, makes his wife his equal by saying: “With all my worldly goods I thee endow;” but until he has uttered these words she has no claim on his purse for clothes or cards, or household furnishing, or anything but those articles that come under the head of such gifts as it is a lover's privilege to make.

A very precise old-time aristocrat of New York broke her daughter's engagement to a gentleman because he brought her a dress from Paris. She said if he did not know enough not to give her daughter clothes while she was under her roof, he should not have her. This is a remark which applies at once to that liberty permitted to engaged couples in rural neighborhoods where a young girl is allowed to go on a journey at her lover's expense. 

A girl's natural protectors should know better than to allow this. They know that her purity is her chief attraction to man, and that a certain coyness and virginal freshness are the dowry she should bring her future husband. Suppose that this engagement is broken off? How will she be accepted by another lover after having enjoyed the hospitality of the first? Would it not make a disagreeable feeling between the two men, although No. 2 might have perfect respect for the girl?

It is the privilege of the bride to name the wedding day, and of her father and mother to pay for her trousseau. After the wedding invitations are issued she does not appear in public. The members of the bride's family go to the church before the bride. The bridegroom and his best man await them at the altar.

The bride comes last, with her father or brother, who is to give her away. She is joined at the altar step by her fiancé, who takes her hand, and then she becomes his for life. All these trifles mean much, as any one can learn who goes through the painful details of a divorce suit.

Now, when the circle of friends on both sides is very extensive, it has of late become customary to send invitations to some who are not called to wedding breakfast to attend the ceremony at the church. This sometimes takes the place of issuing cards. No one thinks of calling on the newly married who has not received either an invitation to the ceremony at the church or cards after their establishment in their new home.

In most cases the after-cards are ordered with the other cards, and the bride's mother pays for them. But if they are ordered after the marriage the groom may pay for these as he would pay for his wife's ordinary expenses. Still it is stricter etiquette that even these should be paid for by the bride's family.

People who are asked to the wedding send cards to the house if they cannot attend, and, in any case, send or leave cards within ten days after, unless they are in very deep mourning, when a dispensation is granted them. 

The etiquette of a wedding at home does not differ at all from the etiquette of a wedding in church with regard to cards. A great confusion seems to exist in the minds of some as to whom to send their return cards on being invited to a wedding. Some ask: "Shall I send them to the bride, as I do not know her mother?" Certainly not; send them to whomsoever invites you. Afterward call on the bride or send her cards; but the first and important card goes to the lady who gives the wedding.

The order of the religious part of the ceremony is fixed by the church in which it occurs. The groom must call on the clergyman, see the organist, and make whatever arrangements the bride pleases; but all expenses, excepting the fee of the clergyman, are borne by the bride's family.

A wedding invitation requires no answer, unless it be to a sit-down wedding breakfast. Cards left afterward are all sufficient. The separate cards of the bride and groom are no longer included in the invitation. Nothing black in the way of dress, but the gentlemen's coats is admissible at a wedding. – Humboldt Times, January, 1885

 🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

“Breakfast” and Other Dining Tidbits

A statue of the Dutch theologian, Erasmus. Erasmus was born in the 15th century (1460s), and died in the 16th century (1530s). – Spoons were communally used—making the etiquette of eating soups a delicate matter. "If what is given is rather fluid," Dutch theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote, “take it on a spoon for tasting and return the spoon after wiping it on a napkin.”

                    

BEFORE BREAKFAST

That the hours of dining vary in different countries is well known, but few persons realize that the meal “breakfast” did not become recognized until late in the seventeenth century. The earliest period to which the word can be traced is 1463. 

In the days of the Tudors, the higher masses dined at 7 and supped at 5, and the merchants seldom took their meals before 12 and 6 o'clock. The chief meals, dinner and supper, were taken in the hall, both by the old English and the Normans, for the parlor did not come into use until the reign of Elizabeth.

Dinner was really the great meal of the day, and from the accession of Henry IV to the death of Queen Elizabeth I, the dinners were as sumptuous and extravagant as any of those in history. Carving was then a fine art, and each person brought his own spoon and knife. 

As the fork was unknown, the diner thoroughly washed his hands before and after each meal, and it was considered a bad breach of table etiquette for one not to use the left hand only in the common dish. – Chico Record, September 1913

 

 🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia