Simplicity in Table Setting is Key

Elaborate and ornate settings go with ceremonious living; if you do not live ceremoniously, do not adopt them. Simple living calls for the beauty of simplicity. If you live one way, you can not imitate the other smartly.

The Keynote Is Simplicity

Two or three implements on each side of a plate take up considerable space, so for reasons of neatness and order the table is not loaded with more silver than is needed for the main courses. The dessert spoon and fork are therefore placed on the dessert plate, which stands on the sideboard ready – set for convenience. They are brought to the table on that plate after the more substantial part of the meal is over and placed in front of the diner, who himself not the maid-lifts them off at once and places them on the table.

As we noted in a previous post, service is always from the left because it is easier for the person served to help himself from that side. Used plates are always removed from the left lest the person removing them precipitate a great crash of china and glass by knocking against a diner's hand, which might be stretched out suddenly to take a glass of water. Therefore, we repeat: serve from the left; take all dishes away from the left, but remove glasses and unused right-hand implements from the right.

The sort of china, glass, and silver used, the way a table may be decorated and lighted, the kind of covering most appropriate -all these depend on the taste of the hostess and her understanding of what fits her surroundings. There is no rigid rule of etiquette about them. Elaborate and ornate settings go with ceremonious living; if you do not live ceremoniously, do not adopt them. Simple living calls for the beauty of simplicity. If you live one way, you can not imitate the other smartly.

Good taste is not a matter of the pocketbook; it is shown in the table arrangements of cottage and mansion alike. For instance, costly lace cloths, silver candelabra, priceless porcelain compote dishes, and great silver tankards filled with hothouse blossoms are suitable for fine houses, while a table made of polished silvery driftwood, set with gay pottery and colored glasses and decorated by large shells filled with wild flowers, is charming in a beach cottage.– From “Table Setting and Service” by Elizabeth Barnard, 1935

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