Gilded Age Table Etiquette “Don’ts”

Don't bite your bread: break it of with your hand. Don't trowel butter across an unbroken slice of bread. – Queen Victoria popularized placing a loaf of bread from which to cut slices from on the dining table, but dinner rolls were always found to be more popular on fashionable American tables of the era.– 
For laying the proper Gilded Age Table: “The damask cloth, which is always in the best taste for dinner, should have been ironed with a distinct crease down the middle, as a guide in the mathematical arrangement of the places. Next are laid plates large enough to hold the oyster or soup plate which is to contain the first course, and on it, or sometimes beside it, is arranged the napkin. This should have been ironed so as to fold over in three rather than four thicknesses, and it should be folded first so that the upper edge is broken at the midline and brought down the crease on either side of the mid-crease. The two protruding ends of the linen are now folded back on themselves so as to leave nearly a right-angled triangle of the napkin. This arrangement is finally turned over so that the foiled ends are underneath, and the dinner roll inserted.”

DON'T

• Don't leave your knife and fork your plate when you send it for a second supply. This rule is disputed by the English. The logic of the question, however, proves the correctness of this, for it is not easy to place food on a plate already occupied by a knife and fork It is always a law of politeness to incommode one's self rather than incommode others, so the problem of what to do with your dinner tools should be your problem rather than that of the host’s. The handles of knives and forks are now loaded so that the blades or tines will soil the cloth when rested upon the table. Or one may with a little skill hold knife and fork without awkwardness)
• Don't reject bits of bone or other substances by spitting them back into the plate. Quietly eject them upon your fork holding it to your lips and then place them upon the plate. Fruit stones may be removed with the fingers.
• Don't bite your bread: break it of with your hand. Don't trowel butter across an unbroken slice of bread.
• Don't stretch across another's plate to reach anything.
• Don't apply to your neighbor to pass articles when the servant is at hand.
• Don't finger articles: don't play with your napkin or your goblet or your fork or with anything.
• Don't mop your face or beard with a napkin. Draw it across your lips neatly.
• Don't turn your back to one person for the purpose of talking with another, don't talk across the one seated next to you.
• Don't forget that the lady sitting at your side has the first claim upon your attention. A lady at your side must not be neglected whether you have been introduced to her or not.
• Don't talk when your mouth is full. – From “Don’t” by Censor (Oliver Bell Bunce) 1887 

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