Table Manners and Carving Etiquette

If your husband complains when confronted with the Thanksgiving turkey - you might tell him that carving is the Art of Noblemen. In the Middle Ages, Edward IV of England was served by no less than five Royal Carvers, all noblemen of high degree. After the carving, correct etiquette for those times called for a sort of "grab and gobble" technique, without benefit of table cutlery!

Wail of the Man Who Carves for a Large Family

"A Veteran" writes to the Listener of the Boston Transcript to complain of table manners in these later days, incidentally protesting against the hard lot of the father who has to carve for a large family: "In the old way we are taught to wait until the carving and helping was done before beginning to dispose of the food, out of respect to the carver, and so that he might have a chance to get something to eat and not come out behind all others at the table, but modern 'table manners' seem to have changed all that, and if the carver gets anything to eat he is lucky.

“Modern table manners also do not appear to regard it as any way inappropriate to have a newspaper at hand to occupy the time at table. The old way was to occupy the time in lively conversation, and reading a paper or book was disrespectful. In modern table manners there seems no incivility in lighting a cigarette at the table or in adjourning to the hall to smoke one while the table is being cleared for dessert. There are many other innovations in modern table manners which might be noted, but I think many of the old ways best."

The Listener gives the old grumbler comfort. "It is a queer father of a family who expects to carve and get anything to eat. The size of the roast may be simply prodigious, but, even if the young people at the table who were first served do not come around for a second helping by the time the last person is served the first time the roast will probably by that time have got into the shapeless and refractory condition peculiar to roasts, which will incline the carver to content himself with a little bread and gravy– or at least to the edges off the pangs of hunger with something of that sort, while he is organizing a second assault on the roast for the benefit of the others." – Placer Herald, 1898

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