Watermelon Etiquette

Perhaps Emily would have pointed out that there are melon forks (fork/knife combinations) and melon spoons (spoon/fork combinations) which were designed specifically for dealing with the seeds of these seasonal delicacies. – Pictured above are antique melon spoons by The Holmes & Edwards Silver Co.

 

A PROBLEM THAT SUMMER BRINGS US

Now that the watermelon season is here again, one is reminded that we never learned Mrs. Emily Post’s rules of watermelon etiquette. Should we use a spoon, fork, or knife and fork? Some prefer to eat over the kitchen sink, a handy receptacle for all seeds; probably not correct etiquette? And then again, what is the right procedure for gathering up the elusive seeds which manage to slip out and around on the linoleum? After all, the handiest way is to take it on a picnic.—From Ceres Courier, 1933

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

Table Etiquette Topics

(Pictured above, a newly weaned piglet, or "shoat")
The coarse husband who causes a watermelon rind to meet behind his ears every time he makes a pass at it, has induced many a trustful wife to view the table manners of the shoat with increasing admiration. 

The watermelon is the cause of more bum table etiquette than the Irish potato served with the jacket on, which has to be impaled at the waist line and disrobed before the eyes of a polite company. 

We don’t know which is worse—the man who inhales a vertical section of watermelon with a gulping intake, like the suction of a steam pump, or the guest who runs a nervous finger over his rear gums in order to round up an overflow of green corn. 

The coarse husband who causes a watermelon rind to meet behind his ears every time he makes a pass at it, has induced many a trustful wife to view the table manners of the shoat with increasing admiration. 

A prominent Eastern society journal conveys the discouraging information that the mold of fashion in New York and Newport, is about to discard the time honored practices of swabbing a piece of rye bread in the gravy, and for wiping one’s fingers on the nearest doily. The decrees of fashion become more cruel and arbitrary every year. — Sacramento Union, 1911

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