19th C. Dining Styles

“Godey’s Lady’s Book was the leading nineteenth-century magazine for American women and Virginia Campbell was a regular subscriber.” – Above, an antebellum, March 1859 edition of Godey’s illustrated the ideal table setting which was advised prior to the American Civil War, post-war restoration and the Gilded Age.

Until the early nineteenth century, dining in America was straightforward. Based on the English-style of two courses consisting of multiple items, the first course featured soup, fish, entrées, and joints; the second course included game, additional entrées, and some sweets. An optional third course of fruit and more sweets could follow in those households that had the means to provide them.

All the dishes were placed on the table at once and then cleared to accommodate the next course. This changed with the popularity of a la Francaise (French-style) dining and an emerging merchant class whose new wealth could afford both the new style and food to bring to the table.

French-style service broke the accepted two courses into four, placing fewer dishes on the table. Critics of the day rebuked the style as an indulgent display. In actuality the number of dishes primarily stayed the same. The main difference was order, spacing, and presentation, which gave the appearance of a larger, more elaborate meal.

The French-style course structure is generally divided into four courses: soups and fish in the first course; entrées, which were smaller meat dishes such as ragouts, followed in the second course; third course consisted of joints and entrées; while the fourth course comprised game, sweets, and a few more entrées. Finally, an optional dessert course could follow of fruit and more sweets. Course structure, according to Savarin, was an attempt to serve foods in relationship to each other that in turn would enhance the dining experience. In short, food and its service should have an order.

French service could be compared to a fanciful family style since the dishes placed on the table were designed for guests to serve themselves. If a dish required carving the guest closest to that item was expected to carve. One served themselves, filling their own plate. For dishes out of one’s reach either servants or fellow guests politely passed dishes. — From “The Gilded Table: Recipes and Table History from the Campbell House,” by Suzanne Corbett, 2015

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

Table Laying Etiquette of 1908

Marion Harland wrote “The Housekeeper’s Week,” along with the books “Complete Cook Book” and “Everyday Etiquette”

Laying the Table

One of the tasks which practice should make perfect, but often does not, is laying the table. A thing that is done three times a day, three hundred and sixty-five times in the year should be done skilfully, and yet the awkwardly arranged table is not an infrequent occurrence. The following are the conventionally accepted rules and arrangements.

A canton flannel or asbestos cover should be provided to lay under the table-cloth as a protection to the table when a table-cloth is used. It may be said that the asbestos covers, now much in vogue, are valuable additions to the housekeeper's store, as they absolutely protect the table from burns and can, the best of them, be rolled up like a flannel cloth. They are not, however, to be obtained at every department store but are the property of special dealers.

For breakfast and luncheon the use of table mats of various sizes is, at the present time, more general than the use of a table-cloth. When the cloth is used, as at dinner, it should be laid so that the central crease strikes the exact center of the table. Place knives and spoons at the right of the plate, having the ends of the handles near the edge of the table. The sharp edge of the knives should be turned toward the plate, and the inside of the bowls of the spoons turned up. The forks should be to the left, and in side up. The napkins should be on the plate or at the left hand side with the water glasses a little to the right and top edge of the plate. At the top of the plate in the middle the individual salt-cellar should be placed. If the meal in the case is breakfast, small butter plates and butter knives may be added to the furnishings of the table; and the service for coffee or chocolate or both should be placed before the mistress of the house.

If the meal in question is dinner, the carving-set and knife and fork should be placed before the carver. The amount of silver on the table will depend upon the number of courses served.

In case the duties of the house are performed by one maid, it is well to dispense at breakfast and luncheon with service beyond the proper disposition of dishes on the table. This is indeed the English fashion and gives a pleasant informality to those meals. But service there should be, and of the right kind at dinner.

Serving the dinner: The maid should stand quietly behind the carver while the meat is being carved. She should take each plate from him and set it before the person for whom it is intended. She should then pass the vegetables and condiments if any. The plates should be removed after each course, and before the dessert is brought on, everything except the glasses and the flowers should be removed and the cloth should be cleared of crumbs by the use of a crumb knife and tray or by the use of a fresh napkin.

Though there are some differences of opinion on this point, the generally accepted rule is that the maid must go to the left side of the person served when the dish is one from which he helps himself, thus giving him the free use of his right hand, — to the right when it is something that she places on the table. For instance she must go to the right with the plate served by the carver, to the left with the vegetable dish from which the diner helps himself. Some authorities, however, insist that everything shall be served from the left except water and other liquids that can be poured into a glass.

In removing dishes the waitress should never pile one upon another and should not attempt to take more than two plates at a time. Perhaps it is unnecessary in this day and age to say that the silver should be placed in the center of the plate, the knife, fork and spoon side by side and not at varying and dangerous angles.

The rules given are the elementary ones merely of table serving. It takes but a short time for a maid to make a conquest of them and rigid adherence to them should be insisted upon. There is no one of the daily round of tasks that contributes more perhaps to the esthetic happiness of the family than that of quiet and efficient service at the dinner table. — Marion Harland in The Housekeeper’s Week, 1908

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