Gilded Age Finger Foods

Saratoga Chips or ‘chipped potatoes’ were a favorite dish in the gilded age. Shown above is a gilded and sterling Saratoga Chip server” in the Hope” pattern by Mount Vernon Silver, circa 1899“Chipped potatoes are generally eaten with the fingers by epicures. There must be no particle of fat adhering to the chipped potatoes and they must be crisp.” —Delineator, 1903

Finger Food Etiquette is Particular 

There are a number of things that the most- fastidious and well-behaved persons now eat at the dinner table without the aid of either knife, fork or spoon. The following are a few examples:

• Olives, to which a fork should never be applied. whether hot or cold, when served whole, as it should be. 
• Lettuce, which should be dipped in the dressing or a little salt. 
• Celery, which may properly be placed on the tablecloth beside the plate. 
• Strawberries, when served with the stems on, as they usually are. 
• Bread, toast, tarts, small cakes, etc… 
• Fruits of all kinds, except preserves and melons, which are eaten with a spoon. 
• Cheese, which is almost invariably eaten with the fingers by the most particular. 
• Either the leg or small pieces of a bird. 
• Ladies at most of the fashionable lunches pick small pieces of chicken without using knife and fork.
• Chipped potatoes are generally eaten with the fingers by epicures. There must be no particle of fat adhering to the chipped potatoes and they must be crisp.—The Delineator, 1903

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

Etiquette: Dinner Do’s and Don’ts

Yum… Bonbons! - The only articles of food that should be touched with the fingers are bread, biscuits, olives, asparagus, celery, bonbons and small whole fruit. 

Dinner Etiquette

• The only articles of food that should be touched with the fingers are bread, biscuits, olives, asparagus, celery, bonbons and small whole fruit. 
• Don’t talk about the food provided. It is bad form. 
• Never cut your bread with a knife. Break it with your fingers. 
• Curry is eaten with a spoon and a fork, vegetable entrees with a fork only. 
• It is a safe rule never to use a knife or spoon if a fork will do. 
• When meat or poultry is placed before you wait for vegetables, sauces, etc…, before beginning. 
• With sweets or anything of that that is complete in itself, begin at once.– Morning Tribune, 1905

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

12 Steps for Correct Dinner Tables

        Of course, every hostess knows now that the tray is no longer used in serving and that the servant holds only a folded napkin to take its place. She knows also that only one plate must be brought to the table or taken away from it at a time.

The Young Housekeeper says that she finds there is often confusion in the minds of her confreres about the proper way to set a table. Once, she says, two sisters quarreled as to whether the edges or the backs of the knives should be turned toward the plates and did not speak to each other during an entire dinner-party, to the great embarrassment of the guests. For these reasons she gives here the rules for setting the table: 

1. Put the knives to the right of the plate with their edges turned toward it; with these go the spoons, beginning with the soup spoon and ending with the tiny coffee spoon, if coffee is served at the table. 
2. The forks are placed at the left of the plate with their prongs turned upward. 
3. The glasses are placed near the points of the knives, while the napkins go to the left of the plates. 
4. Usually at dinner a piece of bread is folded within the napkin. 
5. At a dinner or luncheon no guest is ever left without a plate before him. As the serving man or woman removes the plate of a course with one hand with the other he places another plate before the diner. 
6. Meats are now usually served from a side table and are passed by the servant, as are the vegetables. 
7. The only things which are placed upon the table aside from the candles, flowers and tiny other decorations there may be, are such things as olives, bon-bons, nuts, etc... 
8. In serving dessert a plate is placed before the guest on which is a finger-bowl resting on a doily. The doily and finger-bowl are removed by the guest and placed before him and the dessert is then brought on in individual dishes or glasses which are set upon the plate. 
9. Olives are always taken with the fingers and not with a spoon, so are candies and lump sugar and frequently salted nuts. In fact, the fingers are used whenever it is possible in order to do away with a multiplicity of implements. 
10. A competent man or maid can serve eight guests, but that is about all that can be properly attended to by one person. 
11. Of course, every hostess knows now that the tray is no longer used in serving and that the servant holds only a folded napkin to take its place. She knows also that only one plate must be brought to the table or taken away from it at a time. 
12. Coffee is usually served after dinner in the drawing-room, the hostess pouring it from a pot into the little cups,  a servant passing sugar — and cream for the vandals— with it. 

Those rules are so simple that there is probably no one left in the country who does not know them, but lest there should be even one person not informed on these subjects she writes them down here.— Stockton Independent, 1915 

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

Table Etiquette and "Ruth Ashmore"

Lucky young girls were raised by parents, and governesses, who could afford “youth-sized” flatware for which to practice good table manners. This size was also used for dining at tea-time. Those who were not as lucky, were thrilled to read popular etiquette columns by the likes of numerous “agony aunts,”  writing under popular pen-names in the 1890’s.

Table Etiquette for the “eldest daughter” from the 1892 Ladies Home Journal

As a people, we Americans have been laughed at for eating too fast, and we are credited as being a nation of dyspeptics, writes Ruth Ashmore in her interesting department, "Side Talks with Girls," in the Ladies Home Journal. Now, of course, this is generalizing, but you, the eldest daughter, have it in your power to make the boar at the dinner or tea-table one of real delight, it is an easy matter, one you will find, to start some pleasant conversation to get your father and brother interested in the talk of the day, so that you will eat your food more slowly, and you will achieve what the Frenchmen consider the great art—you will dine, not merely feed yourself.

But there are a few little questions about table etiquette of the table that some girl wants to know, and these I am going to tell her. She must hold her knife by its handle, and never let her fingers reach up to its blade. Whenever it is possible, a fork must be used in place of a spoon, and that same spoon, by the by, must never be left in a coffee or tea cup, but laid to rest politely and securely in the saucer.

Antique sterling, individual cheese fork 

Glasses with handles are held by them. A goblet should be caught by the stem, the fingers not entwining the bowl part. Don't butter a large piece of bread and take bites from it; instead, break your bread in small pieces, one at a time. Butter it, that is, if you are eating butter, and convey it to your mouth by your fingers.

Olives, celery, radishes, strawberries with stems, and asparagus are all eaten from the fingers. The old method of eating cheese with a knife has been given up, with a fork being used in its place. The use of many small dishes for vegetables is not in good taste: indeed, many vegetables should not be served at one time.—From The Ladies Home Journal, as posted in the Sacramento Daily Union, 1892

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