Etiquette and a Game Bird Course

As regards small pigeons, golden plovers, snipe, quails, larks, etc., a whole bird is given to each guest, and the proper way to eat these birds is to cut the meat from the breast and wings and to eat each morsel at the moment of cutting it; the bird should not be turned over and over on the plate, or cut in half or otherwise dissected. The legs of Bordeaux pigeons are not, as a rule, eaten, and half a bird only is given, as there is sufficient on the wing and 

breast to satisfy an ordinary second-course appetite. When the legs of smaller birds are eaten, such as snipe or golden plover, the meat should be cut off as from the breast or wing.

With reference to entrées, some are eaten with a knife and fork, others with a fork only. All entrées that offer any resistance to a fork require the aid of both knife and fork, such as cutlets, filet de bœuf, sweetbreads, etc., but when rissoles, patties, quenelles, boneless curry, vol-au-vents, timbales, etc., are eaten, the fork only should be used.

In the case of the lighter entrées, the contact of the knife is supposed to militate against their delicate flavour; thus, for these bonnes bouches the fork is all-sufficient wherewith to divide and eat them.

The leg of a chicken, pheasant, duck, or wild duck should never be given to a guest save on those occasions when there are more guests present than there is meat from breasts and wings to offer them. Under these circumstances the carver is reduced to the necessity of falling back upon the legs of the birds, but in this case only the upper part of the thigh should be given, thus a guest has little difficulty in cutting the meat from the bone. A wing of a bird is usually given to a lady. Formerly it was thought a correct thing to sever the wing at the joint and then to cut the meat from the bone; but this requires a certain amount of strength in the wrist, and dexterity, should the bird not be in its première jeunesse.

As regards small pigeons, golden plovers, snipe, quails, larks, etc., a whole bird is given to each guest, and the proper way to eat these birds is to cut the meat from the breast and wings and to eat each morsel at the moment of cutting it; the bird should not be turned over and over on the plate, or cut in half or otherwise dissected. The legs of Bordeaux pigeons are not, as a rule, eaten, and half a bird only is given, as there is sufficient on the wing and breast to satisfy an ordinary second-course appetite. When the legs of smaller birds are eaten, such as snipe or golden plover, the meat should be cut off as from the breast or wing.

Young girls, as a rule, seldom eat a second course delicacy of this description; a little chicken or pheasant on the contrary is usually accepted by them.— Manners and Rules of Good Society, or Solecisms to be Avoided, by a Member of the Aristocracy, 1918

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

Dining with the Fork

Typical 17th C. Georgian era, British silver dining knife and fork

“No rule is so general, which admits not some exceptions.”—Robert Burton 

About the fork centers a good deal of controversy, and on this subject the well-bred English person always disagrees with the well-bred American who is as yet uninfluenced by British notions. The Englishman insists that the fork, when used with the meat course, should never be taken from the left hand, and that it should be held always tines down; while the average well-bred American sees no harm in shifting it to when he is using it to convey food from his plate to his mouth, and in turning it tines uppermost when he finds that most convenient. When he does this, the Britisher says he is using his fork like a shovel, and this to him is unpardonable. 

The fact seems to be that the British mode is spreading and that in many, if not most, boarding schools, where good manners are insisted on as much as French or English and rather more than arithmetic and geography, the British way with, the fork is insisted upon. 

But remember that there is authority for both methods, and that many well-bred, persons are none the less well-bred because they cling to the American method. But however you use fork, see that you don’t clutch it too greedily, and likewise see that you do not cram the fork with food with the aid of the knife. It is extremely awkward and bad manners to use the fork as a masher 

In eating potatoes and other vegetables, one should simply detach a bit of the potato by means of the tines of the fork, and carry this to the month without crushing it between the tines. Never put more on the fork than you can take in one mouthful. Some persons you know take a large morsel on the fork at once, and then take it in two mouthfuls at once. This is a small matter, but it is one of those little things that constitute bad table manners. 

Never use the fork in order to reach for anything that is not on your own plate. If food is served to you on serving dishes, there should be service spoons or forks, and you should help yourself by means of these just as you would in your own home. 

If the bread plate is out of reach the very ill-mannered person sometimes reaches it by means of his fork. Some persons forget that when the fork is not actually in use conveying food to the mouth that it must be laid across the plate. It should not simply he laid with the prongs resting on the plate, much less should it be held in mid-air. 

Some persons, when they wish butter on potatoes or other vegetables, take it from their butter plates by means of the fork. If there is no butter knife, then the regular knife should be used. On no account should the fork be used for this purpose. - Mary Marshall Duffee, 1922

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

Manners are for Holidays and Everyday

Always use the soup spoon provided to eat as much soup as you can, before picking up the handled-cup to drink from it, leaving the used spoon resting on the accompanying saucer -“Soup should be dipped away, never toward the individual. If clear soup is served in cups, a small round bowled spoon is used, or the bouillon may be sipped from the cup.”

In Your Market Basket: A Lesson in Holiday Table Manners

Every newspaper editor often finds this kind of a query in the mail; 

Dear Editor—My early training in etiquette was much neglected. Now I have made a fortune, travel considerably and am often embarrassed by my Ignorance about table manners. Will you aid me? – Signed “Worried

Table manners are, of course, for the home table all of the year around, but it is at the holiday season when dinner engagements are most numerous, that a great many persons require a little extra preparedness. 

The experienced hostess will see that forks and spoons are placed in the order in which they are to be used. If the dinner is of many courses, the appropriate silver is laid with each course. 

Soup should be dipped away, never toward the individual. If clear soup is served in cups, a small round bowled spoon is used, or the bouillon may be sipped from the cup.

The knife should never be held in the left hand, but the fork may be transferred to the right hand. The English way of keeping the fork in the left hand is the present fashion among very fastidious society folk. 

At the end of the course the knife and fork should be placed side by side with the tips in the middle of the plate and the handles resting on its edge. —From Kiddi Bye in the San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram, December, 1916

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

A 1916 Lesson in Table Manners

Left to Right : Correct way to hold the soup spoon, How to hold the knife and fork for cutting food, Position of fork when carrying food to the mouth, Holding the cup — the spoon in the proper place

A Requested Lesson in Table Manners

Every newspaper editor often finds this kind of a query in the mail; 

Dear Editor—My early training in etiquette was much neglected. Now I have made a fortune, travel considerably and am often embarrassed by my ignorance about table manners. Will you aid me? — Signed “WORRIED”

 Table manners are, of course, for the home table all of the year around, but it is at the holiday season when dinner engagements are most numerous, that a great many persons require a little extra preparedness.

The experienced hostess will see that forks and spoons are placed in the order in which they are to be used. If the dinner is of many courses, the appropriate silver is laid with each course. Soup should be dipped away, never toward the individual. If clear soup is served in cups, a small round bowled spoon is used, or the boullllon may be sipped from the cup. 

The knife should never be held in the left hand, but the fork may be transferred to the right hand. The English way of keeping the fork in the left hand is the present fashion among very fastidious society folk. At the end of the course the knife and fork should be placed side by side with the tips in the middle of the plate and the handles resting on its edge. — By Biddy Bye, 1916

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

Edwardian Brits’ Etiquette Supremacy?

With the Continental eater, the knife enters into conversation. It is retained in the gesticulating hand, it is raised imploringly to the celling, and — heaven!— it is brought into strange circles of argument. It is used to point the conclusion at the very breast of the fellow diner. When you see a man waving his knife at table, you may be sure he is an alien. “We wear no swords here,” as Sir Lucius O'Trigger says, nor do we argue with knives at table. – London Chronicle, 1907

Good Table Manners are the Art in Which the English Claim to Be Supreme

————————

They Sneer at Other Nations Germany, France and America, Say the Britons, Cannot Compare With Them in Good Form at Meals — Use of the Knife, Fork, Spoon and Napkin

Let it be admitted that our army is a failure, has never won a victory and never will; admitted that our navy would have difficulty in sweeping six combined great powers off the sea; admitted that we cannot act up to the French standard or trade up to the German or hustle up to the American or cheat up to the Greek. But we cherish our little pride and prejudice. The Englishman regards himself and is generally regarded as the best dressed man in the world. He also plumes himself on having the best table manners. To the Frenchman may be conceded the supremacy in the preparation of food, while the production of it owing to the decay of our agriculture, may be left to such outlying places as Siberia and Chicago.

But when it comes to the eating of food the Englishman asserts his supremacy, for if the highest art be to conceal art the highest etiquette of eating should be the triumphant pretense that one is not eating at all. And here the Englishman wins. He can eat his way through a seven course meal quite unobtrusively. It was not always so.

Lord Chesterfield, as I have been reminded by Mr. Philip Wellby's edition of the “Advice to His Son,” sketches the awkward man who “holds his knife, fork and spoon differently from other people, eats with his knife to the great danger of his mouth, picks his teeth with his fork and puts his spoon, which has been in his throat twenty times, into the dishes again. If he is to carve, he never hits the joint, but in his vain efforts to cut through the bone scatters the sauce in everybody's face. He generally daubs himself with soup and grease, though his napkin is commonly stuck through a buttonhole.”

That napkin is a test of table manners, and the nice conduct of the napkin caught the attention recently of the German Emperor, who saw one of his guests tucking the napkin under a chin. “Do you want to be shaved?” was the Imperial question. England's supremacy— in the matter of soup— lies in the spoon. An Englishman is taught to take soup from the side of the spoon. And he is the only man on earth who emerges from soup with the white shirt front of a blameless dinner and without the aid of a tucked napkin. He lays the napkin across his knees and uses it when necessary without ostentation.

That discreet conduct of the knife is the Englishman's pride and prejudice at table. There is no nation which (in its upper middle classes) reaches the English standard of the nice conduct of the knife, though we are assured that in the highest circles— among ameers, shahs, sultans, dukes and millionaires—there is a beautiful uniformity of deportment. Our insular instinct is to make the knife as inconspicuous as possible, for there is some suggestion of brutality in the slicing of bits of corpses that are doomed to keep our rile bodies alive.

No such feeling restrains the German eater, and the French diner is scarcely less sensitive. The German who feeds in the average restaurant will shovel his food into his mouth with the blade of his knife and when in a difficulty, will cram it down with the handle, nor has he the least scruple about depositing the rejected residue upon the floor. Moreover, with the Continental eater, the knife enters into conversation. It is retained in the gesticulating hand, it is raised imploringly to the celling, and — heaven!— it is brought into strange circles of argument. It is used to point the conclusion at the very breast of the fellow diner.

When you see a man waving his knife at table, you may be sure he is an alien. “We wear no swords here,” as Sir Lucius O'Trigger says, nor do we argue with knives at table.

The English knife, with all its blood thirsty suggestions, is reduced to the lowest and least obtrusive office. It is not even dug into the salt cellar, for England has reached the delicacy of salt spoons, and only in a Soho restaurant will she give you the real savor of the continent by providing salt cellars without spoons. You shove your knife into the salt and dream of Paris, Bohemia, the gypsy life in which “you dip your fingers in the pot.”

England has suppressed the knife at table. The Englishman does not use it for argument or menace or persuasion or even for the taking of salt. His table manners enjoin that the knife shall never be raised. The properly conducted knife at table never reaches forty-five degrees above the horizontal.

Unfortunately the American goes a little too far in the desire to avoid the obtrusive use of the knife and takes refuge In obtrusive concealment. Many Americans will slice their meat with the knife, lay the knife by the sitle of the plate and put the pieces into the mouth with the fork held in the right hand. Now, this is injustice to the knife, which has its modest function.— London Chronicle, 1907

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