Well Bred Table Etiquette of 1901

Do not leave your spoon in your tea cup. Do not sip your tea or coffee with a spoon. Do not drain the cup.

Table Etiquette: 

How to Eat According to the Rules of Good Breeding

• Do not leave your spoon in your tea cup. 
• Crack the top off your egg instead of peeling it. 
• If you have bacon or fish, have a separate plate for your bread or toast and butter, but not when only having boiled eggs, which require very careful eating, by the by, as nothing looks so nasty as yolk of egg spilled all over the plate and egg cup. 
• Do not sip your tea or coffee with a spoon. Do not drain the cup. 
• For fish do not use a dessert knife instead of the fish knife. If there be no fish knife, use a small crust of your bread, but leave that piece of crust on your plate. Do not eat it afterward, as so many people do. 
• Do not be dainty and fringe your plate with bits of meat. Eat what you can and put any skin or bone on the edge of your plate in one little heap, which moves down from the edge when you have finished. 
• Do not crumple up your table napkin. If you are only a guest for the day, do not fold it up, but if you are staying on and in a quiet household, fold it up. If you are staying in a big house where everything is done “en grand prince,” do not fold it up. Just place it on the table when you leave, as in rich establishments, there are clean table napkins every day. 
• After eating it is well before you drink to wipe your lips, otherwise you leave a smeary mark on the glass. 
• Do not gulp liquids and bolt food. 
• Do not masticate or swallow audibly. 
• Do not pile your plate with food or grasp your knife, fork or spoon as if it were a weapon of warfare. 
• Do not crumble the bread by your side or drain your glass to the last drop. 
• On the other hand, do not be affected and eat as if an appetite were a crime, drink as if you were a dicky bird, and hold your knife, fork and spoon as if they were red-hot needles. – Hanford Journal, 1901

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