Etiquette of Dinner à la Russe

An 1890’s oyster fork in the Shrewsbury pattern. Oyster forks can be placed on the right side of the place setting if there are already three forks on the left side of each place setting. – Oysters are usually at each place when the company assembles, having been kept very cold, on ice and salt, up to the moment of serving. A quarter of a lemon and very thin slices of brown bread, buttered, are the usual concomitants. No person should ever be left without a plate before him, except at the time of the clearing of the table, preparatory to the introduction of the sweet course, this is one of the primary rules of serving. 

Dinner is Now Served... à la Russe

To serve à la Russe, which is at once the simplest and most elegant manner when guests are present, it is only necessary to pass the dishes of each course in rotation, beginning alternately at the right and the left of the guest, writes Mrs. Van Koert in the Ladies Home Journal. Some think it more courteous to serve all the ladies first, but it is not now considered a breach of strict etiquette to serve in regular order.

The old French custom required that the dishes, elaborately garnished, and the meats, sometimes stabbed with silver skewers, like crossed swords, should be placed upon the table, before the host and hostess alternately, for a moment, to give the guests an opportunity of admiring them previous to them being carved, but this formality has gone out of fashion even among the French themselves.

Oysters are usually at each place when the company assembles, having been kept very cold, on ice and salt, up to the moment of serving. A quarter of a lemon and very thin slices of brown bread, buttered, are the usual concomitants. No person should ever be left without a plate before him, except at the time of the clearing of the table, preparatory to the introduction of the sweet course, this is one of the primary rules of serving.

Under each oyster plate it is customary to have a dinner plate, upon which also the one containing the soup is placed. A dinner can hardly be served with elegance by less than two persons, although attention to the prescribed rules greatly simplifies the matter. The soup should be served from a side table, a ladleful to each plate. Plates are then carried one by one to their destination. — Sacramento Daily Union, 1893

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

Victorian Dining Etiquette Changes

With regard to forks: “There were some practical limits. Clearly if the hostess put out the 8 or 10 forks one would use at a formal meal, the diners would be too spread out to comfortably talk to each other. Convention quickly settled on 3 or 4 forks as the maximum number the hostess could put out so guests could still talk easily to their neighbors.”

Victorian Era Dining and 3 Forks on the Left 

The change over (from Service à la Française) to Service à la Russe caused the established ways of serving and eating meals to undergo a major modification.

In the colonial period the only silver on the table was a knife, a fork, and perhaps a spoon. Part of the reason for this was that the tablecloth was removed after every course. To have a lot of silver and many glasses on the table would have made the removal of the tablecloth too hard. 

When the change to service a la Russe took place in the 1860s and 1870s, the tablecloth stayed in place throughout the entire meal. In addition, the servants were busy carving and serving food. It now made sense to put out all the silver the diner would need and leave it there throughout the entire meal. The footman had other things to do and less time to hand out silverware. In addition, the mechanization in the production of silverware, together with a drop in the price of silver, meant that the host now acquired more silverware. 

There were some practical limits. Clearly if the hostess put out the 8 or 10 forks one would use at a formal meal, the diners would be too spread out to comfortably talk to each other. Convention quickly settled on 3 or 4 forks as the maximum number the hostess could put out so guests could still talk easily to their neighbors. 

A rare Chantilly pattern "bird" or "game" knife and fork set. These were also sometimes known as "duck knives and forks" and were the predecessors to the steak knives of today.

For some twenty years after the Civil War there was disagreement about whether 3 or 4 forks were proper. In the end 3 forks won out-- perhaps because the game course became less common. But, because this was a change and an arbitrary number, it was necessary to keep reminding people that they should never put out more than 3 forks at a table setting. We personally like the look of 4 forks and knives it creates an exotic and opulent look, and visually sends the cue that this meal will be something a little different. – From Forgotton Elegance

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