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| What have we here? A plate specially designed for eating asparagus, along with individual asparagus tongs. It is said that no other vegetable had as many utensils made for eating it or serving it as asparagus did. Cale assiettes eventually fell out of fashion in France when special plates for separating the tender green stalks from the accompanying sauce were created. – Dame Curtsy is one of them few etiquette writers who does not recommend the use of one’s fingers or asparagus tongs to eat asparagus: “Asparagus should not be eaten with the fingers; cut off all the tender portion with a fork.” |
When a meal is finished in a café or hotel, the napkin is never folded but laid as it was used on the table beside the plate. The same rule applies when at a repast in the home of a friend, if it is for one occasion only. If one is a guest in the house, a clean napkin should not be expected at every meal in the average household, so it may be carefully folded and laid beside the plate. It is the rule in most families to have a fresh napkin at dinner, which is the most ceremonious meal of the day, and partaken of with the most leisure. In the same category, let it here be chronicled that toothpicks are never passed at the table, and never used in public. One might just as well take out false teeth and cleanse them, or manicure one's fingers; yet these questions are asked so often that an emphatic denial seems necessary here.
“How shall the knife and fork be held?” The knife is invariably held in the right hand, and its exclusive use is cut ting, never to convey food to the mouth. The fork is used with the right hand in eating, but of course held in the left hand when cutting with the knife. Careless training is in evidence when a person mashes food with a fork, or jams a fork full with all sorts of food picked up at random from the plate.
A knife and fork should never be held in the hands when the plate is being replenished. They must be laid side by side, their entire length on the plate, and, when one has finished, they are placed on the plate, knife blade in, and fork tines up.
Nearly every article of food is eaten with a fork: meats, fish, and vegetables.
All “made” dishes, salads, ices, and creams, are provided with special spoon-shaped forks, but if a hostess does not possess them, she need not hesitate to use spoons. They say it is a test of good manners to watch how a person eats lettuce, cress, or chicory, which should never be cut with a knife. The leaves are folded up neatly with the fork, and so conveyed to the mouth.
An unfailing rule must be remembered by those who wish to have at least the semblance of good table manners, and that is, never permit a spoon to remain in the tea, coffee, or bouillon cup while drinking from it, or after the beverage has been stirred once or twice. The spoon must rest in the saucer.
The last mouthful in a bouillon cup may be drank with perfect propriety. It is a relic of nursery days to blow a spoonful of soup to cool it. Those who are very correct say that an out ward motion should be used in taking soup, and it must always be eaten from the side of the spoon. This also applies to tast ing tea, coffee, or chocolate.
Grape fruit, oranges when cut in halves and put on a plate, hot and cold puddings, custards, gelatins, and soft-boiled eggs, are all eaten with spoons.
To eat slowly and deliberately is not only an evidence of good manners, but shows a knowledge of hygiene. Only the unlettered bolt their food, scrape the dish for the last mouthful, and make a noise when eating. Children must be taught early to eat quietly, for habits formed in younger days stand by one often until the end of life.
Apparently well-bred persons often seem unaware of the careless ways they have in eating. An attempt has been made to explain this by saying that the average man eats breakfast alone in order to catch an early train, eats a hurried luncheon generally alone, or with another man who is equally hurried and careless, and so habits are formed, hard to shake off in the bosom of one's family, where all should be as perfect as possible for the sake of one's own self-respect.
This last preachment makes me think of a charming woman who lost her husband, her money, and home, and was forced to support herself and two growing lads by working all day. They lived in small quarters, and the meals had to be served in the kitchen. So afraid was this little mother, used to all that wealth and position could give her, that her boys would grow up unaccustomed to the amenities of life, that she never omitted the finger bowls, and served the meals just as daintily as she knew how, no matter how tired she was.
Finger bowls are always necessary with a fruit course; the bowl is half-filled with water and placed upon a doily-covered plate. Unless a second plate is provided, the doily is removed with the bowl and placed to one side, and the fruit put on the plate. The fingers are dipped daintily one hand at a time in the bowl and wiped on the napkin. Finger bowls for some years were not in evidence with desserts, but are again in favor. A plate with a bowl resting on a doily is placed before each person and often these plates are of glass to match the bowls. Salt should never be taken from the salt dish with the blade of a knife and put on the table cloth, but on the side of the plate.
The worst of all errors is to spit out a prune, cherry, or peach pit onto the plate; but it has been done, or this awful warning would not have to be chronicled. A delightful old gentleman said the reason he never married was that he watched the young woman to whom he had made up his mind to propose, eat a peach, and she spit the pit out. That finished his ambitions in that direction, and he said he didn't care to have any more illusions vanquished in this man ner, so gave up all hopes of the fair sex for fear he should again be disappointed. This may be rather far-fetched, but the moral is there nevertheless, for all who will apply it.
The youthful candidate for good manners should be taught never to hold a morsel of food on the fork while conversing, but once having it there, to eat it and not dilly-dally. Also never try to get the last mouthful of anything if it proves illu sive; you 'll not starve and there is probably enough for a second helping. As pushers, when children have outgrown the implements of silver provided for this purpose, bits of bread may be used, the fingers, NEVER, spelled in capital letters.
A morsel that proves too hot, or spoiled, may be quietly removed with the napkin and consigned to the side of the plate without comment.
This reminds me of the young man from the far West who had to go to New York on business, and while there was enter tained by a millionaire mine owner who liked the chap for his sterling qualities. He tasted olives for the first time, his face colored as he removed the strange thing from his mouth to his plate, with a motion of momentary disgust. His host noticed but said nothing, and the rest of the dinner was finished without any further discomfort to the stranger guest who was clever enough to watch and see what the others did with the array of forks and knives, but in the privacy of his host's den after dinner the chap said with the utmost earnestness: “That was a bully spread, Mr. B–, but did you know those plums were spoiled?”
Bread and butter plates are universally used at luncheons, breakfasts, and suppers, also at informal family dinners, with a small silver butter spreader. On this plate all breads, muf fins, and rolls must be laid. At a formal dinner the roll in the napkin is taken out and laid on the cloth, at the right of the plate.
Bread is never bitten off in mouthfuls from a large piece, but broken off in small pieces, which are buttered and eaten. Crackers are eaten from the fingers, also celery, olives, radishes, salted nuts, crystallized fruits, bon-bons, corn on the cob, and most raw fruits. Peaches are quartered, then peeled, and cut into bits, which are eaten from the fingers as are apples and pears. Cherries, small plums, and California grapes are taken up one by one and eaten, the seeds or pits are removed from the mouth with the fingers and placed on the plate in as unobtrusive a manner as possible. Cheese may be cut in small pieces, placed on morsels of bread or crackers, and lifted with the fingers to the mouth.
It is most inelegant to take a chicken or chop bone in the fingers. Cut the meat as cleanly as possible from the bone and forgo the pleasure of the rest.
Asparagus should not be eaten with the fingers; cut off all the tender portion with a fork.
At formal dinners, or luncheon, a guest is never asked to have a second portion and should never ask for it, but all is different at a dinner “en famille”; the hostess considers a second helping complimentary. When a host carves, he may request a guest to have his plate replenished. A second, even a third glass of water may be asked for, even at an elaborate spread, but of course, always of the servant.
At a simple family dinner, where the hostess may have no maid or one only, a guest may be asked to serve or pass certain dishes, which makes him feel at ease and at home. Never, when a meal is finished, push back the last plate used and brush the crumbs up into little heaps but leave everything exactly in place with the napkin beside the plate; if called unexpectedly from the table or a sudden illness seizes one, the request “Please excuse me,” must always be made of the hostess.—From Ellye Howell Glover’s Dame Curtsey’s Book of Etiquette, 1916
🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia
