“Queer” Old Table Manners Advice?

Old advertising photo of a Thanksgiving turkey, complete with paper frills on the drumsticks – “Before the carving fork was introduced, paper covers were placed over those portions of meat which had to be grasped with the left hand. The paper frills sometimes seen nowadays on cutlet bones, are said by the author, to be a survival of the old custom.” – 1913 

Some Queer Old Table Manners in Ancient Times: 

People were told not to pick their teeth with knife or fork

“Until the middle of the seventeenth century,” writes Rose M. Bradley in “The English Housewife”, “forks were a luxury, treated rather as toys, elegant, with jeweled handles, wherewith the ladies might pick daintily at their sweetmeats.” Before the carving fork was introduced, paper covers were placed over those portions of meat which had to be grasped with the left hand. The paper frills sometimes seen nowadays on cutlet bones, are said by the author, to be a survival of the old custom.

After smarting under foreign criticism on their table manners, Englishmen turned to French “Rules of Civility,” and others were compiled in English. Readers were warned “not to wipe knife or fork on bread or the cloth, but on napkins.” They were also requested “not to pick their teeth at table with knife or fork.”

“The Accomplished Ladies Rich Closet of Rarities,” published in 1653, begs each gentlewoman to “observe to keep her body straight, and lean not by any mans with her elbow, nor by ravenous gesture discover a voracious appetite.” Nor must she talk with her mouth full of meat nor “smack like a pig,” nor eat spoon meat so hot that the tears stand in her eyes.

“It is very uncomely,” the author adds, “to drink so large a draft that your breath is almost gone and you are forced to recover yourself. Throwing down your liquor as into a funnel is an action fitter for a juggler than a gentleman.” – San Pedro Daily News, 1913

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