Antebellum Table Manners

If you are asked at table what part of the meat you prefer, name your favorite piece, but do not give such information unless asked to do so. To point out any especial part of a dish, and ask for it, is ill-bred. To answer, when asked to select a part, that “it is a matter of indifference,” or, “I can eat any part,” is annoying to the carver, as he cares less than yourself certainly, and would prefer to give you the piece you really like best.  —Public domain image of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln

In order to appear perfectly well-bred at table when in company, or in public, as at a hotel, you must pay attention, three times a day, to the points of table etiquette. If you neglect these little details at home and in private, they will be performed awkwardly and with an air of restraint when you are in company. By making them habitual, they will become natural, and appear easily, and sit gracefully upon you.

Even when eating entirely alone, observe these little details, thus making the most finished and elegant manners perfectly familiar, and thus avoiding the stiff, awkward air you will wear if you keep your politeness only for company, when you will be constantly apprehensive of doing wrong.

At breakfast or tea, if your seat is at the head of the table, you must, before taking anything upon your own plate, fill a cup for each one of the family, and pass them round, being careful to suit each one in the preparation of the cup, that none may return to you for more tea, water, sugar, or milk. If you have a visitor, pass the cup with the tea or coffee alone in it, and hand with the[106] cup the sugar bowl and cream pitcher, that these may be added in the quantity preferred.

After all the cups have been filled and passed round, you may take the bread, butter, and other food upon your own plate. Train your children, so that they will pass these things to you as soon as they see you are ready to receive them.

If you are yourself at the side of the table, pass the bread, butter, etc., to the lady at the head, when you see that she has sent the cups from the waiter before her, to those seated at the table.

If you occupy the place of head of the table, you must watch the cups, offer to fill them when empty, and also see that each one of the family is well helped to the other articles upon the table.

Avoid making any noise in eating, even if each meal is eaten in solitary state. It is a disgusting habit, and one not easily cured if once contracted, to make any noise with the lips when eating.

Never put large pieces of food into your mouth. Eat slowly, and cut your food into small pieces before putting it into your mouth.

Use your fork, or spoon, never your knife, to put your food into your mouth. At dinner, hold in your left hand a piece of bread, and raise your meat or vegetables with the fork, holding the bread to prevent the pieces slipping from the plate.

If you are asked at table what part of the meat you prefer, name your favorite piece, but do not give such information unless asked to do so. To point out any especial part of a dish, and ask for it, is ill-bred. To answer, when asked to select a part, that "it is a matter of indifference," or, "I can eat any part," is annoying to the carver, as he cares less than yourself certainly, and would prefer to give you the piece you really like best.

Do not pour coffee or tea from your cup into your saucer, and do not blow either these or soup. Wait until they cool.

Use the butter-knife, salt-spoon, and sugar-tongs as scrupulously when alone, as if a room full of people were watching you. Otherwise, you may neglect to do so when the omission will mortify you.

Never put poultry or fish bones, or the stones of fruit, upon the table-cloth, but place them on the edge of your plate.

Do not begin to eat until others at the table are ready to commence too.

Sit easily in your chair, neither too near the table, nor too far from it, and avoid such tricks as putting your arms on the table, leaning back lazily in your chair, or playing with your knife, fork, or spoon.

Never raise your voice, when speaking, any higher than is necessary. The clear articulation and distinct pronunciation of each word, will make a low tone more agreeable and more easily understood, than the loudest tone, if the speech is rapid or indistinct.

Never pass your plate with the knife or fork upon it, and when you pass your cup, put the spoon in the saucer.

Never pile up the food on your plate. It looks as if you feared it would all be gone before you could be[108] helped again, and it will certainly make your attempts to cut the food awkward, if your plate is crowded.

If there is a delicacy upon the table, partake of it sparingly, and never help yourself to it a second time.

If you wish to cough, or use your handkerchief, rise from the table, and leave the room. If you have not time to do this, cover your mouth, and turn your head aside from the table, and perform the disagreeable necessity as rapidly and quietly as possible.

Avoid gesticulation at the table. Indeed, a well-bred lady will never gesticulate, but converse quietly, letting the expression and animation of her features give force to her words.

Never, when at the home table, leave it until the other members of the family are also ready to rise. — By Florence Hartley, 1860

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

Unset Tables Equal Lower Standards

This restaurant above, in business for 60 years or more, still offers delicious food, excellent service and properly set tables!
This restaurant below, does not offer set tables…

What has the dining world come to when one arrives to what is advertised as a very nice restaurant, only to find no place settings, but utensils wrapped up in a napkin and set on the table next to menus? It used to be when I went into a nice restaurant, the table was already laid for me. I don’t mind taking the utensils out and setting the table for the restaurant, as this certainly keeps me in business. But how will children ever grow up knowing what a properly set table looks like, when they never see one while out to dine with their parents? – Above, a booth at a local restaurant which showed set tables on their website. I was, again, disappointed! 

Due to a very busy summer calendar teaching etiquette, I spent a lot of time in restaurants over the past 3 months feeling disappointed. I had some wonderful clients across the board, children and adults alike. I faced numerous challenges when teaching, which is always the case when dealing with people from so many walks of life. I truly enjoyed everyone I met this past summer. None of my clients were the reason for my disappointment. It was the restaurants that let me down. 

Normally, I’d be more likely to be critiquing the foods I had been served much more than the decor. The last year, however, has been exasperating! Judging by the current state of things, it seems that I will be setting my own tables in most all restaurants for the near future. I’m just hoping it’s not also for many years to come. 

Is this lazy? Why yes, it is. But it’s in the name of the restaurant, so you’ve been given fair warning. 

How did we get here? Is it laziness? Is it the fact that the restaurant business seems fairly slow these days and “the restaurants are afraid to set tables,” as one of my clients recently suggested? 

I realize that empty tables at lunch or dinner time don’t necessarily need to be set, as the restaurants’ staffs will just need to remove the utensils and wash them all again before the next day, if the restaurant doesn’t have a full crowd show up. That’s a possibility, I suppose. 

But wouldn’t it make matters worse if what were once considered very nice restaurants, are now considered places for “quick eats,” due to the lack of place settings? 

As good as the food may be, or as attractive as decor might be in a restaurant, if the tables aren’t set, but merely stocked with flatware wrapped up in napkins holding “do-it-yourself” sets, I’m reluctant to dine there again… A table like this gives “quick eats” vibes.

It certainly lowers my opinion of a restaurant if I arrive to unset tables. Come to think of it, the only restaurant I dined at which was consistently packed and running a wait list, was the restaurant which still has white table cloths, white cloth napkins and fully set places. Diners who arrived were looking for something special, and their expectations were met! That is why the establishment is consistently busy. It has never lowered its standards.

A favorite restaurant of mine underwent a change that shocked me a year ago. I was used to finding each place setting with not just a placemat, tumbler, a bread plate, napkin, knife, and fork (the most common set of place setting elements for a restaurant) but it offered each diner a smaller knife to use as a butter spreader, or possibly even a salad. There was also the very nice touch of a hammered metal napkin ring in the shape of a butterfly, to go with the restaurant’s name, Mariposa.

Last summer, when I brought my granddaughters there to lunch for my eldest granddaughter’s birthday, the places were no longer actually “set.” Disappointingly, there were new colored placemats, and, instead of colorful napkins to match the theme of the decor, there was what looked like a common dish towel with the utensils rolled up inside.

Gone were the chic looking modern touches previously found at their tables. Even the colorful or stylish menus which had changed every so often over the years, had been replaced with the boring and the bland.

These two photos, above and directly below are from my favorite place to lunch… the Mariposa Restaurant. These photos show place settings. The photos were taken about 3 years apart. 

 

This third photo at Mariposa was from last May…. It came as a real shock! What have things come to when tables in even nicer establishments simply have flatware plopped down in front of the diners, forcing the diners to set the tables themselves?

Until we stop settling for the boring, the bland, and relaxed standards in restaurants, the more tabletop misconceptions, utensil myths, and utensil mysteries are certainly ahead of us.  

Crisp, white tablecloth and white napkins, with place settings for each guest of the table’s party. The signal of fine dining to come!

I did get a reprieve last night when I went to a restaurant I had eaten at so often, 40 years ago. The place was packed. Diners looked happy to be there on a Saturday night. And there in the candlelit dining room were rows of table upon table with crisp, white tablecloths and white napkins, and plate settings set for each guest of a table’s party. Maybe I don’t have to relax my expectations because everyone else is relaxing their standards?  It certainly must be the sign of fine dining to come!

Contributor, and Site Editor, Maura J. Graber has been teaching etiquette to children, teens and adults, and training new etiquette instructors, since 1990, as founder and director of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette. A writer, Graber has been featured in countless newspapers, magazines and television shows, and was an on-air contributor and correspondent for PBS in Southern California for 15 years. She is working on her 4th book on etiquette and antiques throughout history and was a historical etiquette consultant for Julian Fellowes’ newest period drama, The Gilded Age. Her popular books on antique flatware and etiquette history are available on Amazon

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

Etiquette Humor and Dieting in 1969

Dieting and Exercising? Table manners burn very few calories, so eating properly is not considered good exercise. Polite? Yes. Good exercise? No... — “The amount of energy expended in wielding a knife and fork probably is about the same as that required to depress typewriter keys. It may therefore be assumed that eating burns about 56 calories an hour. If that figure is anything like accurate, we can see at a glance that, eating is a very poor way to lose weight.”

THE LIGHTER SIDE

WASHINGTON (UPI) - It is well known that the only way to avoid gaining weight is to balance your intake of calories with the calories you burn through exercise and other activity. The ideal arrangement would be to burn as many calories eating the food as the food itself contains. Then we could forget about jogging, skiing, karate and all of those other silly exercises. Unfortunately, however, it is very difficult for a person to expend enough energy eating to offset the calories he eats. In this respect, we are victims of good table manners. 

Emily Post and other etiquette arbiters have imposed standards that demand a certain amount of restraint in the way we consume our victuals. I have never seen any figures on the number of calories the average person burns during a meal. It has been calculated, however, that a person burns about 56 calories an hour while operating a nonelectric typewriter. The amount of energy expended in wielding a knife and fork probably is about the same as that required to depress typewriter keys. It may therefore be assumed that eating burns about 56 calories an hour. If that figure is anything like accurate, we can see at a glance that, eating is a very poor way to lose weight. 

A single slice of mince pie consumed in a matter of minutes infuses us with more calories (450) than we burn during the entire dinner hour. The solution to this problem is to develop a more vigorous method of dining one that requires us to use vast amounts of energy while partaking of viands. Going back to the old hoarding house style would do it. You very rarely saw a fat boarder. But it is doubtful our present concept of civilization would countenance a return to the raw savagery and violence that existed around boarding house dining tables. 

A more humane approach would be to have everyone take nourishment under the conditions that prevail at cocktail parties. As a conservative estimate it may be assumed that the average person burns 5,280 calories an hour fighting off starvation at cocktail parties. The food he gets during the squandering of that amount of energy probably contains about 98 calories. If we adopted the cocktail party system at home if, in other words, we had to snatch our food off passing trays and eat it from tiny plates while milling around in congested areas absorbing blows to the ribs from errant elbows obesity would soon be a thing of the past. We might drink ourselves to death, but we would die skinny. — By Dick West, 1969

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

Etiquette and Informal Titles

In 1974, couples moving in together without being married was not the norm, so Dick West had some questions… Wrote Dick, “I would have felt a little foolish going up to Goldang and saying: ‘How’s your mistress?’ That might be acceptable in Paris but it sounds much too quaint, melodramatic and sophisticated for the Washington suburbs. ‘How’s your girl friend?’ doesn’t do it either. ‘Girl friend’ is far too casual for the relationship involved here.”

WASHINGTON (UPI) - I ran into Preston Goldang at a party the other evening and I almost said “How’s your wife?” Then I remembered that Goldang and the woman he is living with aren’t married. This brings up a problem. What is the proper way to refer to single people of the opposite sex who move in with each other? 

A few years ago there weren't enough unmarried couples setting up housekeeping for Emily Post to bother with. But now the practice is widespread enough to require a whole new chapter in the book of etiquette. Somehow the terminology previously used in liaisons of this sort no longer seem appropriate. 

I would have felt a little foolish going up to Goldang and saying: “How’s your mistress?” That might be acceptable in Paris but it sounds much too quaint, melodramatic and sophisticated for the Washington suburbs. “How’s your girl friend?” doesn’t do it either. “Girl friend” is far too casual for the relationship involved here. 

On the other hand, I didn’t feel I knew Goldang quite well enough to ask “How’s the woman you’ve been living with?” So I ended up asking “How’s your roommate?” Judging from the look he gave me, that also failed to capture the essence of their arrangement. The nomenclature on the male side of these in-house affairs also is a bit awkward. “Lover?” 

It’s difficult to think of Preston Goldang as a lover in the classical, Don Juanish sense of the word. “Paramour” has a distinctly foreign ring to it, conjuring up visions of Italian balcony hanky-panky. As for “boy friend,” see “girl friend” above. Other terms that spring to mind sweetheart, beau, steady, suitor, swain, sugar daddy, etc... must be rejected as ambiguous or hopelessly old fashioned. 

What is needed is a new title or two along the line of the “Ms.” invented by women’s liberation leaders. Although “Ms.” has its uses, you wouldn’t ask a bachelor “How’s the Ms.?” Until someone comes along with a better suggestion, perhaps unmarried couples who are living together could be identified as “pad partners.” Which could be abbreviated as “Ppf.” for females and “Ppm.” for males. This may not be the perfect solution to the problem. But at least it answers the question of how to address their Christmas cards.— By Dick West, 1974

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

Did 80’s Manners Kill Smoking Customs?

Smoking in public is again becoming bad manners. The private label “impolite” may ultimately have more effect on people’s behavior than the surgeon general’s label “unhealthy.”

BOSTON The man seated at the table on my right is smoking. Actually, he is just holding. The cigarette is smoking. Nevertheless, due to my own charm and magnetic appeal, the smoke has chosen to drift directly from his left hand to my right eye.

With a gesture born of years of experience, I subtly wave my menu at the offending current. The man doesn't notice. I then lean over, tap him on the shoulder and ask if he would mind redirecting his smoke. The man apologizes sheepishly, and shifts the cigarette from one hand to the other.

The smoke now begins to drift into the eyes of another diner. This man tips his chair back, touches the smoker on the arm and asks if he would please rechannel the flow. The smoker sighs and with a gesture of defeat, squashes the glowing offender into the glass ashtray.

At the moment his cigarette meets its premature end, it occurs to me that the same vignette is being repeated a thousand times a day in a thousand restaurants, offices, airports, and shopping lines.

The smokers who once owned the air are being pushed back into special zones and corners and closets. They can be seen searching desperately for ashtrays, stepping out for smokes, and holding their cigarette over their heads, directly under an exhaust fan. It's all a bit like watching the Virginia Slims reel go into reverse. Smoking in public is again becoming bad manners. The private label “impolite” may ultimately have more effect on people’s behavior than the surgeon general’s label “unhealthy.”

If so, it won't be the first time that social pressure has made social history. This is precisely what happened to an ancient and honorable habit known as spitting. In Norbert Elias’ book, “The History of Manners,” he describes a host of changing attitudes and habits from medieval times to ours. He even gives a brief chronology of how spitting became a victim of “civilization.”

Medieval etiquette authors started with the basics: “Do not clean your teeth with your knife. Do not spit on or over the table.” Spitting under the table in those days was allowed even among the best company.

Sometime during the 16th century, our genteel ancestors were being advised to refrain from spitting during mealtime. By the 17th century, they were admonished not to spit on the ground.

The spit repression went on for centuries. In 1859, when spittoons had become a proper substitute for the ground or the napkin, one arbiter of good taste was advising: “Spitting is at all times a disgusting habit. I need say nothing more than never indulge in it.” Fifty years later by 1910, even the spittoon had vanished like some relic of a coarser age.

By now, public spitting itself has virtually disappeared except among the crude, the coughing, and the baseball players. Even writing about it feels vaguely improper. We now consider spitting “uncivilized” and this whole change in social behavior is called “progress.”

As Elias describes the evolution of manners: “The decisive role (was) played in this civilizing process by a very specific change in the feelings of shame and delicacy.”

Admittedly, during the past half-century smoking flourished. There was little support in this era for the virtues of “shame and delicacy.” People worried more about repression than rudeness. I suspect that smoking was an example of pseudo-freedom.

But now, with the help of medical researchers, civilization is creeping up again on the tobacco barbarians. You can see it in clear signs — “Smoking Not Permitted” - and dirty looks. The balance of embarrassment has shifted from non-smokers to smokers. The balance of rudeness has shifted from the critics of smoke to the purveyors of smoke.

Will smoking go the way of spitting, from rude to extinct? Remember what happened to the spittoon. If you have any stock in ashtrays, sell. — By Ellen Goodman for the Boston Globe, 1982

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

American Dining Style’s Roots

Fun Facts About the American Dining Style

Image Source: @peopleimages12 via 123RF

Ever caught yourself switching your fork from hand to hand mid-meal and wondered, "Why am I doing this?" You can thank centuries of etiquette evolution for that little dance. The American Dining Style has a surprisingly quirky backstory, and once you know it, you'll never look at your fork the same way again. Let's dig into some fun facts about the history of eating methods.

Fact #1: We Didn't Always Own Silverware

Long before place settings were a thing, hands, fingers, and sharp knives handled most of the eating. Utensils weren't mass-produced, so people didn't have drawers full of forks and spoons waiting at home. Many dinner guests actually brought their own knife to the table. And in a small act of old-world chivalry, since women typically didn't carry knives of their own, the men at the table would cut food for them.

Fact #2: Forks Were Once Considered Sinister

Believe it or not, the fork had an image problem. Its resemblance to a tiny pitchfork made some diners genuinely suspicious, and it was even branded the "devil's tool" in certain circles. While forks waited out their reputation crisis, the humble spoon had its moment in the spotlight instead.

Fact #3: The Fork-Switching Habit Has a Real Name

That cut-and-switch motion so many Americans do without thinking? It's often called the "zig-zag" method, and it's the heart of the American Dining Style. Here's how it plays out, step by step: cut the food with the knife, set the knife down, move the fork from the left hand to the right, then take the bite. Four steps in total, which traces all the way back to a workaround for right-handed diners using dull dinner knives alongside a spoon.

Fact #4: Europe Actually Invented the Four-Step Method

Here's a twist: the "American" style didn't start in America at all. It originated in Europe, back when spoons were used to steady food while a blunt knife did the cutting. Since most people are right-handed, it felt more natural to switch the spoon over before taking a bite. Somewhere along the way, as forks came into regular use on both sides of the Atlantic by the 1850s, the U.S. held onto this switching habit while European tables moved on.

Fact #5: Europe Simplified Things — We Just Never Got the Memo

Around that same time, upper-class Europeans decided the fork-switching shuffle was more trouble than it was worth. They dropped the extra steps and started keeping the fork in the left hand, tines down, the entire meal; what we now know as the Continental style. It's leaner, it's tidier, and it's the two-step approach most knife-and-fork cultures use today. Meanwhile, America kept dancing.

Fact #6: Etiquette Experts Called It Outdated Decades Ago

This isn't exactly breaking news. Back in 1948, Millicent Fenwick — then an editor at Vogue and later a U.S. representative to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization — declared the switching method out of date in Vogue's Book of Etiquette. And yet, nearly 80 years later, it's still going strong at American tables everywhere.

Fact #7: Fast Food Might Be Changing the Game

Here's a fun modern twist: some market data shows forks now outselling knives by roughly two to one in the U.S. Why? Blame convenience. Pre-cut pizza, ready-made meals, and grab-and-go snacks mean more Americans are eating one-handed than ever. As author Jacob Bronowski observed in The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, "the rise of casual dining and drive-throughs has brought back an era of eating with our hands that hasn't been this common since the 1500s."

The Real Takeaway

Whether you switch your fork four times or keep it steady in your left hand the whole meal, there's no single "correct" way to eat — just the way that feels most comfortable and gracious for you and your table. The American Dining Style has an interesting and quirky history, but at the end of the day (and the end of the meal), good manners are what really matter.

Because no matter which utensil habits you inherited, sharing a meal together will always be in style. 

Sources: Colonial American History Stories—1215-1664: Forgotten and Famous Historical Events (Timeline of United States History) by Paul R. Wonning, “Origins of the Common Fork,” by Chad Ward, author of An Edge in the Kitchen, and Etiquipedia, an Etiquette Encyclopedia and Etiquette History Blog

 Contributor, Candace Smith is a retired, national award-winning secondary school educator, Candace Smith teaches university students and professionals the soft skills of etiquette and protocol. She found these skills necessary in her own life after her husband received international recognition in 2002. Plunged into a new “normal” of travel and formal social gatherings with global leaders, she discovered how uncomfortable she was in many important social situations. After extensive training in etiquette and protocol, Candace realized a markedly increased confidence level in meeting and greeting and dining skills and was inspired to share these skills that will help others gain comfort and confidence in dining and networking situations. Learn more at http://www.candacesmithetiquette.com/

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

Etiquette Ignorance and Finger Bowls

 

Another patented design for a new finger bowl, from Christmas of 1900 — “ Like most Americans, he hesitated to own that he did not know everything, but while counting his change he said shyly: “Two is enough, I think.”  He was not the first who had failed in understanding the finger-bowl mystery.”

Ignorance Cleared Up in the Finger Bowl Section of the Shop 

A man who had heard either of the Oriental fashion of pouring rose water on the fingers after a meal, or else of the French style, not very generally, adopted in this country, of passing around a large bowl of rose water, into which each guest dips his napkin and wipes his fingers therewith, went into a well-known china shop the other day and selected, and paid for, two finger-bowls.Like most Americans, he hesitated to own that he did not know everything, but while counting his change he said shyly: “Two is enough, I think.” 

“Certainly,” said the saleswoman, “if you have but one person beside yourself at the table.” “But I want these for a dinner party,” he said, “one at each end of the table!” “And one tumbler at each end of the table, too?” she asked, not pertly, but gently. “Why, no,” he said, light breaking in upon him. “I want —well, I only want four or five more, but I'll take a dozen. What a fool I am!” Before he went out he heard enough stories of queer blunders to convince him that he was not the first who had failed in understanding the finger-bowl mystery. — Boston Transcript, 1888

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

Etiquette and Dinner Diplomacy in India

“Mr. Modi is vegetarian and does not drink alcohol. At functions he attends, public or private, alcohol is removed from view; at wedding receptions, for example, his security agents have had bars closed before his arrival.” — Above, traditional vegetarian Indian fare. Image provided by Elizabeth Sóos of Auersmont Etiquette 

                             

“Modi Served World Leaders a Meatless Meal, and His Critics Pounced: Opposition politicians said a vegetarian dinner served at a diplomatic summit misrepresented India’s culinary heritage. A minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government rejected the criticism.” 

— The New York Times, 9/2026

“According to a New York Times article, “The world leaders who dined together at the BRICS summit in India over the weekend were served plate after plate of delicacies: Cubes of paneer simmered in gravy, Himalayan morel mushrooms with saffron, lentil broth with tomatoes and curry leaves. Meat was conspicuously absent.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political opponents, who rarely miss a chance to criticize him, accused him of promoting an incomplete image of India’s culinary landscape. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the lower house of Parliament, pointed out on social media that most Indians are not vegetarian.” Was this an actual problem? Or was this simply an excuse for various political factions to rattle cages?

Kiren Rijiju, a minister in Mr. Modi’s government said, “I can’t believe that Congress party is making politics even on the food menu served to the leaders of BRICS nations,” referring to Mr. Gandhi’s Indian National Congress political party. He is quoted as saying the dishes reflected India’s “diverse regional traditions.”

Food has somehow become increasingly polarizing during Mr. Modi’s time as PM. Mr. Modi has a Hindu nationalist base and vegetarianism has particular religious and cultural associations among the upper castes Hindus and in Hindu communities in parts of northern and western India. Though many Hindus do eat meat, Modi’s government has, in recent years, sidelined Muslims and other groups, to promote Hindu causes.

The BRICS dinner was not an isolated example, as it was shown among a few others listed in the article. Noted the Times, “President Patrick Herminie of Seychelles and President To Lam of Vietnam are among the world leaders who were served vegetarian meals during visits to New Delhi this year.” 

In an interview with Keri Matwick, a scholar at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who studies food and culinary diplomacy. she said that meals served to visiting dignitaries can have an important diplomatic function, adding that,  “It’s a way to try to highlight something about the country to another country… it can also be a way to show respect to a visiting leader or facilitate conversation.”

“At other diplomatic gatherings, food has been used to set the tone. In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain were served hot dogs during a picnic at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s family estate in Hyde Park, N.Y. ‘People laughed because of how informal it was but it added a uniqueness’ to the event,” according to Ms. Matwick. — Above, more traditional vegetarian Indian fare. Image provided by Elizabeth Sóos of Auersmont Etiquette 

Keep in mind that diplomatic menus can also cause offense, as was the case when President Trump was in South Korea for a 2017 state dinner. The South Korean host served shrimp caught near islands claimed by Japan, yet controlled by South Korea. This prompted  a complaint from an angry Tokyo.

“Ultimately, the goal of diplomatic meals is to help foster good relations,” Ms. Matwick told the Times, adding the caveat, if a meal is not handled well, “it can spark a lot of controversy.” — From an article by Yan Zhuang and Alex Travelli for the New York Times, Sept, 2026

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