1930’s Flatware Etiquette Changes

Toward the end of the Great Depression and the start of World War II, fewer households had the differing types of flatware that had once been produced during the Victorian era, Gilded Age or Edwardian era. Teaspoons were recommended for bullions and dessert-spoons were being called “oval soup or dessert spoons.” Specialty “melon spoons” (pictured above) and the longer, quite different “melon forks,” like those offered just 30 years earlier were no longer being offered by silver companies and were difficult to come by unless one had inherited them.

The necessary implements are: For the melon a dessert-spoon on the right, or if grapefruit or fruit cocktail is to be served, a teaspoon; for soup in a bouillon cup, a teaspoon— if served in a wide soup cup, a dessert-spoon; for the main course, a dinner knife on the right and a dinner fork on the left. The salad fork lies next to the plate. A bread-and-butter plate set above and slightly to the left of the place plate holds the individual butter knife with which to butter small rolls or toast during the meal, and the crackers which are served with the salad and cheese.

A small but elaborate luncheon for only three or four persons would perhaps have less food, though practically as many courses. To give an example:

Soup

Curried Eggs

Mousse of Ham with Peas Alligator Pear Salad 

Chocolate Soufflé

In small households where both cooking and serving are done by the same person, food and service are simplified. Stuffed eggs, to be prepared beforehand, might begin the meal, salmon cutlet with potatoes and carrots come next, followed by stewed fruit. Some women drink tea with luncheon, but the rule is to serve coffee after it, either at table or in the living-room, as seems easiest. Since none of the food needs to be cut, this menu would require as table implements only two forks, both small, and in this case they may go either on the left or on the right. The dessert plate would, as always, carry the dessert-spoon and fork, and even at the smallest lunch there would be finger-bowls. – From “Table Setting and Service,” for the Home Institute, by Elizabeth Barnard, 1935

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