Fork vs Fingers Etiquette

Dining shouldn’t be turned into a guessing game. When does one use fingers and when did one use forks or spoons? Use these rules listed below.

Forks and Fingers are Not Used Interchangeably  

Peter’s niece was just beginning to go out to dinner parties. She came to Aunt Nancy one day and hemmed and hawed until Nancy knew she had something on her mind. She tentatively opened a number of subjects but had so little response that she knew something else was bothering the girl. Just then Joan came in for her supper and Aunt Nancy talked to her about the way she was holding her spoon. “I wish some one had told me things when I was young. Aunt Nancy. Then I would not be puzzled now. I never know whether I am eating foods in the right way or not.” And with this opening Nancy had quite a chance to talk on table etiquette.

Her special problems seemed to be fork and finger foods. When did one use fingers and when did one use forks or spoons? Nancy gave these rules: 

• Pickles, olives, nuts, candies, breads, rolls, radishes, celery, cookies, corn on the cob, small plain cakes, globe artichokes are all finger foods.
• A spoon is used for stewed or, creamed vegetables, berries, fruit cocktails, cantaloupe, soft puddings and ice cream unless special fork is provided. 
• Meat, vegetables, salads, and watermelon call for use of fork. So does a filled or heavily iced cake. 
• Melon balls, oysters clams use small special fork. 
• The ice (aspic) served with a meat course is eaten with fork unless spoon is provided.  – San Pedro Pilot, 1929

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

Table Etiquette of the Well-Bred

The well-bred woman seats herself without fuss, removes her gloves, opens up her napkin and places it on her lap. She keeps her hands from the table and does nothing for herself because the waiter is paid for service and expects to give it without assistance. 

Betty Bradeen’s Daily Chat

Ease at table is the distinguishing mark of good breeding, and it comes from a thorough knowledge of table etiquette and familiarity with the forms which govern it. If a woman is accustomed to be heedless in the privacy of home life, she is likely to be found wanting in manners when subjected to public inspection, for habits will crop out in the face of ordinary vigilance. Eating in public is an increasing habit which affects other than high-class society. 

Women go to hotels and tearooms after a shopping tour or as a finish to a matinee. The well-bred woman seats herself without fuss, removes her gloves, opens up her napkin and places it on her lap. She keeps her hands from the table and does nothing for herself because the waiter is paid for service and expects to give it without assistance. 

If soup is served she eats noiselessly from the side of her spoon, dipping from her and never attempting to fill the spoon to the dripping point or clean her plate. This may seem an unnecessary statement, but from recent observation I am inclined to the belief that if all women know these things, they do not practice them. 

Fish is generally eaten with a fork, which is sufficient to separate the flesh from the bones. It is allowable to use a knife when necessary, and it is usually provided for the purpose. There are innumerable other dishes when nothing more than a fork is necessary, like omelettes, croquettes and creamed meats or vegetables and salads. It is obvious that the fewer the implements at the table, the easier the process of eating, and if knife, fork and spoon are reserved for their separate uses, there is less likelihood of blunders. It is safe to use the fork wherever possible and neglect the knife when it can be done without discomfort and awkwardness. 

Spoons are necessary with liquids or semi-liquids, and that ought to be easy to remember. It ought not to be necessary to say that only small portions of food should he conveyed to the mouth and that speech should he tabooed until the morsels are swallowed, but here is just where serious fault can be found. Perfect chewing is done with closed lips and in silence, but the great majority are not doing either. There is chatter from beginning to finish, and so we hear of bad cases of indigestion, and accusations of bolting the food. 

Refinement in eating and drinking cannot be too strongly dwelt upon, and the importance of beginning the training in childhood cannot be over-estimated. Feeding is not a pretty process at its best. There are small points in table etiquette which change from time to time and one may be pardoned for being unfamiliar with them. Any woman of ordinary perception can pick them up by merely waiting till she sees somebody do the correct thing. If there is a single article on the table whose use one does not know, it is best left in its place—neglect will easily pass for intentional in such a case. 

If a woman knows that she is not graceful with tea or service, she will do better to leave the pouring to the others, for it is good form to shirk service if one wishes. There is everything in this set of rules to stamp one with refinement if she heeds them, and nothing which could not, and should not, be a part of the simplest home life. —Betty Bradeen, 1909

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

Amy Vanderbilt on Dining Etiquette

Even when one uses the American zigzag method, it is sensible to convey food one has just cut to the mouth with the fork in the left hand, if one wishes. –  The traditional European style of dining was originally what was considered the American style. The dining style division was the result of British colonists sailing across the Atlantic, bringing their multi-step, or “zig-zag” method to the New World. The Continental (or European, as in the continent of Europe) style of dining became fashionable. A French etiquette book from that period read: “If you wish to eat in the latest mode favored by fashionable people, you will not change your fork to your right hand after you have cut your meat, but raise it to your mouth in your left hand.” 

The Use of the Knife and Fork

Knives and forks may be used American or Continental fashion, but a combination of the two systems is now often seen and is quite acceptable. Even when one uses the American zigzag method, it is sensible to convey food one has just cut to the mouth with the fork in the left hand, if one wishes. In other words, if you have cut off a bit of chop, it is not necessary, even conservative American style, to lay down the knife, place the fork, tines up, in the right hand and convey the meat to the mouth. Instead, one may use the fork in the left hand, with the tines of the fork down. 

Also, in eating a bit of bread and gravy by impaling the bread on the fork (in either hand), tines down, and sopping up the gravy it is now more usual than otherwise to convey the bit to the mouth with the fork tines down rather than up. Of course, nothing that would leak off the fork apple pie or other things needing a shoveling technique should be eaten this way. In the European fashion, food eaten with fork and knife is piled with the knife on the back of the fork, held in the left hand, and pressed down so it won't fall off or in the case of meat, impaled on the tines. The fork is then conveyed to the mouth, upside down, with the left hand.

Drinking Beverages at the Table

In drinking any beverage at table, a sip is never taken until the mouth is empty and has been wiped with the napkin. This keeps cup and glass rims free from food marks.

The Napkin

Napkins are placed on the lap entirely open if they are lunch-size or in half if they are dinner napkins. Guests wait until the hostess has taken up hers before placing their own. Napkins are tucked in only for children. They are never refolded; at the end of the meal, they are gathered and laid casually to the right of the place setting. Paper napkins are preferable to napkins to be used for more than one meal and placed in rings, but, if rings are used, they are given only to the family. A guest staying over should have a clean napkin each meal. Napkins reused are as incomprehensible to me as beds which have only one sheet changed. There are so many more sensible ways to economize.

Tipping of Dishes

The tipping of soup or dessert dishes is acceptable if the plate is tipped away from the spoon, not toward the eater.
          

The Soup or Bouillon Cup

Soup or bouillon served in a handled cup or even in a small cup-size bowl (Oriental fashion) is drunk. If there are dumplings or decorative vegetables or other garnish floating on top, these may be lifted out first with the spoon before the soup is drunk. Noodles or other things which may be in the bottom of the cup are spooned up after the liquid has been drunk.

Testing Liquids

Coffee or tea may be tested for heat or sweetening by one sip from the spoon, then drunk. If it is too hot, it must be allowed to stand until it is tolerable it may not be blown, spoonful by spoonful, until it is cool enough to drink.

“Stirring” Food

Nothing should ever be stirred up or mashed into a conglomerate heap on the plate. Gravy unless it is a gravy in which meat, fish or other protein is incorporated (rarebits, curries, blanquettes, chilis, etc.) is never poured or ladled onto rice, noodles, or other than meat on the plate. It is an insult to the cuisine to inundate everything on your plate with gravy or with that American favorite, catsup. If you want to eat your potatoes with gravy, you dip a forkful into the gravy that has escaped from the meat.

Conserves and Jellies

Conserves and jellies (jam and marmalade are for breakfast and tea) may be served at dinner or lunch with meat and are placed on the side of the plate, as are horse-radish, cranberry sauce, apple butter, relish. They are incorporated onto the fork as the food is taken into the mouth. Hard sauce is placed on the side of the dessert plate and incorporated with the pudding with dessert fork or spoon. Dessert sauces are ladled onto the dessert. Liquid sauces (mint, Chateaubriand, Worcestershire, etc...) meant for the meat are poured only onto it.

When Food is Too Hot

Too hot foods taken accidentally into the mouth are never hastily spit out in any way but are quenched with a drink of water before being swallowed (exception to rule against drinking with anything in the mouth).

“Spoiled” Food

Spoiled food, not even a bad clam, is ever spit, however surreptitiously, into a napkin. But it is sheer masochism to down, for the sake of manners, something really spoiled, once you have got a goodly mouthful. Anyone with experience in those foreign countries where such things are common knows it is better to seem unmannerly than to brave ptomaine or worse. Certainly, a partly chewed mouthful of food looks unappetizing to one's dinner partner if it has been necessary for you to deposit it from your fork on the side of the plate. It should be screened, if possible, with some celery leaves or, perhaps, a bit of bread. And, in taking it out of your mouth, try not to look as if anything were the matter. After all, if you were eating stewed or canned cherries, you would place the pits in the spoon with which you were eating, then place them on the side of your plate without anyone thinking the procedure disgusting.

Coughing at the Table

Ordinary coughing at table is done behind the hand, without excuse, but a coughing fit, brought on by something being caught in the windpipe, indicates that you must leave the table immediately without excuse (you can't talk, anyhow). If necessary, your partner at table offers help in the next room a pat on the back or a glass of water. If there is a servant present he or she attends to this unless the hostess indicates to some member of the family or to a nearby guest that help might be better from that source.

Blowing One’s Nose at the Table

If the nose must be blown at table, it is done as quietly as possible, without excuse to draw attention to the fact.

“Foreign Matter” in Foods

Foreign bodies accidentally taken into the mouth with food gravel, stones, bird shot are removed with thumb and forefinger, as are fish bones and other tiny bones. If a gnat gets into a beverage or some other unappetizing creature turns up in or on a diner's food, he fishes it out, unobserved (so others won't see it and be upset), and then either proceeds or leaves the drink or dish untouched, depending on the degree of odiousness of the intruder. A gnat or a tiny inchworm on lettuce shouldn't bother anyone, but most fastidious people draw the line at a fly or worse. If the hostess notices an untouched dish, she may say, "Do let me serve you a fresh portion," and she has the dish or drink removed without remarking clinically as to the need for the move. Or if a servant notices, she asks if the guest would like a fresh serving. In a restaurant, if host or hostess does not notice (and both should be alert for this sort of thing) that something is amiss, the guest may tactfully murmur to the waiter that the dish or drink needs changing preferably when host or hostess's attention is directed else-where.

When You Need Silverware

Your own wet spoon should never be placed in a sugar bowl, nor your butter knife in the jam or butter dish. If the serving utensils have been forgotten, pause long enough for the hostess to notice what's happened.

Tasting Another's Food

Sometimes a couple dining in a restaurant wish to taste each other's food. This is informal but permissible, though only if a fresh fork or spoon is used, with the possessor of the dish then handing the "taste" implement, handle first, to the other person. The other must not reach across the table and eat from a companion's plate, no matter how many years they have been married. If one of the two has had included some item say French fried potatoes in his order and doesn't wish them, he asks the waiter to serve them to the other, if desired he doesn't take them on his plate, then re-serve them.

Using Bread as a “Pusher”

A bit of bread, if available, is used to push food onto a fork never use the fingers. At formal dinners when bread is not served one may always switch to the Continental style, if one is adept, and chase the peas onto the back of the fork held in the left hand, pressing them down before conveying the fork, upside down, to the mouth. Or, holding the fork in the right or (French and Italian fashion) left hand, tines up, on plate, one may guide difficult food onto it with the side of the knife.

Reaching at Table

Reaching at table is now preferred to asking neighbors to pass things one can well take up himself, but one should not have to rise out of his seat.

From the original Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette


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