Eating Off Knives Still Problem, 1910

There was a shock expressed over a German chef not knowing how to make a pie? But no shock expressed over a man eating what was supposed to represent a pie with a knife!?! Believe it or not, in 1910, in all circles of life, men were still eating with their knives and not forks. It had been well over a hundred years since forks had become a common site on tables in the US… longer than that in Europe. But many people found the fork to be unnecessary when dining, even though specific forks had been designed for eating pie for over 50 years at that point. Sometimes new-dangled technology takes longer to be adopted than expected. Forks were just such technology!

Pie-Land in Der Velt Voran

A San Francisco cartoonist represents Ned Greenway, on his contemplated trip to Europe, absorbing the social customs of various countries. The idea is good, and the drawing is good. But the German cartoon represents Ned holding a huge stein of beer, and eating pie with his knife. The beer is all right, and so is the knife. But the pie! Who ever heard of pie in Germany? 

Actually there is no word for “pie” in the German language, and the Germans do not know what pie looks like. We remember serving on a committee, two different Thanksgivings, in Berlin, that tried to teach the chef of the Kaiserhof to make mince pie. He concocted a something that tasted good, but it was not pie. 

The poor man had never seen a pie, and could not understand, from mere description, what so strange a dish might be like. There are a thousand Americans who know what Pökelkamm mit Erbsenpüree is to one German who knows what pie is. Pie, as has been well said, is the palladium of American liberty. Therefore, do not seek it in any military imperialism. – From the Fresno Republican, 1910

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

British WWI Menu Etiquette

“Vegetables, whether two or three, eaten with meat, do not count as a course, but taken as a complete dish, whether in a vegetarian restaurant or elsewhere, they become a course. There appears to be nothing to prevent anyone, except his patriotism, going to one hotel and consuming the regulation meal, and then proceeding to another establishment and concluding his dinner…” 
World War I food rationing in England, from sugar to bread. — Image source Pinterest 

PUBLIC'S RECEPTION OF THE NEW MENUS

Effect in Restaurants — Some Problems

The order limiting the number of courses at meals came into operation yesterday, and although a few anomalies arose, and some knotty problems presented themselves, the first day of what is a revolutionary change in the habits of Englishmen passed off without hardly a serious grumble.

Vegetables, whether two or three, eaten with meat, do not count as a course, but taken as a complete dish, whether in a vegetarian restaurant or elsewhere, they become a course. There appears to be nothing to prevent anyone, except his patriotism, going to one hotel and consuming the regulation meal, and then proceeding to another establishment and concluding his dinner.

One effect of the restriction has been an increase in the size of the portion given in one case the whole sole being provided, where hitherto only half was allowed. Americans who favour “freak” dishes, such as chicken with the hors d'œuvres, found that by so doing the course became a whole one.

In many of the West-end establishments some of the late customers were officers, who had just arrived on leave from the front, and were unaware of the date of the order coming into force. To these the restricted menus came as a complete surprise. — The Telegraph, 1916

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

Profiles in Etiquette— Emily Post

 In the 1945 edition of Emily Post's book “Etiquette,” Post quoted a disgruntled reader of her work, bridling at the prospect of imitating New York's “Cafe Society,” a group known to be less mannerly than “pretentious and vulgar.” Just who, the reader demanded to know, are these Best People, whose example Post commends throughout her book? Her answer follows: 

“There is nowhere to go to see Best Society on parade, because parading is one thing the Best Society does not intentionally do. And yet it is true (and this is one of the things harder to make clear) that in the forefront of the public parade are to be found a certain few who are really best. But they are best in spite of, and not because of, the publicity they attract. When I say that ‘people of taste do this or think that,’ I naturally have in mind definite people whose taste is the most nearly perfect among all those whom I know. Or on occasion, perhaps, I go back in memory to the precepts of those whose excellence has remained an ideal. In other words when I write of people of quality or fashion or taste, I always select the individual people who ideally serve as models... In other words... Best Society, Best People, or People of Quality can all be defined as people of cultivation, courtesy, taste, and kindness – people, moreover, who are very rarely disassociated from their backgrounds.” – Emily Post
From “A Short History of Rudeness” by Mark Caldwell

To the Manner Born: The Real Story of Emily Post

In the 1922 original edition of “Etiquette,” Emily Post's guide to the practices and manners of "Best Society," 81 pages are devoted to all matters nuptial. There's a sad irony, then, to the fact that Emily Post became the foremost authority on etiquette as the result of an unhappy marriage. In 1905, as biographer Laura Claridge recounts in “Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners,” Post's husband, Edwin, was the victim of a blackmail ploy by a newspaper publisher who threatened to reveal Edwin's affair with a starlet. Edwin, who had lost much of his wife's inheritance playing the stock market, set up a sting to expose the publisher's scheme, then confessed to his wife, who had no choice but to support his decision. The successful sting, along with Edwin's infidelities, was widely reported. The publicity caused Emily much humiliation, and the couple divorced the following year.

Love, sex, money and public shame: 48 years after Post's death, we're still often flabbergasted about the right way to conduct our affairs regarding the first three, and desperate to avoid the last. Even as we celebrate a loosening of social strictures—and equate casualness with self expression—with freedom comes anxiety. (Witness the proliferation of advice books dealing with the etiquette of casual Fridays, e-mail and text messages, and even one-night stands.) With the current financial crisis and political uncertainty, how to address an invitation to an afternoon tea may seem trivial, but, says Peggy Post, Emily's great-granddaughter-in-law and a director of the Emily Post Institute, we long for the structure of established rules more than ever in times of social and economic uncertainty. “Etiquette gives people the blueprints to deal with times of stress,” she says. Perhaps this is why Post was so uniquely qualified to write that blueprint: her life was shaped by stress, both personal and societal.

Post was born within months of the depression of 1873, and grew up in a world where the divide between rich and poor was rapidly expanding. As the daughter of Bruce Price, the architect who designed New York's Tuxedo Park, she enjoyed the diversions of the Gilded Age, consorting with the Astors, Morgans and Vanderbilts. But after her divorce from Edwin she set about reinventing herself as a career woman, gradually shedding the persona of a high-society divorcée for that of a serious professional writer. “I suspect it was good for her to fail in her marriage,” says Claridge. “It helped her come into her own. If she hadn't been so brutally divorced, Emily Post wouldn't have come to be.”

She didn't dispense with society altogether, though; instead, she capitalized on her familiarity with the upper classes by writing novels about romances between American blue bloods and European royalty. By 1920, she was such an authority on the mores of the American aristocracy that her friend the Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield inveigled her to write “a book about how to behave,” as she liked to tell it. (In truth, Claridge writes, Post had been angling for the task for some time.) He believed the country was sorely in need of guidance: “All those new war wives desperate to know how to write a thank-you note, all those immigrants who had made it to our country before the rules tightened, all those new money people, ashamed to admit they had no idea how to behave in society.”

Two years later “Etiquette” came out, the result of Post’s queries to her friends and her friends' children, and liberal plagiarizing of similar guides to correct behavior at home and in the world. The book, now in its 17th edition, has been updated over the years by Post’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Written as a fast-paced social drama (Post imagines a dinner party gone awry thus: “You have collected the smartest and the most critical people around your table to put them to torture such as they will never forget. Never! You have to bite your lips to keep from crying”), the book today is as delicious, and as dated, as an Edith Wharton novel. But those who think Post was overly concerned with raised pinkies and serving spoons underestimate her, says Claridge.

“People want to laugh at her, to devalue her,” she says. “We don't like to be told how to act, especially about matters that seem fairly trivial. You feel put down when other people know these apparent rules. Emily Post believed in having rules, but thought that everyone should have equal access to them. Your only obligation is to make the other person feel OK.”

Claridge developed a passion for her subject only after she was well immersed in the project. Three years after she started the book, she was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. For a while she lost her memory, including her awareness of who Emily Post was and why she had been writing about her. After six months of chemotherapy to remove the cancer, she regained her memory, and came to see Post as an inspiration. “Even in the hospital, my behavior toward the nurses, toward my roommate, was influenced by her. I realized that life is short, and you want to do the best you can while you’re here. It's the golden rule, and she kind of encouraged that.”

If Post remains linked with superciliousness in the public imagination, it's because of our appetite for instruction, not her insistence on protocol. During the Great Depression, she gave radio broadcasts advocating hospitality, quoting from “Etiquette” and its revisions. As Claridge writes, “Letters flooded the radio office, sometimes begging for help: ‘How many inches should I sit from the edge of the table?’ and ‘When taking my place at table, should I approach my chair from the right or the left side?’” An anxious nation wanted reassurance about how to sit at the table, even if it had no guarantee of where the food on it would come from.

Today we might scoff at the very phrase “Best Society,” and be more likely to eat our meals standing over the sink than at any table. “But we're still obsessed with etiquette,” says Peggy Post. Great-grandson Peter Post's “Essential Manners for Men,” one of the many manners guides put out by the Post Institute, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2003. Of the hundreds of e-mail queries the institute receives each month, around half are about weddings (the first time many people think about etiquette, Peggy Post says), but topics include gym protocol, tipping and the eternal conundrum “How do I eat a [fill in the blank]?” “People are so afraid of committing a faux pas,” she says. “They don't want to embarrass themselves and don't want to be mean to other people. Most of these are common respect issues.”

At the height of her fame, Post had a radio show and syndicated newspaper column, and advised the White House on protocol. But the image of her as an unbending automaton was fixed. When she attended a dinner at the Gourmet Society, papers made news of the fact that Post had spilled lingonberries on the tablecloth. In fact, her eyesight had been impaired by a recent operation. As Claridge writes, “Forcing Emily Post to stand in for the one thing she had always emphasized should be forgotten and forgiven—an innocent mistake—journalists were gleefully casting the doyenne of etiquette as part of a system they feared, not one that she endorsed.”

It wasn't until after her death that some were able to appreciate the broader implications of Post’s life work. When, two weeks after her death in 1960, Nikita Krushchev staged his shoe-banging tantrum at the U.N., Life magazine suggested the Soviet leader had displayed poor etiquette. In an article titled “What Would Emily Post Have Said?” the magazine argued that there is “a connection worth tracing between manners and politics.” Today, when political candidates make a show of practicing good manners (“Can I call you Joe?”), then fail to treat each other with honesty or respect, they commit the worst sort of faux pas. “She used to say manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others,” says Peggy Post. “It doesn't matter what fork you use. It is a matter of substance over style.”— By Jennie Yabroff Newsweek, 2008

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

Royal Court Etiquette of Hawaii

Though it is customary that a royal is greeted with a bow, curtsy, or handshake, etiquette decrees that an American citizen is not required to bow or curtsy to any foreign leader or head of state. – Public domain image of His Majesty King Kamehameha of Hawaii. He was known as “King Aleck” by the American and English residents, on terms of absolute equality.

Honolulu Royal Court Etiquette

Captain Stephen Taylor, of Boston, spent a good deal of time at Honolulu, between one voyage and another, and was always. treated as a person to whom a great deal of consideration was due. He visited the Royal family quite often, and was there received by His Majesty King Kamehameha, who was known as “King Aleck” by the American and English residents, on terms of absolute equality.

One day there was a state procession in the streets of Honolulu, and the natives had gathered from all over the kingdom to do honor to royalty. Among the crowd, and leaning nonchalantly against a tree, his big Panama hat on his head, was Captain Stephen Taylor. Presently there was a blare of horns down the street, and the head of the Royal procession came to view. Off went the headgear of such of the natives as had any headgear, but Captain Taylor remained covered.

“Why don't you take off your hat, Captain?” asked a native who spoke English. The Captain vouchsafed no reply. But presently, as the royal party drew near, an Englishman said to him: “Hadn't you better uncover, Captain?” “No!” said he. “I never took off my hat to an any King yet, and never will.” It was rude speech but not meant insultingly, quite evidently; for the next moment the royal party came quite abreast, and Captain Stephen, still with his Panama set nonchalantly on the back of his head, called out cheerily to the King: “Hello, Aleck!”

The King looked an instant at the Captain, and then called out in quite as cheery a tone: “Hello, Steve!” And the cortege moved on amid the applause of the crowd, convincing one Englishman that a Boston sea captain was at least as great a man as a King of Hawaii. – Boston Transcript, 1897

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

Gilded Age Banking Etiquette

It would seem that most of the members of the large business concerns of our proud city understand to a degree the term “bank etiquette,” as though they had basked in its element a long time and had been taught from childhood to understand its legitimate meaning.

ETIQUETTE AT THE BANKS

Boston People Make the Life of the Teller an Easy One

It would seem that most of the members of the large business concerns of our proud city understand to a degree the term “bank etiquette,” as though they had basked in its element a long time and had been taught from childhood to understand its legitimate meaning. They arrange their deposits with a method the most satisfactory imaginable to the bank clerk, a delight to behold. This regularity, while it distinctly shows the training of a thorough business man, is attended with little or no effort on their part, but it means to the bank clerks the saving of an infinite amount of hard, trying labor. 

This method consists of placing all the bills, clean or ragged, of the larger denominations together on the top of whatever size package they chose to make, keeping the $1 and $2 bills strictly to the bottom. Thus the clerk can, with little difficulty, make rapid headway through his arduous work, for he knows what he is facing. These deposits are meat to the eyes of the tellers on ordinary days, but more especially so on heavy days, when they have all they can do to finish up by 6 o'clock. It is interesting to note the marvelous rapidity with which an expert goes through the bills, counting, sorting, straightening and proving, all at the same time. 

You observe that oftentimes he abruptly throws out a certain bill across the desk, apart from the rest, with a “There!” most strongly emphasized, and immediately spurs up to resume his usual pace, not the least disconcerted. The uninitiated is struck mute by the sudden exclamation, starts nervously and stares blankly at the man whom he supposes to have been bitten by an invisible scorpion or reptile. Closer scrutiny proves this particular bill to be a counterfeit, though it has taken the outsider fully fifteen minutes to distinguish between it and the genuine bill, much to the disgust of the expert, who, at a single glance, detected it, going as he was at the rate of a mile a minute, and discarded it as quickly as though it burned him. - Boston Transcript, 1896

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

Etiquette and the “Dutchess” of Tea

    The Duchess of Queensberry and her Dutchess Tea Spoon 

The Duchess of Queensberry, Catherine Hyde Douglas

There is quite a bit of history at the Royal College of Physicians in England. After all, it was founded in 1518 by a charter granted by King Henry VIII, so it has been in business for quite some time.

The teaspoon in question, or a “Dutchess” if you will, is from a collection of medical artifacts at the college. Medical artifacts collected by the late Dr. Cecil Symons (1921–1987) and his wife, Jean.

Dr. Symons was a cardiologist with a curiosity about Georgian Era medicinal spoons, among other things. He and his wife Jean didn't simply buy items for their historical significance, many were bought because they simply liked the pieces and found them interesting. I have found most collectors to buy items for the same reason.

A “Dutchess” (c. 1755), engraved on a similar spoon in the Symons Collection made by Thomas and William Chawner in London and a silver medicine spoon and case (c.1755) inscribed 'Gift of the Dutchess of Queensberry to Lady Carberry

According to Jean Symons in her article, “A duchess, a physician and a spoon,” Symons writes, "The development of the medicine spoon in the Georgian era and particularly whether it preceded the teaspoon - or vice versa - was of particular interest. In 1979 a spoon came up for auction inscribed: 

“Gift of the Dutchess of Queensberry to Lady Carberry.’ Why did she give a spoon in a shagreen case? Was it for medicine or tea? She was known to have a deep interest in potions, tissanes and balsamic draughts and to have made them for her friends. A dose of medicine became known as ‘a teaspoonful’ and it is interesting that that the modern 5ml plastic medicine measure has exactly the same capacity as the Dutchess of Carberry of 1755.”

‘Gift of the Dutchess of Queensberry to Lady Carberry’ 

Just as today, tea at that time was promoted by many as having medicinal benefits. In fact, according to Symons, the Duchess of Queensberry had given away many such spoons as gifts, along with the “medicines” she had made. So many were given away in fact, that a teaspoon soon came to be known as “a Dutchess.”

Notes Symons, “A dose of medicine became known as ‘a teaspoonful’ and the modern plastic medicine spoon, still called a teaspoon, has an identical 5 ml capacity to the Duchess’s silver spoon, which further suggests it may have been used as a medicine spoon.” So there you have it... A “dutchess” is just like a teaspoon.

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

Spoons for Coffee, Tea and Soups

“In the category of round-bowled soup spoons alone (in contrast to the large oval spoons used at dinner time when soup is served in a soup plate, rather than a bowl), there are large ones for chowder, gumbo and other such messes; medium ones for cream soups; and small for bouillon. And as cream soup cups and bouillon cups are equipped with two handles each, the spoons can properly be ignored while the diner drinks directly from the cup and shocks the uninformed.” - What Have We Here? — A Gilded Age French écuelle. An écuelle is a 2-handled broth bowl, generally with a cover, perfect for a broth or light soup. A small, sterling bullion spoon sits inside in the rest position.

ANTHOLOGY ON SPOONS FROM GENTEEL TIME GONE BY

Dear Miss Manners: I inherited from my grandmother luncheon flatware originally manufactured during the Victorian Age. I have thoroughly enjoyed collecting the pattern, as it has so many pieces that are no longer used, reflecting an age so totally different from our own.

What was the purpose of the five-o’clock spoon? The ones I have are the same shape as a demitasse spoon with a slightly longer handle. Why were bouillon spoons made with such short handles? Granted, the bouillon bowls were quite small, but the handles on my bouillon spoons are so short they are difficult to use. My question does not concern correct behavior, but I believe you might have the answer.

Gentle reader: There is nothing like a good silverware question to distract Miss Manners from caring about who is being incorrect. So would you all kindly behave yourselves while she sinks her teeth, as it were, into this one?

The short answers are that five-o’clock spoons were used to stir tea at 5 o’clock, and your bouillon spoons are short because Victorians used even smaller bowls than are now used for serving bouillon. But to procrastinate from returning to behavior-policing duty, Miss Manners will elaborate.

As you know, silverware was a favorite Victorian sport. Inventing specialized tools and acquiring them before the neighbors knew how to use them was what people did to while away the time and work out their aggressions before they had video games.

Someone probably got a lot of points with the idea of making a distinction between stirring breakfast tea with what we now consider the all-purpose teaspoon, and stirring afternoon tea with a daintier one. There is such a thing as an ever-so-slightly smaller version called the four-o’clock spoon, but Miss Manners awards fewer points for this obvious piggybacking.

The coffee situation is similar — large coffee spoons for breakfast and demitasse spoons for coffee taken after dinner. Or at least it was before someone asked what difference it made whether you were stirring tea or coffee and spoiled the game.

Soup offered even more possibilities. In the category of round-bowled soup spoons alone (in contrast to the large oval spoons used at dinner time when soup is served in a soup plate, rather than a bowl), there are large ones for chowder, gumbo and other such messes; medium ones for cream soups; and small for bouillon. And as cream soup cups and bouillon cups are equipped with two handles each, the spoons can properly be ignored while the diner drinks directly from the cup and shocks the uninformed. That last move is a sport Miss Manners is afraid she still finds amusing.– By Miss Manners, Chicago Tribune, October 26, 2000

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

Gilded Age Children at the Table

Fashion now prescribes such large napkins that they are sometimes denominated small tablecloths, but whether large or small, children should be accustomed to the use of them. It is not necessary to fasten the napkin under the chin, except in small children, the action being too suggestive of a bib, but unfolded and laid in the lap, to be used for wiping the fingers or mouth. – Only babies, and those eating such buttery-fare as lobster in the shell, should be wearing any type of bib-like napkin. – Above, little Josephine models a large, white dinner napkin, clipped around her neck, with a sterling chain and two sterling “bunny” faces. Though not considered terribly fashionable, napkin clips were commonly seen holding napkins up on adults too, in the gilded age.

TABLE ETIQUETTE

How Gilded Age Children Should Be Instructed in the Use of Napkins

A Second Debut Article

There is the prevailing opinion among many people, and especially society people, that a residence in the country is synonymous with awkward manners, lack of politeness and disregard of etiquette generally. We can really think of no reason why this should be the case, and if in some instances it is so, the cause is not to be found in the fact of having lived outside of the region of brick walls and paved streets, but from causes entirely outside of this circumstance. 

Many a person ignorant of the most common forms of politeness and etiquette, may be found among the denizens of the city, who have never seen an ear of corn, held, or dug a potato. It is said of some people and children that is natural to them to be polite, that it seems to he born in them. This is true, only in the sense that no other example being presented, they learn it so easily it appears to be natural. 

A child's mind is a blank, and everything be knows is learned at some time. This is shown sometimes in the case of a spoiled child, who has always been allowed to have his own way and treats others as he pleases. His parents may be cultivated and refined people, but such a child will reach across the table to help himself, will say “give me this,” or snatch an article away from another, or do any of the rude things supposed to be confined to ignorant and uncultivated society. 

The native politeness which one would expect will appear to be entirely wanting. Since, then, politeness is entirely an acquired habit, there can be no reason why it should not be acquired in the country, as well as the city, and we have no doubt but that this is the case. There are probably few houses into which this paper goes where the ordinary forms of politeness are not observed. 

Children are taught to say “thank you,” and “if you please,” and to say “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir,” when spoken to. But there are some forms of what is called etiquette that are sometimes neglected. Among these that of table etiquette is perhaps most important, as a talk of such knowledge occasions great embarrassment to a person when thrown among company who are accustomed to such forms. The use of napkins are sometimes neglected, which is an important omission. 

Fashion now prescribes such large napkins that they are sometimes denominated small tablecloths, but whether large or small, children should be accustomed to the use of them. It is not necessary to fasten the napkin under the chin, except in small children, the action being too suggestive of a bib, but unfolded and laid in the lap, to be used for wiping the fingers or mouth. There are a few persons who do not find occasion for its use, even if they do not take the bones in their fingers as children are apt to do, if left to themselves. Polite society does not allow even chicken bones to be taken in the fingers which were formerly the only exception, but the meat must be removed as far as possible with the knife and fork on the plate. 

It being necessary to first teach children to use the knife with the right hand, it is sometimes a little hard to accustom them to the use of the fork in that hand also, and they may require repeated admonitions. But once learned they will never forget it, and much mortification may be saved in the future for whatever may be thought of the use of the fork, certainly no other method of eating is accepted in polite society. Neglect of these particulars may cause children to ask the reproachful question, “Why did you not teach me these things?” — Western Rural, 1885

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