Etiquette for Miscellaneous Plate Use

Since fish was often the first of many main courses, it had its own plate, about 9 inches across and easy to recognize because it was decorated with pictures of fish. 

Miscellaneous Plates for Dining 

A number of other plates were made in the nineteenth century for foods that were eaten frequently then but are less common today. You can find these plates in antique shops, and they add a touch of whimsy to your table. You don't have to use them for their original purpose, however. 

Examples of unusual antique plates include oyster plates, fruit plates, escargot plates, and bone plates. Asparagus plates were common because asparagus was usually served as a separate course. Since fish was often the first of many main courses, it had its own plate, about 9 inches across and easy to recognize because it was decorated with pictures of fish. 

Another plate no longer frequently made is the luncheon plate, which is a size smaller than the dinner plate. Today, a salad plate or a dessert plate can be used for luncheon, but an antique luncheon plate is perfect for serving cookies (and for luncheon of course, if you have enough of them!). – From “Elements of the Table,” by Lynn Rosen, 2007

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

Dinner Plate History

TABLE TEST

Q: TRUE OR FALSE: At a very formal dinner, you are expected to place your dinner roll directly on the tablecloth.

A: TRUE. Butter is not served at a dinner that has many courses, because the food is very rich. Since there are so many dishes on a formal table, the bread plate is dispensed with, and diners are expected to (neatly) set their bread right on the table, although still in the spot where a bread and butter plate would have been, above the fork.

Plate Use and Plate’s History 

If you were sitting down to dinner in medieval times, you would eat your meal from a trencher, a thick, often stale slice of bread with the crusts pared off. Although you could in theory eat your plate at the end of the meal, it was more common to collect the used trenchers and give them to the poor.

Trenchers were succeeded by wooden plates (or metal plates for the wealthy), and, with the growth of the ceramics industry in the seventeenth century, the adoption of ceramic dishes. Gradually the custom of using individual ceramic plates for each diner replaced the tradition of eating from individual trenchers or from communal bowls, and the use of the dinner plate became common by the nineteenth century. Over time, the dinner plate itself evolved into a variety of plates of different sizes.— From “Elements of the Table,” by Lynn Rosen, 2007

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

Etiquette of Service Plates

 Service Plates, Place Plates or Chargers

The service plate, also called a charger (or “Place Plate”), is between 11 and 14 inches in diameter. It is placed in the center of the place setting and is on the table when diners are seated. Food is never placed directly on the service plate and the guest never moves the service plate (or any plate, for that matter— guests should always leave plates wherever their host or server has placed them).

If soup is to be served, the soup bowl (sometimes with an underliner) is placed on top of the service plate. If an appetizer is served, this plate is also placed on top of the service plate. Service plates may either match the main service china or have a complementary pattern or design. Some are made out of a different material, such as silver, pewter, or brass.

When the appetizer course is finished, the service plate is removed along with the appetizer plate and is immediately replaced by a dinner plate. In her book Miss Manners’ Basic Training: Eating etiquette expert Judith Martin points out how tricky this is to do. Since the diner is never to be without a plate in front of him, the process of removing one plate and replacing it with another must be executed with great skill. “This is done by having the server stand behind the diner, lean to the right to remove the service plate from that side, and then immediately lean to the left to slip in the fresh plate.” Yet another example of how good service is like a well-choreographed dance!

Service plates are not mandatory. Arthur Inch, the dining authority who served as an English butler throughout much of the twentieth century, never used service plates in his fifty years of service at great English estates. If you eschew service plates, use a dinner plate for the purpose instead, because, as etiquette expert Emily Post also reminds us, it is proper to always have a plate in front of the diner. – From “Elements of the Table,” by Lynn Rosen, 2007

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