Etiquette and Handsome Tables

Italian Majolica with its beautiful colors and delightful designs makes a pretty table. Four dishes for cheeses and crackers and a central one holding nuts are decorated with charming bushy-tailed squirrels. Place settings are on one side of the table to enable the guests to enjoy a view of the garden.— From “Table Settings, Entertaining and Etiquette”

“The table is the point for family reunion twice or three times a day, and nothing should be lacking that we can do to make those meetings pleasant and cheerful. No decoration will suffice to cover untidy napery, dim glass, or only partly cleaned silver. All details must be looked to, and then a perfect whole may be expected.” This advice, taken from an English penny weekly dated 1896, has lost none of its validity.

Tables are set every day, by most housewives, for many kinds of meals of varying degrees of importance, from breakfast to theater suppers. Today some people think that setting an attractive table is an unnecessary fuss and bother, and they have time only for the bare necessities. Meals become just a daily chore to be handled with dispatch; the sooner they are over, the better. Unfortunately there are times when one has to eat a sandwich, and run. Eating “on the run” is perhaps better than not eating at all, but it is not complimentary to the food, the cook, or the setting to say nothing about its effect on the digestive system. Everyone will agree that meals eaten in a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere are better for us, as well as being more enjoyable. It is our responsibility to create a pretty table, so that the meals are enjoyed in a setting that tempts one to linger over them and relax.

Snack bars and dinettes are convenient, of course, but the very casual quality of every thing that goes with this type of setting produces a casual manner that too easily slips to no manners at all. I believe that every effort to set a pretty table is necessary in order to please oneself, to use one's creative abilities to the full, and, in consequence, to brighten the day and delight one's family and friends as best one can. Not only does this enhance the presentation of food and add zest to dining, but it also creates a feeling of unity (which seems to be better accomplished around the dining-room table than at any other place in the home) and sets a standard for the younger members of the household to follow. — Patricia Easterbrook Roberts, 1960

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