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

Dining Etiquette from the 15th C. On

Jacopo del Sellaio, an Italian painter of the fifteenth century, depicts King Ahasuerus at a table set up on a dais with a heavy sideboard in the background. The diners, wearing elaborate hats, sit in the courtyard and are approached by groups who wish to speak with the King.

In Europe, in the late fifteenth century, there was a definite rule that it was wrong to grab food with two hands and that meat should be taken with three fingers and not too much put in the mouth at the same time. There was, however, a common joke in the early sixteenth century that three fingers in the salt could be taken as the sign of a villain- for salt, owing to its preciousness, was to be taken from the cellar with a knife. It was also not considered good manners to lick greasy fingers or rub them on a jacket instead of using a piece of bread or a napkin.

Americans born in the elite circle in the seventeenth century had the charming custom of wearing elaborate and highly fashionable hats to dinner, a custom dating from fourteenth-century Europe and shown in the photo above. Hats were removed only when a toast was given; to be uncovered at meals was, until the eighteenth century, not etiquette.

In the mid-eighteenth century, however, the eating habits of the lower classes in many countries, including America, were still on a rather primitive level. Farmers and their families stood around the table while they served themselves with a wooden spoon from a large wooden bowl. They took their meat in their fingers and put it on a piece of bread that was used as a trencher, then ate it sitting or standing anywhere in the room. Fingers and knives were the tools, and forks were by no means commonplace. According to Helen Sprackling's book Customs on the Table Top, an Englishwoman traveling in America in 1827 wrote to her sister that “Americans, male and female, were invariable and indefatigable eaters with their knives.”

Still, some distinctions were made by those who cared to do things properly, as noted in The School of Good Manners, by Eleazar Moody: “Bite not thy bread, but break it; but not with slovenly fingers nor the same wherewith thou takest up thy meat. Dip not thy knife upright in thy hand, but sloping and lay it down at thy right hand, with the blade upon the plate.”— Patricia Easterbrook Roberts

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

Elegance Without Knives and Forks

Despite the lack of utensils as we use them now… “there was an elegance of manners then, as now, regulated quite as much by fashion and by established rules of polite breeding. Frequent washings before, after, and also during a meal preserved a scrupulous cleanliness, and if the fingers were sometimes stained a saffron hue, owing to the nature of the popular condiment…”

It is true that the nobility of old ate with their fingers and in large halls filled with a mixed company, but there was an elegance of manners then, as now, regulated quite as much by fashion and by established rules of polite breeding. Frequent washings before, after, and also during a meal preserved a scrupulous cleanliness, and if the fingers were sometimes stained a saffron hue, owing to the nature of the popular condiment, they were at least free from dirt, for the etiquette of the higher classes demanded the most delicate management in the handling of food and the greatest possible avoidance of soiling the fingers with it. Even the custom of washing was surrounded by that elegance which belonged to all their habits of life. – San Luis Obispo Tribune, 1885

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

Gilded Age Finger Foods

 

For olives, the forks, spears and spoons are for serving only.

There are a number of things that the most fashionable and well-bred people now eat at dinner table with their fingers. They are: 

• Olives, to which a fork should never be applied. 
• Asparagus, whether hot or cold, when served whole, as it should be. 
• Lettuce, which should be dipped in the dressing or in a little salt. 
• Celery, which may properly be placed on the table-cloth beside the plate. 
• Strawberries when served with the stems on, as they often are. 
• Bread, toast and all tarts and small cakes. 
• Fruits, of all kinds, except melons and preserves, which are eaten with a spoon. 
• Cheese, which is almost invariably eaten with the fingers by the most particular people. 
• Even the leg or other small piece of a bird is taken in the fingers at fashionable dinners, and at most of the luncheons ladies pick small pieces of chicken without using a fork. — Exchange, 1888

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