Gilded Age Gent’s Table Etiquette

     

Above is a carved, sheep’s bone, apple corer from the 1600’s along with a Georgian era silver apple corer from 1808, next to a gilded age fruit knife and a rare, gilded age “melon” knife. Fruit served at the table needed to be eaten with utensils and a gentleman at the table was indispensable for coring fruit like apples or plums for the young lady seated next to him. Women were not allowed to perform such a masculine etiquette task as coring their own fruit. A true gentleman carried his corer with him in his pocket, to pull out when called upon. 

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It is a piece of refined coarseness to employ the fingers instead of the fork to effect certain operations at the dinner table, and on some other similar occasions. To know how and when to follow the fashion of Eden, and when that of more civilized life, is one of the many points which distinguish a gentleman from one not a gentleman; or rather, in this case, which shows the difference between a man of the world, and one who has not “the tune of the time.” (Shakespeare) ~ Cardinal Richelieu detected an adventurer who passed himself off for a nobleman, by his helping himself to olives with a fork. He might have applied the test to a vast many other things. Yet, on the other hand, a gentleman would lose his reputation, if he were to take up a piece of sugar with his fingers and not with the sugar-tongs. – From The Laws of Etiquette, 1836

Found Under 

“Etiquette of a Gentleman”

A silver knife and fork should be placed to each guest at dessert. If you are asked to prepare fruit for a lady, be careful to do so by means of the silver knife and fork only, and never to touch it with your fingers. — By P. F. Collier, Collier’s Cyclopedia of Social & Commercial Usage, 1882

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