Table Manners for Fruit

Cherries, berries, strawberries (they are not actually berries), oranges, grapes, grapefruit, mangoes and lemons all had utensils specifically made for enjoying them. Many other fruits had none. Peaches, apricots, apples, pears, pineapples, papayas, kiwi, nectarines and plums are among the many fruits which were overlooked. When it came to the etiquette of eating them, the small fruit knife and fruit fork would have to suffice.
— Photo source, Etiquipedia private library

How to Eat Peaches

“The art of eating a peach” is, it appears, one of the questions of the day. According to one authority on the etiquette of the dinner table, a peach should be picked with the fork, quartered, peeled and eaten piece-meal. But, as so much manipulation would evidently leave all the juice of the fruit on the plate this method, to be palatable, requires the courage of the young lady in the story who, at her first appearance at a dinner party, raised her dessert plate with her two hands and calmly drank the sweet juice of the nectarines. The French rule of eating peaches will, therefore, be accepted with much favor, and that rule is, “D’y mordre a pleines dents.”—Pall Mall Budget, 1891

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