Etiquette for Kiwano Melons

Left, a Kiwano Melon. 

Below– A Holmes and Edward’s Melon Spoon and an advertisement for the utensil.

  

Antique melon spoons are ideal for eating small melons, like kiwano or pepino melons, while long, antique melon forks are ideal for eating slices of cantaloupe and watermelon. 

If you don’t have antique melon spoons for smaller melons, here is how to eat ripe kiwano melons when they’re ready to be sliced open and enjoyed:

A fully ripened kiwano has an orange rind with prominent spikes. Pick one that is firm with just a bit of give, but without any visible bruises or damaged spikes.

To eat plain, cut the fruit in half. Gently squeeze one half until the seeds pop out. The seeds aren’t harmful to eat (and actually contain the antioxidant vitamin E), but many people prefer to hold the seeds between their teeth while they enjoy the green flesh

If that doesn’t sound appealing, you can also simply scoop out the inner fruit and toss it in fruit salads or use as a colorful garnish.

Feeling truly brave? Slice off the spikes on the rind and enjoy whole! — Parade, June 2022

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

Gilded Age Etiquette for the Table

 

“Do not overload the fork. To pack meat and vegetables on the fork as though it were a beast of burden has been pointed out as a common American vulgarity, born of our hurried ways of eating at hotels and restaurants.”
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Unlike contemporary table knives, those of the 18th and 19th Centuries had dull and wide, flat blades. Usually they were steel. Many who were unfamiliar with utensils and their expected dining usage, found the knives ideal for not just cutting with, but for eating from. By the mid-1800’s, etiquette books encouraged diners to stop the practice of eating their food from their knives. As etiquette books are often ignored, small numbers of several generations continued the practice.— Image from “What Have We Here?: The Etiquette and Essentials of Lives Once Lived, from the Georgian Era through the Gilded Age and Beyond...”

Hints for the Table

All soft cheeses should be eaten with the fork.

In using the spoon, be careful not to put it too far into the mouth.

Salt cellars are now placed at each plate and it is not improper to take salt with the knife.

To make a hissing sound when eating soup shows very bad breeding.

Do not overload the fork. To pack meat and vegetables on the fork as though it were a beast of burden has been pointed out as a common American vulgarity, born of our hurried ways of eating at hotels and restaurants.

Pears and apples should be pared, cut into quarters and then picked up with the fingers. Oranges should be peeled and cut or separated, as one chooses.

Grapes should be eaten from behind the half-closed hand, the stones and skin falling into the fingers unobserved and thence to the plate. – San Diego Daily Bee, 1887

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

Table Manners for Fruit

Cherries, berries, strawberries (they are not actually berries), oranges, grapes, grapefruit, mangoes and lemons all had utensils specifically made for enjoying them. Many other fruits had none. Peaches, apricots, apples, pears, pineapples, papayas, kiwi, nectarines and plums are among the many fruits which were overlooked. When it came to the etiquette of eating them, the small fruit knife and fruit fork would have to suffice.
— Photo source, Etiquipedia private library

How to Eat Peaches

“The art of eating a peach” is, it appears, one of the questions of the day. According to one authority on the etiquette of the dinner table, a peach should be picked with the fork, quartered, peeled and eaten piece-meal. But, as so much manipulation would evidently leave all the juice of the fruit on the plate this method, to be palatable, requires the courage of the young lady in the story who, at her first appearance at a dinner party, raised her dessert plate with her two hands and calmly drank the sweet juice of the nectarines. The French rule of eating peaches will, therefore, be accepted with much favor, and that rule is, “D’y mordre a pleines dents.”—Pall Mall Budget, 1891

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

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

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

Gilded Age Etiquette for Eating Oranges

Below – An individual silver, Gilded Age orange dish, with inside “spikes” which hold the halved orange in place for graceful dining. Paired with a “Salem witch” orange spoon, with a gilded bowl to protect the sterling silver from citric acid. Salem witch spoons, by Daniel Low, are deemed by many to be the original souvenir spoons.

Specially designed orange spoons and footed orange dishes, with spikes for holding orange halves, were seen on the finest dining tables. Only those who were well-versed in etiquette knew how to use them, and eat their oranges properly.

In ancient times, Alexander the Great named what we now call “oranges,” “Median Apples” and “Persian Apples.” Considered the fruit of emperors and kings, oranges and orange groves were considered one's paradise. France's Louis XIV had his own: “His orangerie at Versailles was built in the shape of a ‘C,’ 1200 feet around, and was the scene of garden parties and masked balls.” And oranges were believed to be the “ultimate preventive” to the threat of a plague, according to physicians of the Italian Renaissance. 

Above– The inside of a footed, tilted, Gilded Age orange dish. 

Oranges were still considered a delicacy throughout most of  the Victorian era. By the 20th century, after refrigerated railroad cars were invented, oranges reached the middle-class in the United States. In the early 1900’s, people in the United States used to consume more fresh oranges than all other fresh fruits combined, with their popularity soaring during the winter holidays.  Though no longer considered a delicacy, oranges continue to hold a special place in children's Christmas stockings.

It is not customary to serve fruit as a first course at dinner, though at a lunch it is quite proper.

First in expensive sterling, then in silverplate, special spoons for oranges became popular table accoutrements.  When oranges were no longer a delicacy, and grapefruits were grown to be more palatable, a serrated edge was added to orange spoons, creating “grapefruit spoons.”

Oranges are seldom served at dinner anymore unless they are specially prepared, that is, with the skin taken off, and the sections divided, in which case the fruit is eaten from a fork.

Grape-fruit must be served ice cold. It is served in two ways: either it is cut in halves, midway between the blossom and the stem end, the seeds removed, the pulp loosened with a sharp knife, but served in the natural skin, to be eaten with a spoon; or the pulp and seeds are entirely removed from the skin with a sharp knife, and the edible part only served in deep dessert plates. Pulverized sugar should accompany grape-fruit. - From *Practical Etiquette by N.C., 1899


*Author's note : “The author is under obligation to so many persons for suggestions and advice, as well as to many authors, that it does not seem best to give a list of the same, especially as such list could be only a partial one, for many of her friends would not desire mention of their names.”
N. C. Dec. 1, 1899

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

More Retro Etiquette Advice

"Make sure you don't miss a spot dear. Have I told you how handsome you look in that apron?"

More Mid-20th Century 

"Modern Etiquette"

By Advice Columnist, Roberta Lee

From 1952

Q. Is it proper for the bride-groom's family to send announcements of the marriage to their own friends when the bride's family is not sending any? 
A. The bridegroom's family may properly notify their own friends by telephoning the society editors of the newspapers, as well as by writing personal letters to their relatives. But it would be questionable taste should they mail out engraved announcements. 

Q. Is it considered good manners for a man to examine the items on his check when dining with a girl in a restaurant? 
A. This is perfectly all right. But he should do so in a casual and unobtrusive manner. 

Q. When calling on a friend who is ill and one is not permitted to see him, is it proper to write a short message on one’s card? 
A. Yes. This is a very nice thing to do.


From 1962

Q. Is it considered good manners to enter someone’s home with a lighted cigarette in one's hand? 
A. No. 

Q. When a wedding gift is given to a bridegroom by his fellow workers in an office, should he thank them, or should his bride (who does not know them) thank them? 
A. He should thank them. 

Q. Will you please comment on the art of correct handshaking in general? 
A. In addition to the much-frowned-upon limp, flabby handshake, try to avoid the bone-crushing type, which is painful if the other person is wearing a ring; the pump-handle technique; and the refusal-to-let-go technique, which is usually reserved for women and is supposed to indicate great ardor. A good handshake is at elbow level, and is firm but brief.

From 1963

Q. Is the black-bordered type of mourning stationery still in good use? 
A. This has not been in “popular” usage for many years. If, however, you still feel that you'd like to use it, your paper should be white with a narrow black border ranging from 1\4 to 1/32 of an inch in width. 

Q. When attending a buffet dinner, is it permissible for a guest to revisit the serving table for a second helping? 
A. This is perfectly proper and expected. The big rule to remember is never to take more than you are sure you can eat. It would be very poor manners to heap your plate with food, and then leave half of it uneaten. 

From 1965

Q. Is it possible to correct someone's grammar without being impolite ? 
A. No one likes to be corrected in group conversation, and efforts at improvement of grammar and diction had better be reserved for members of one's family or friends who you are SURE will consider them as favors, and not insults.

Q. Is it all right to eat bananas with the fingers when at the table? 
A. No; they should be skinned on the dessert plate, then cut and eaten with the fork. —From The Madera Tribune

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

Etiquette of Gilded Age Breakfasts

Fruit at breakfast does not necessarily demand a waitress. In may be served at each cover before the guests and family seat themselves. It does call for a finger bowl, however. Only when berries or sliced fruits are served can the finger bowl be omitted.

Breakfast is the first meal of the American day. It should be daintily and deftly served. Fruit, cereal and some main dish (bacon, fish, eggs) together with toast, hot rolls or muffins, coffee, tea or cocoa, are its main essentials. The bare, doilied table is popular for breakfast use.

BREAKFAST FRUIT

Fresh pears, plums, peaches, apricots, nectarines, mandarins and apples are all served in the same manner—on a plate about six inches across, with a silver fruit knife for quartering and peeling. If a waitress serves, fruit knife and plate are placed first, and then the dish containing the fruit is passed.

Berries—raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, as also baked apples, stewed fruits (peaches, prunes and apricots) and all cooked fruits, are offered in little fruit dishes on service plates, together with powdered (or fine granulated) sugar and cream. Strawberries are sometimes left unhulled, when of “exhibition” size. They then should be served in apple bowls or plates, with powdered sugar on the side.

In serving grapes, the waitress, after supplying fruit plates, passes a compote containing the grapes and offers fruit shears, so that each guest may cut what he or she desire. Cherries are served in the same manner, with the addition of a finger bowl.

When grapefruit is served, it is usually as a half, the core removed and sugar added, on a fruit plate or in a grapefruit bowl, together with an orange spoon.

Oranges may be served from a compote, whole, and may be eaten cut crosswise in halves, with the orange spoon; or peeled and eaten in sections. If oranges are served peeled and sliced on a fruit plate they may be eaten with a fork. Sugar should always be passed when they are eaten in this way. Orange juice is the extracted juice served in small glasses two-thirds full.                  

Oranges may be served from a compote, whole, and may be eaten cut crosswise in halves, with the orange spoon; or peeled and eaten in sections.

Cantaloupe (filled with cracked ice) and honeydew melon (it is smart to accompany the latter with a slice of lemon) are served in halves or quarters, on fruit plates (or special melon dishes) and eaten with a fruit spoon. Sugar, salt and pepper should be offered with these by the waitress. Watermelon is usually cut in wedges or circles. It should always be served very cold, on a large fruit plate, and with fruit knife and fork. If half-melons are served, with the rind, the host cuts egg-shaped pieces from the fruit, and places it on individual plates for passing by the waitress.

Bananas may be served “in the skin” at breakfast, or peeled and sliced, with sugar and cream, or sprinkled with sugar and lemon juice.

Shredded pineapple, sprinkled with sugar, or sliced pineapple (slices an inch thick) may be served from a large dish by the waitress.

Fruit at breakfast does not necessarily demand a waitress. In may be served at each cover before the guests and family seat themselves. It does call for a finger bowl, however. Only when berries or sliced fruits are served can the finger bowl be omitted.

Bananas may be served “in the skin” at breakfast, or peeled and sliced, with sugar and cream, or sprinkled with sugar and lemon juice.

CEREALS

Cereals are a matter of personal taste. Cooked cereals, such as oatmeal, rolled oats, hominy, corn-meal mush and cracked wheat should come on the table hot, and be served in bowls with sugar (brown sugar, if preferred) and cream. Again, the host may serve the cereal from a large porringer, the waitress bringing him the individual bowls, and taking them to the guests when filled. Dry cereals are served in the same way. Puffed grains or flakes gain crispness and flavor when reheated, not browned, before serving.

TOAST

The best breakfast toast is that made at the table over an electric toaster. Be sure, if you have French toast, hot cakes or waffles served, that they come from the kitchen hot. A perforated silver cover should cover the plate containing them to prevent their cooling. Never use a soup plate or bowl for the purpose! The steam cannot escape and the toast grows soggy. Do not forget syrup when waffles, hot cakes or French toast are served. Some prefer cinnamon and sugar to syrup with hot cakes, and they should also be on hand.

BACON

Bacon is the ideal breakfast meat. The rasher of bacon should be served piping hot on a hot silver platter, in crisp, curling slices. Incidentally, it should be just as crisp when it appears with a favorite companion, as “bacon and eggs.”

EGGS

Cooked in the shell (medium or soft-boiled) eggs should be served in an egg cup or egg glass, on a plate, and under cup or glass. Each egg thus served should be accompanied by a silver egg cutter and (unless there is plenty of silver at the cover) a silver spoon.

A vegetable dish or a small plate will do for the hard-boiled egg.

Poached eggs appear in individual shirred egg dishes, to the left of each cover, on small plates with service spoon.

Scrambled eggs are served in individual portions, as above; or distributed by the host from a large platter, and passed by the waitress.

Omelet should be served on a large platter with hot individual service plates before the host. The waitress may pass the individual portions or—it is customary with scrambled eggs—they may be passed from host to guest around the table.     

Coffee is the favorite and logical breakfast drink, though some prefer tea, cocoa and milk. When tea is the breakfast beverage the samovar takes the place of the percolator.

COFFEE

Coffee is the favorite and logical breakfast drink, though some prefer tea, cocoa and milk. The breakfast coffee service should be placed before the hostess. In its most attractive form it comprises a large silver tray, which holds coffee (or percolator), the hot-water pot, creamer, sugar bowl with tongs, and cups and saucers. (There may also be a bowl for the water used to heat the cups.) When tea is the breakfast beverage the samovar takes the place of the percolator.

The large silver service platter may be dispensed with, if desired, in favor of a tile to hold the coffee urn, the other components of the service being grouped about it. There is a charming touch of intimacy about coffee made at the table with an electric percolator, poured by the hostess and passed at the table (or by a waitress). When the hostess pours she should at the same time ask the guest’s preferences (those of members of the family are supposed to be known) as regards cream and sugar. Cream and sugar always enter the cup first! The true coffee-drinker at once notices a difference in flavor if the coffee first be poured, and the cream and sugar added.

FOR THE CHILDREN
 
If the children eat breakfast with the family, a regular child’s service, with attractive little knives and spoons should be provided, and his whole service, preferably, should be arranged on a tray near the table’s edge. Every child likes to have his own porridge bowl, his mug and little milk pitcher, and having his own table tools teaches him to be neat and self-reliant. –From Lillian B. Lansdown

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

Gilded Age Dinner Etiquette "Extras"

Fruit-knives are required, and ice-spoons, orange spoons, and other unique conceits in silver utensils may be provided with the dessert, if one happens to own them...

Miscellaneous Points of the Gilded Age Dinner

Extra knives and forks are brought in with any course that requires them. The preliminary lay-out is usually meant to provide all that the scheme of the dinner will call for; but one must have a goodly supply of silver and cutlery to avoid altogether the necessity for having some of it washed and returned to the table during the progress of the dinner. It is very desirable to be amply equipped, as it facilitates the prompt and orderly serving of the courses.

Fruit-knives are required, and ice-spoons, orange spoons, and other unique conceits in silver utensils may be provided with the dessert, if one happens to own them; otherwise, plain forks and spoons do duty as required. The fork bears the chief burden of responsibility, being used for everything solid or semi-solid, leaving the spoon to the limited realm of soft custards and fruits that are so juicy as to elude the tines of the fork.

The knife is held in hand as little as possible, being used only when cutting is actually necessary, the fork easily separating most vegetables, etc. In the fish course, however, the knife is used to assist in removing the troublesome small bones.

In holding the knife the fingers should not touch the blade, except that the forefinger rests upon the upper edge not far below the shank when the cutting requires some firmness of pressure. The dinner knife should be sharp enough to perform its office without too much muscular effort, or the possible accident of a duck's wing flying unexpectedly " from cover" under the ill-directed stress of a despairing carver's hand. I have seen the component parts of a fricasseed chicken leave the table, not untouched— oh! no; every one had been sawing at it for a half an hour—but uneaten it certainly was, for obvious reasons. The cutlery was pretty, but practically unequal to even spring chicken.                               

The fork bears the chief burden of responsibility, being used for everything solid or semi-solid, leaving the spoon to the limited realm of soft custards and fruits that are so juicy as to elude the tines of the fork.

The fork is held with the tines curving downward, that position giving greater security to the morsel, and is raised laterally, the points being turned, as it reaches the mouth, just enough to deposit the morsel between the slightly-parted lips. During this easy movement the elbow scarcely moves from its position at the side, a fact gratefully appreciated by one's next neighbor. What is more awkward than the arm projected, holding the fork pointing backward at a right angle to the lips, the mouth opening wide like an automatic railway gate to an approaching locomotive—the labored and ostentatious way in which food is sometimes transported to its destination? Nor, once in the mouth, is it lost to sight forever. Other people, seated opposite, are compelled to witness it in successive stages of the grinding process, as exhibited by the constant opening and shutting of the mouth during mastication, or laughing and talking with the mouth full—faults of heedless people of energetic but not refined manners.

Liquids are sipped from the side of the spoon, without noise or suction. In serving vegetables the tablespoon is inserted laterally, not " point first."

Celery is held in the fingers, asparagus also, unless the stalks are too tender. Green corn may be eaten from the cob, a good set of natural teeth being the prime requisite. It may be a perfectly graceful performance if daintily managed.

The management of fruits in the dessert is another test of dainty skill. Oranges may be eaten in different ways; they may be cut in half across the sections, and the cells scooped out with a spoon; or they may be peeled and separated. The pegs of a large Florida orange can be skinned with the point of a sharp fruit-knife, and the seeds removed, leaving only the juicy pulp to be conveyed to the mouth. Practice enables one easily to "make way with" an orange. Bananas are peeled and held in the fingers, or, if very mealy, they may be cut into "bites" and eaten with a fork. Juicy pears and peaches may be managed in the same way, at discretion, the rule being that the fingers should touch as little as possible fruits that are decidedly mushy.

The finger-bowl stands ready to repair all damages of the nature suggested. The fingers are dipped in the water and gently rinsed, and then passed lightly over the lips, and both mouth and fingers are wiped upon the napkin.

At a signal from the hostess, the ladies rise and return to the drawing-room. The gentlemen follow immediately, or remain a short time for another glass of wine, when such is the provision of the host. – From "Etiquette: An Answer to the Riddle When? Where? How??" By Agnes H. Morton

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