Etiquette for Eating Chicken

It is never correct or even permissible to take up any sort of bone in the fingers. It is quite permissible to get the meat from the bone by means of the knife and fork and it is really impossible to take any bone in the right hand without causing the fingers to become greasy or sticky. 

Q. “I read somewhere that it was all right to take up a chicken bone in the fingers, if you did it with your left hand, but I can't remember where I read it. Will you tell me the correct form in this regard.”

A. It is never correct or even permissible to take up any sort of bone in the fingers. It is quite permissible to get the meat from the bone by means of the knife and fork and it is really impossible to take any bone in the right hand without causing the fingers to become greasy or sticky. 

Some persons seem to think that the reason sometimes paper frills are put on drumsticks and rib chops is to facilitate the task of picking up the bone, but this is not so. — By Mary Marshall Duffee, 1918

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Chicken, Lobster and Finger Bowls

“People are less lenient than they used to be. That is, if we go back to the descriptions given us by the writers of long ago, and as copied for instance in the moving picture of Henry VIII, who picked up a whole chicken in his hands and tore it apart, our table manners have become positively finicking.” Au contraire, mon frère!!!
—————— 
When it comes to table manners, we have no grounds to feel superior to Henry VIII. He observed complex etiquette. Emily Post’s knowledge of Tudor era etiquette, along with the portrayal of Henry VIII’s dining manners, were both incorrect. Henry VIII acted like an animal at times, but not while dining. Yes, even many “etiquette experts” get it wrong. One was quoted as saying this, upon the release of his 2013 book of etiquette: “In Henry VIII’s time, it was good manners to chuck lamb bones over one’s shoulder for the greyhounds to feed. That would cause raised eyebrows these days.”

Hands Off Chicken, Modern Code Insists

Dear Mrs. Post: Is it incorrect, according to etiquette, to eat even the slightest bit of chicken in the fingers? I don’t mean whether it is correct to take up what can be cut off the bone easily enough, but I am referring to the very small bones from which it is impossible to cut meat loose with a knife and fork. Aren’t good table manners today more lenient about these foods, especially if finger bowls are provided? 

Answer: No, people are less lenient than they used to be. That is, if we go back to the descriptions given us by the writers of long ago, and as copied for instance in the moving picture of Henry VIII, who picked up a whole chicken in his hands and tore it apart, our table manners have become positively finicking. The only things that could soil the fingers and are not tabooed by the meticulous are lobster claws. And when such lobster is served, finger bowls of hot soapy water should be provided at once. Perhaps, if this practice were followed when serving chicken, there would be no objection to taking the wings in the fingers. — Mill Valley Record, 1937

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Marie Antoinette vs 19th C. Anglomania

If the ladies could only see how pretty is their gesture when their diaphanous forefinger and thumb grasps a leaf of delicate green lettuce and raises that leaf from the porcelain plate to their rosy lips, they would all immediately take to eating salad à la Marie Antoinette. 

—Photo source, Weheartit.com

Theodore Child writes in Harper’s Bazar: 

The Anglo-Saxons are afraid to use their fingers to eat with, especially the English. Thanks to this hesitation, I have seen in the course of my travels in the old world many distressing sights, I have seen a lady attempt to eat écrevisse with a knife and fork and abandon the attempt in despair. I have also seen men In the same fix. I have seen—oh, barbarous and cruel spectacle!- Anglo-Saxons, otherwise apparently civilised, cut off the points of asparagus and eat these points only with a fork, thus leaving the best part of the vegetable on their plates. As for artichokes they generally utterly defeat the attacks of those who trust only to the knife and fork. 

Fingers must he used for eating certain things notably asparagus, artichokes, fruit, olives, radishes, pastry, and even small fried fish; in short everything which will not dirty or grease the fingers, may be eaten with the fingers. For my own part, I prefer to eat lettuce salad with my fingers rather than a fork, and Queen Marie Antoinette and other ladies of the eighteenth century were of my way of thinking. If the ladies could only see how pretty is their gesture when their diaphanous forefinger and thumb grasps a leaf of delicate green lettuce and raises that leaf from the porcelain plate to their rosy lips, they would all immediately take to eating salad à la Marie Antoinette. Only bear in mind, good ladies, that if you do wish to eat lettuce salad with your fingers you must mix your salad with oil and vinegar, and not with that abominable ready-made white “salad dressing,” to look upon which is nauseating. 

May heaven preserve us from excessive Anglomania in matters of table service and eating. The English tend to complicate the eating tools far too much. They have too many forks for comfort, and the forms of them are too quaint for practical utility. Imitate Marie Antoinette, ladies: use your fingers more freely; eat decently, of course, but do not be the slaves of silly Anglomania or Newport crazes. To eat a pear or an apple conveniently, cut it into quarters, and peel each quarter in turn as you eat it. The peach, too, can be cut into quarters, if the eater is timid. Apricots do not need peeling, nor plums either. Who would be bold enough to peel a fresh fig or to touch such a delicate fruit, even with the purest silver instruments. — Marin Journal, 1890

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Q and A of Expected 1930’s Etiquette

Q. Should the hostess or her daughter pour at a formal tea?  — A. Neither. If the tea is formal, it is customary to have waiters perform this task. 

• Q. How should a large number of formal invitations be recalled, due to sudden illness?   
• A. Have cards printed, as engraving would delay matters: “Owing to sudden illness Mr. and Mrs. Robert Marshall are obliged to recall their invitations for Wednesday, the tenth of November” 

• Q. Should the hostess or her daughter pour at a formal tea?  
• A. Neither. If the tea is formal, it is customary to have waiters perform this task.  

• Q. Is “Yes, ma’am” the proper answer for a child to give his teacher. 
• A. No. The correct answer is, "Yes, Miss Marshall.” 

• Q. If one enters a streetcar or bus, and sits down next to a friend who is reading a book, should one start a conversation?  
• A. The friend who is reading should take the initiative, and decide whether she wishes to continue reading or converse with you.   

• Q. Do the ushers at a wedding pay for their own outfits?  
• A. Yes, because they are supposed to have in their wardrobes clothes that are suitable for a wedding.   

• Q. Is it proper to pick bones from meat or fish with the fingers?  
• A. This is permitted only in strict privacy.   

• Q. What subjects should always be avoided in general social conversation?  
• A. Religion, politics, illness, operations, death.

— by Roberta Lee, 1930-1939

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Gilded Age “Emergency Etiquette”

Humor has long been used to make fun of one’s social foibles. Many of those in power socially, feel the need to appear effortlessly in control of their actions, and that they are above the little faux pas that seem to plague the rest of us on a regular basis. They always seem to make the easiest target of the etiquette satire. 

A Few Points of  Etiquette 

Advice Easy to Remember and Practice in an Emergency

In the mad whirl of the cotillion, if you wear ready made clothing bought from an irresponsible dealer, and hear a h-z-z-z that doesn’t harmonize with the F string on the bass fiddle, it is entirely correct and proper to not “forward and back” according to the commands of the figure caller, but to back straight ahead without balking, until you reach the wall, when a pin neatly utilized may cover your embarrassment and retreat. People who snicker under such circumstances should be put outside the pale of good society. 

When invited out to dinner and you inadvertently get a huge mouthful of mince pie that is hot enough to melt the solder off a gas pipe, tangled up in your epiglottis, do not act as if you had the whooping cough, but arise calmly and with a sleight-of-hand movement toss the offending morsel behind the majolica dog in the corner, meantime patting his head as though you thought him alive. This graceful act never fails to win the heart of your hostess, who thinks you intend her faithful friend to partake of the festivities. 

Some writer on etiquette, a good many years ago, said that it was perfectly proper to eat fried chicken with the fingers. I have often noticed people seize on a wing and rip it open like they would tear a yard of clothing material or a bolt of calico, and so the cracking of the crazy bone was audible all over the dining room. It is true that some fried chickens require heroic treatment, but when an apprentice in etiquette tries to jerk the goose flesh off the second joint of a Louis XIV hen and squirts a streak of gravy into the eye of his neighbor, it does seem that a new code regarding the best manner of shattering the remains of a hard boiled fowl should be introduced. 

When the sheriff of the county serves a subpoena on you, it is considered in good taste to attend his reception without further invitation on his part. Some sticklers on politeness, however, who find that it will prevent their witnessing a ball game, go to the extreme of sending around a physician’s certificate to the effect that they are indisposed from the influence of the sportive element. 

Don't use snuff if your false teeth are not strictly adhesive. I once heard of a case where this rule was not observed, when the transgressor, in a thoughtless moment, nearly knocked the eye out of a King Charles spaniel. In any cases of doubt about the minor points of etiquette a strong bluff on a weak hand, will almost always win. Rochester Union, 1889

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Affectation vs Tact and True Politeness

“It’s not the correct fork which exhibits good manners, but the person eating from the fork.”  

– Maura J. Graber

“Consideration of others is the foundation of all good manners, and the man or woman who lacks that, has mere affectation in the place of tact and true politeness.” –Above- A gilded age, ice cream fork.

The Occult Law of Trifles in Etiquette

One of the want breaches of etiquette of which you may be guilty is to attempt to teach your acquaintances etiquette. If you invite a friend to luncheon at a restaurant for instance, or accept her invitation, you thereby confess that a degree of social equality exists between you and her. And if she eats her oysters with an ordinary fork instead of with the trident that has been specially provided for that purpose it is not within your province to correct her; unless she has previously recognized you as the guardian of her manners. 

If she chooses to convey ice cream to her mouth by means of a spoon instead of a fork, let her do it unmolested. The matter is not of the slightest consequence, and to be in constant fear of transgressing some occult law of etiquette one’s self, or of associating with persons who do so, is to prove one's self not to the manner born and by nature a snob. Even if your country guest eats with her knife in public, you will prove yourself a provincial by paying any attention to it. If it happens to be her custom, to which she has been reared, and if you have a cosmopolitan mind, it will be too insignificant a thing to worry you. However technically perfect your own manners may be, they will exhibit a glaring deficiency if you correct those of other grown persons. 

Besides you are not sure of infallibility, and it is not impossible that you may occasionally rebuke a person who knows even more on the subject than you do and is behaving quite properly in the eyes of the cultivated world. When she eats her cheese with her knife, she is merely following the English habit, and it is quite permissible to take olives, corn, undressed lettuce and lump sugar in the fingers. Again, many of the actions that you consider faulty may be due to the absence of mind engendered by lively conversation, white others are accidents to which anybody is liable. 

Most persons whom one meets socially, have a sufficient knowledge of etiquette to be at home among the people with whom they associate, and that is all that is necessary. A really well bred person never rests her faith on such minute trifles as the angle at which the knife is left or the number of crumbs to be permitted to fall from the piece of bread. Consideration of others is the foundation of all good manners, and the man or woman who lacks that, has mere affectation in the place of tact and true politeness. – Judie Chollet, Wilmington Morning Star, 1894

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Fork vs Fingers Etiquette

Dining shouldn’t be turned into a guessing game. When does one use fingers and when did one use forks or spoons? Use these rules listed below.

Forks and Fingers are Not Used Interchangeably  

Peter’s niece was just beginning to go out to dinner parties. She came to Aunt Nancy one day and hemmed and hawed until Nancy knew she had something on her mind. She tentatively opened a number of subjects but had so little response that she knew something else was bothering the girl. Just then Joan came in for her supper and Aunt Nancy talked to her about the way she was holding her spoon. “I wish some one had told me things when I was young. Aunt Nancy. Then I would not be puzzled now. I never know whether I am eating foods in the right way or not.” And with this opening Nancy had quite a chance to talk on table etiquette.

Her special problems seemed to be fork and finger foods. When did one use fingers and when did one use forks or spoons? Nancy gave these rules: 

• Pickles, olives, nuts, candies, breads, rolls, radishes, celery, cookies, corn on the cob, small plain cakes, globe artichokes are all finger foods.
• A spoon is used for stewed or, creamed vegetables, berries, fruit cocktails, cantaloupe, soft puddings and ice cream unless special fork is provided. 
• Meat, vegetables, salads, and watermelon call for use of fork. So does a filled or heavily iced cake. 
• Melon balls, oysters clams use small special fork. 
• The ice (aspic) served with a meat course is eaten with fork unless spoon is provided.  – San Pedro Pilot, 1929

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

Chaucer and “Fingers of Courtesy”

From Chaucer’s “Parliament of Fowls,” circa 1381-1382 –In the 14th century, forks were not in use . At the time, those who exhibited good manners at the table, ate with the thumb and first two fingers. These were called, “the fingers of courtesy.”

Table Manners at the Time of Chaucer 

were of a Decidedly Primitive Character

Table manners at the time of Chaucer were described in a lecture by Kenneth Base, author and poet, in “A Holiday in London in the Days of Chaucer.” Etiquette in those days (the latter half of the fourteenth century) demanded that meat should be held between two fingers and a thumb of the left hand, and no more, if one was to be received in polite society. After soup, pike roasted in claret and favored with strange and varied spices was eaten. Then followed partridge, roasted with saffron, cloves and ginger, and jam tarts and jelly. It was the custom to change the cloth with the courses, and one read of one feast in which each new cloth was scented with a perfume appropriate to the dish. In Chaucer's day, the bath in construction was not unlike a miniature pulpit, and a bouquet of sweet scented herbs was hung over it for the stream to draw out their refreshing qualities. -Healdsburg Enterprise, 1922

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Etiquette for a Hawaiian Feast

You must not ask for a knife or fork, or you will be guilty of a decided breach of etiquette. Your true Hawaiian disdains the use of eating implements. You may be assured that you will never have a meal that will rival this in deliciousness or that is more wholesome.

Hawaii... Where a Banquet is Served on the Ground

A visitor to Hawaii should make it a point to attend a real native feast. It is an experience well worth while, for the Hawaiian food is delicious, and if served in true native fashion, the feast is a fascinating ceremonial for the uninitiated guest. The banquet is held in a shady mango grove. A deep hole in the ground is lined with stones which are heated red hot. This is the oven, and the food to be cooked in it is placed in a broad, tough leaf called a ti leaf. The meat is cut into small pieces and twisted in the leaf, the long stem forming a handle. The little parcels are then placed in the oven, covered with water and earth, and left to cook for a number of hours. 

When the food is cooked, it is spread on the grass on a covering of fragrant ferns. Instead of a serviette, a ti leaf is placed at each plate and flowers are scattered all over the spot, and are at each place. A number of polished calabashes are filled with poi, without which no Hawaiian meal is complete. Poi is a kind of porridge made from the root of the taro. It is of a pinkish gray color and is rather sour. After each guest is presented with a garland of leaves which he is expected to wear, he sits upon the ground. The smoking meat tied up in the ti leaf is then brought in, and is eaten with the fingers. 

You must not ask for a knife or fork, or you will be guilty of a decided breach of etiquette. Your true Hawaiian disdains the use of eating implements. At each place is a little dish filled with chopped cocoanut and seawater to be used as a relish with the meat. Young onions, sweet potatoes and salted shrimps are also served, and for dessert you will have melons, mangoes and water lemons. You may be assured that you will never have a meal that will rival this in deliciousness or that is more wholesome. – San Bernardino Sun, 1926

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

Cross-Cultural Dining Etiquette

Best keep table manners simple and straight 

“I would tinker with all the different instruments arrayed on the tablecloths: the knives, the forks, the completely round spoon that was only for soup, the funny-shaped spoon for the slab of ice-cream, and so on.” – Ruchir Joshi

In the middle-class Indian household in which I grew up, the dining table was a relatively new thing. Visiting my parents' families in Ahmedabad, I sat cross-legged on the low wooden paatlaa for my meals like everyone there.

At home, at the dining table, we replicated what I would call basic South Asian rules of eating with the hand, always using the right hand and never the left, of jhootha and clean, etc... The only implement used at our table was the spoon in various sizes. It was only when we made the rare visit to restaurants that other cutlery came into play. Here, fascinated, I would tinker with all the different instruments arrayed on the tablecloths: the knives, the forks, the completely round spoon that was only for soup, the funny-shaped spoon for the slab of ice-cream, and so on.

At some point, at my parents' bidding, a friend of theirs, P-Mama, coached me in the correct method of using a knife and fork: elbows always away from the table, hold the knife and fork at right angles, use the fork to keep the target bite of omelette or cutlet in place while the knife severs it from the main body of the dish; tilt the soup bowl away from yourself and spoon up the soup, again, always away from yourself, but do the opposite with other spoonable matter; always squash the peas against the back of the fork so that they didn't roll away; keep knife and fork crossed on plate if you are only pausing during eating, and parallel and close together if you have terminated your meal or that particular dish, and so on and so forth.

Because table and cutlery manners were embedded in a continuum of gracious behaviour, along with this training came a lecture on the use of bad words. 'I was once at meeting with my business collaborators in London,' P-Mama recounted, 'and I used the word 'damn'. My opposite number immediately got up from the table and called a break, "Mr P you are clearly upset. Let's meet after lunch." and I realised my mistake.'

Reaching America as a college student, I quickly grasped that for every set of rules created by western society there existed an exact opposite set of behaviours. Students in my college canteen used the fork in their right ha nd, rarely used the knife, used the fork to throw food at each other and their hands to throw peas. They also used a lot of bad words, epithets much further down the civilisation chain than the demure 'damn' that had got P-Mama into such trouble in those ancient British times. After college, working as waiter in a posh singles bar and restaurant in New York, another set of 'manners' came into play, from bantering with customers, (but only up to a strict, invisible line) to accepting or refusing politely when you were offered a line of cocaine under the table.

Afterwards, it was the tip the table left you that mattered and not the hieroglyphic mess of cutlery scattered here and there. Moving into different cultures, one understood that table manners were complex and shifting things. It was better not to use chopsticks in a Chinese or Japanese restaurant if you weren't adept, and certainly not cool to make slant-eye jokes while fiddling incompetently with the damn things. The French always immediately put their napkins on their laps while Anglo-Saxons tended to wait till the food was served. Continentals would use the table-cloth to break bread and use their hands to eat it, both a complete no-no with P-Mama who took a long time to show me how to slice a bread-roll in half, butter it and put it back together again, with minimum use of fingers.

Then came the actual experience of another truism one had only read about: the more 'aristocratic' you were, in England, the worse you behaved at table, the 'better' you behaved at table the more you gave away your aspirant class. This reminded one of the old story about how it was once highly impolite in exalted circles in China to do anything but throw your bones and other foodly rejections over your shoulders - to keep stuff neatly on a plate implied the host was too poor to employ a vast army of servants to clear up after his guests. Coming back full circle, a few years ago, I found myself tagging along with a friend for dinner at a Spanish woman's house in Jorbagh. As we sat down for aperitifs, the lady launched into a diatribe about how she couldn't stand this Indian business of eating with the hands.

'Barbarians!' she exclaimed, completely oblivious, or perhaps not, of my presence in her living- room. For a moment I contemplated vicious retaliation: I would eat each thing this cretinous senora served at dinner, but only with my hands, making the most outrageous slurping sounds as I did. As it is, I suddenly remembered a phone-call I was about to receive on my land-line and left the party, leaving my friend, a Frenchwoman, to berate her host for her insulting comments. I remembered this when I read recently about the Indian couple whose children were taken away by the Norwegian authorities. Later, other factors came to light, but we all shared the initial outrage when reading that the kids had been taken away because they were being taught to eat with their hands.

The other day, I ate an Indian meal with an English friend. Like most of the British public, my friend is more than happy to tuck into desi khana, pizza, sandwiches and, yes, Spanish tapas with his hands, and he rapidly got busy attacking the dal, chicken and sabzi laid before us. I started eating and then noticed the strange contortions my friend was making with his fingers, as well as the awkward combinations of knife, fork and naanas- implement to get at his food. For a brief second I felt like giving him a demo-lecture on how desi food needs to be eaten (and yes, in these modern times, eaten with both hands fully deployed) but then I did away with my discomfort. I remembered, once again, that genuine manners, especially table manners have to do with two basic things.

First, you want to avoid inciting repulsion and disgust in the people around you, wherefore the edicts against eating with your mouth open, burping and slurping, dribbling sauce down the side of your mouth and so on. Now, disgust is a highly context-driven thing. My vegetarian mother, for example, could not bear watching a person tear into a tandoori or barbecued chicken, mining the bones for little treasures of meat as proper non-vegetarians do.  Some European aristocrat, on the other hand, might not be able to stomach the sight of a desi sucking on drumsticks or licking their fingers clean of dal. So, a good idea is to more or less stick to what will cause minimal discomfort to the audience of your meal-taking, but within the cultural context of the meal. Second, and equally if not more important, is the role manners play in putting the other person or people around you at ease.

Food, essentially is about nourishment, and this nourishment best takes place when the eater is relaxed and un-fussed about his or her ingesting environment; duty meals are among the most stressful rituals that humans put themselves through.  If we follow this basic doublesided principle - while eating, put others at ease and protect your own - we should be able to eat as we like, using the fish knife for buttering, using the fingers for tearing the steak and the coffee spoon for stirring the tea. – Originally published by Mail Online, March 2012, written by Ruchir Joshi

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

Finger Bowl Etiquette

“They became ridiculously polite by carving bread with knife and fork, but the climax came when I set two bowls of rosewater before them as finger glasses...” – The finger bowls at Buckingham Palace, fom the book, “Dining at the Palace” 

Staggered by Finger Bowls

A very amusing scene occurred once while I was serving a lady and gentleman of the unmistakable upstart type. They were grossly ignorant of the most elementary rules of table etiquette, shoveling the food into their mouths with their knives, which were constantly loaded half-way up to the handles. They managed to struggle through their dinner, sometimes casting aside knives and forks and attacking game and poultry by cutting them in halves and eating from their hands, holding the leg. Sometimes, too, they became ridiculously polite by carving bread with knife and fork, but the climax came when I set two bowls of rosewater before them as finger glasses.  

They looked at each other, and then cautiously around the room, trying to find some solution of the mysterious dish before them, not having the sense to ignore it altogether. Whispered consultations took place, which presently grew into a suppressed quarrel, the lady reproaching her lord for his ignorance. Suddenly she was seen to shake the water around and around, and finally, with a look of contempt and superior wisdom, she raised the bowl to her lips and drank all the contents. Needless to say, that the hearty laughter of the other diners made them feel the mistake, and they beat a hasty retreat. —London TitBits, 1893

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

Etiquette from Fingers to Forks

Fingers were once used to perform the office now assigned to forks, in the highest and most refined circles of society. — (Above) A rare "bird set" in the Chantilly pattern.

The Duchess of Beaufort, dining once at Mme. de Guise's with King Henri IV of France, extended one hand to receive His Majesty's salutation, while she dipped the fingers of the other hand into a dish to pick out what was to her taste. This incident happened in the year 1598. It demonstrates that less than three hundred years ago the fingers were still used to perform the office now assigned to forks, in the highest and most refined circles of society. At about this time, in fact, was the turning point when forks began to be used at the table as they are now. 

When we reflect how nice were the ideas of that refined age on all matters of outer decency and behavior, and how strict was the etiquette of the Courts we may well wonder that the fork was so late in coming into use as a table furnishing. The ladies of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were not less proud of a delicate, well kept hand than those of our own days, and yet they picked the meat from the platter with their slender white fingers, and in them bore it to their mouths. The fact is all the more remarkable, because the form of the fork was familiar enough, and its application to other uses was not uncommon.—J. Von Folke in Popular Science Monthly, via the Press Democrat, 1899

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

Etiquette and Persian Shahs

Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, was the fifth Qajar king of Persia. It is said he found it difficult to live up to European etiquette. He could not overcome the impulse to take his food in his fingers, for example, and he was almost sure to throw what was left, over his shoulder, when he had eaten all he cared to of its contents. 

The Way of Shahs

Some very amusing anecdotes are related in the current Harper’s Weekly of the Shah of Persia, Mozaffar ad-Din, one of the most eccentric of Monarchs. He seems not to be altogether an up-to-date person. He is able to manipulate a knife and fork and to eat properly from a table; but he much prefers to sit on a stool with his food at an elevation of about the same height and use his fingers. 

Although one of the wealthiest sovereigns in the world, Mozaffar ad-Din is not over-particular about the payment of his debts on his journeys abroad. During his visit to Paris in 1900 he created something of a sensation among European Royalties by conferring the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Lion and the Sun, which had hitherto been confined exclusively to reigning Sovereigns, upon an American dentist who had relieved him of an obstinate toothache. 

Mozaffar's father, Nassr-ed-Din, was apparently no less eccentric than his son. He attended many State banquets during his tours in Europe, but he generally satisfied his appetite alone, before he came to the table, since he found it difficult to live up to European etiquette. He could not overcome the impulse to take his food in his fingers, for example, and he was almost sure to throw what was left over his shoulder, when he had eaten all he cared to of its contents.

The story is told that he was once sitting at the right of Queen Victoria at a formal dinner at Buckingham Palace, when he bit off the top of a piece of asparagus and handed the remainder to his hostess to finish, as a particular mark of esteem. – Sacramento Daily Union, 1907

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

Etiquette of the Persian Shah

Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar was the Shah of Iran from 1896 to 1907 — Though knives, forks and spoons were commonly used in Western Europe and the United States by 1900, they were still relatively "new" when one looks back in time. But people forget history quickly, as forks for dining originated in the Middle East, and they weren't in wide use in Western Europe until the late 1600s - early 1700s. So to the "Western World," the Shah eating with his fingers, was worthy of a headlne.

 “Eats with His Fingers”

John Foster Fraser made the acquaintance of the Shah of Persia during his now historical cycle ride around the world. Of this great potentate's personality Mr. Fraser writes: "He rises early, performs his devotions, has a piece of thin, pasty Persian bread and a glass of sweetened tea. Then at about 8 o'clock, he receives his ministers. 

He is slovenly in habit and walks up and down the room with his slippers flip-flapping; indeed, the story goes that the reason he parted with his first wife was because she constantly complained he did not wash himself. He dictates dozens of letters, hears dispatches read, consults authorities, attends minutely to every detail of business. This continues for six hours at a stretch. 

"Then he has his breakfast. All the food is carefully prepared, and a Prince of the Royal house is responsible that no tricks are played. Every dish as it is sent from the kitchen is sealed, and the seals are broken in the Shah's presence. The Shah, according to etiquette, eats alone. Formerly he squatted and ate from a big tray placed on the floor. But since coming to Teheran he has been persuaded to sit on a mattress and eat from a table about a foot high. At first a chintz cloth was on the table, but he was told it would be much nicer if he had a white cloth, and so a white cloth is now used. 

Between 50 and 60 dishes are served, but his Majesty only touches two or three. "First he will eat greased rice, followed possibly by a chicken or some grilled morsels of mutton laid between two sheets of thin bread; and then, as dessert, maybe a citron in syrup, quite the ordinary Persian fare. 

Knives and forks are are things unknown at court, and the Shah eats everything with his fingers—greased rice, mutton and fruit. At his breakfast, extracts from European papers, chiefly French, are read to the Shah. He takes a keen interest in European politics, and frequently in conversation about his own government he will ask: 'Now, what would the Queen of England do in such a case?'" — From The Los Angeles Herald, 1900

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