Finger Bowls No More in Oregon?

The death of finger bowls was predicted very early in the 20th century, as more and more people traveled by rail and fewer people entertained with grand, multi-course meals. The use of finger bowls wouldn’t truly become uncommon until the 1960’s. Sixty years later, they are a welcome surprise at an exceptionally fine dining event. It’s too bad that very few people have the opportunity to use one, or even the knowledge of how to use them properly. 

SALEM, Ore., Feb. 19. (United Press)— The dear old finger bowl, which was to a restaurant waiter what the whisk-broom is to Pullman porter - the reminder that a generous tip is expected - is joining the Oregon elephant in blissful extinction. It is still used to some extent, but it is not so obvious as of yore.

Early in January the State Board of Health in conference assembled put its germ-killing heel down upon the post-prandial ablution. The board gave restaurateurs thirty days in which to store all finger bowls and ordered them never to allow bowls to appear on patrons' tables again.

The bowls spread germs, these guardians of the state's health maintained. Even scalding fails to kill the little fellows that know no union hours but work the clock around.

Because they were detremental to the state's health, particularly he health of those portions of the state which could afford restaurants where the finger bowl was an important adjunct to the cuisine, the bowls were ruled off the boards by the anti-germ campaigners.

Nowadays— in Oregon - upon the completion of a successful meal, one must seek the nearest sanitary drinking fountain and surreptitiously permit the limpid fluid to trickle over the fingertips in cleanly abandon. And then one uses one's handkerchief to do the drying, or waves the hands about in the air much in the manner affected by the young lady in "The Dance of the Fairies."

Some people doubt if the bowl ever will go out completely in Oregon. Some restaurateur may work up a test case, in which event the evidence introduced in court promises to be interesting. — Madeira Tribune, 1923

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

A bit of Finger Bowl Etiquette Humor

Load! Aim! Fire! 

The Deadly War on the Finger Bowl!!

Gen. T. Bone Riley Hurries to Defend Baby Bathtubs at Eat Counters

Led by T. Bone Riley and Sheriff Hammel, gastronomical Los Angeles is threatening revolution and secession from California.

Mr. Riley, who is known to "pork and beaners" throughout world and the said to be the innocent model for Van Loan fiction, claims the state is interfering with life and liberty and the pursuit of cleanliness.

Sheriff Hammel has doubled the guards at the county jail and declares his prisoners shall never be subjected to unnecessary torture.

THIS IS THE REASON

A demand has been made before the state board of health by State Sanitary Inspector Edward T. Ross that a regulation be adopted specifying that no finger bowl shall be used more than once.

Finger bowls of the ordinary type gather germs, the inspector says, and the only way to preserve the health of the human race is either to stop eating outside of your own kitchen or compel cafés to supply never-to-be-used-again finger bowls.

Finger bowls — for the benefit of those who do not know — are small tubs in which one may bathe publicly without fear of arrest. They are usually accompanied by an attendant who mops up the water if you tip the bowl and who is disappointed if you fail to tip.

Reports from Sacramento, where the protest has been made before the state board of health, fail to state the dread disease germ for which the finger bowl is the favorite vehicle, but the general belief among Los Angeles hotel and café proprietors is that appetite and hunger are closely associated diseases often to be found lurking in the vicinity of the fateful bowl.

'WIPE 'EM ON THE TABLE'

"This ain't the flowing bowl that's prohibited in the Bible," said T. Bone Riley today in an imaginary interview. "Nothing of the kind. They tell me the finger bowl is made of glass or copper, and that a waiter brings it to you after you eat and you dip your fingers in it and then wipe them on the table cloth. Sounds to me real sanitary and I think it ought to be encouraged. Even at home you have to wash before you eat. And it isn't asking too much for you to do the same thing when you get through — especially when you're out in company. The state board will have a hard time taking the finger bowls off of my pie counter."

Sheriff Hammel, whose boarders at the county jail are the most varied and steady in the city, is bitter in his stand against the antifinger bowl campaign. He said: 'OUTRAGEOUS! OUTRAGEOUS!'

"Never use a finger bowl but once? Why, it's an outrage! That's what it is an outrage! If that law goes into effect it will cost the taxpayers of this county a lot of money. All the finger bowls in the county jail are stationary. They use the same ones all the time. If you took them out every time they are used the plumber's bills would bankrupt Rockefeller. Never-to-be-used-again finger bowls? Slush! Why, the next thing they'll be saying we must have never-to-be-used-again bathtubs."

Al Levy, who knows more about bowls than any other man in the southwest, says if the law passes every person will have to carry his or her own finger bowl.

"Women will wear them for bangles," said Mr. Levy today, "and men will have them fitted on the heads of their canes. In a short time, instead of buying your wife a wrist watch, you'll get her a wrist finger bowl. Or you'll see the bald-headed chap pull off his skull cap and the waiter pour it half full of water while the finger-rinsing process goes on."

Nat Goodwin, founder and for some time principal patron of the famous Nat Goodwin café, telegraphed the following comment from San Francisco, where he is reiterating "Never Say Die" in solo with Marjorie Moreland as an accompanist:

"I never cared for finger bowls. They are too small for a regular drink and hold too much for a chaser."

The only word of encouragement to the state board comes from Vernon Goodwin, manager of the Hotel Alexandria.

"It really makes no difference, anyway," he said. "Finger bowls are de trop. However, we have always served a separate finger bowl to each consumer and our waiters are instructed to use every effort to discourage large parties using the same finger or families’ bowl, even when dining in private rooms. Finger bowls are for single dips and should never be used either for plunge or shower." — Los Angeles Herald, 1914

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

Finger-Bowls Won’t Replace Napkins

He is doing this incorrectly– One is only supposed to dip the fingers of one hand at a time into the bowl, and then, the other. Never should one dip both of their hands into the finger bowl at one time.

The practice, which has been attempted in England, of doing away with the use of table napkins, is not likely to prevail here to any extent soon. The idea in not using napkins, is that table manners should be so perfect, that the fingers will be as daintily clean at the close of a meal, as at the beginning. But we still have here the woman who finds it necessary not only to dip her fingers in the finger bowl, but to moisten her lips from it, and she is usually a lady in other respects. It is a practice only a shade more reprehensible than that of the woman who uses her drinking glass for a finger bowl. The individual who needs further ablutions than the ordinary use of the finger bowl will give, should take to a bib, and be relegated to the care of a nurse. – Sacramento Daily Union 1898

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

A Healthy 1930 Etiquette Suggestion

While finger bowls, and finger bowl usage, have fallen in and out of fashion over decades and centuries, clean fingers at the dining table have always been fashionable.

Finger Bowls First

Though it is contrary to the book of etiquette, finger bowls ought really to be served at the beginning rather than at the end of a meal. The present practice serves an aesthetic end, the recommended one would serve as a measure of better personal hygiene. But there is nothing very novel in this suggestion. In fact, it is an old idea. The Mosaic law which includes so many good rules for the protection of health, forbids an orthodox believer to touch food before his hands have been washed. 

Keen observation had no doubt impressed the author of those sanitary laws that unclean hands are a source of, and a means of, transmitting disease. Indeed, the observations need not to have been so very keen to appreciate the point, for in the course of an hour the hands come in contact with a vast multitude of things which in themselves had previously been touched by scores if not hundreds of others, and each contact represents a possible source of danger. 

Now the matter is simple and yet! A large number of our schools have lunch rooms for their pupils, or cafeteria services, where those that cannot, or will not go home for their midday meal, may eat. How many among these schools provide washing facilities? How many shops, factories, or offices have a place where the workers might wash their hands before eating, without having to stand in line for half the lunch period? And also how many parents insist upon having their children come to the dinner table with hands freshly washed? 

Consider the care we bestow upon our foods, how we protect our milk, our meat and our water from contamination and pollution, and then consider how all of the precautions bestowed upon our food substances turn to naught by the soiled hands that transport the victuals from table to mouth. – Edited by Dr. lago Galdston for the N. Y. Academy of Medicine, 1930

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