More Crescent Side Plate Etiquette

 A “steel bladed bird knife and bird fork” paired with a typical 19th Century “game plate” and a crescent shaped “bone plate.” –  From What Have We Here? The Etiquette and Essentials of Lives Once Lived, from the Georgian Era through the Gilded Age and Beyond...

The “game course” was once a staple of fine dining and expensive sets of “game plates” were purchased by fastidious hosts and hostesses, to serve the game on to each of their dinner guests. The game sets featured a usual dozen plates, each with a different motif. 

In Gilded Age dining, after the roast course, the game course was next in order (if it was included, as it generally was in an elaborate dinner). Celery was the appropriate accompaniment of the game course, as it was eaten with the fingers. Salads as accompaniments were not recommended. The steel fork tines and knife blades were known to taint the flavor of salads and their dressings.

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

 

Gilded Age Luncheon Table Etiquette

In the gilded age of 1892, no tablecloth of color for luncheon would do. – “First sugar-coat the luncheon pill by daintily setting forth the table. Do not make the mistake of thinking that anything will do for this meal, and do not eat over a colored cloth that, under any and all conditions is an utterly detestable invention. Let the table, therefore, be graced by a fair linen cloth, tenderly coaxed into a satin shimmer by the laundress; and when it is taken off, be sure and fold it just as she did, in order to preserve its freshness.” 

A Table so Daintily Prepared as to Tempt the Appetite

“LUNCHEON is my housekeeping bugbear! Breakfast and dinner are easy enough, but luncheon is a crazy-quilt kind of a meal, ‘a thing of shreds and patches.’” Thus wailed a young house keeper recently; and it is often so, although there is really no excuse for such a state of affairs. Luncheon, coming at midday, should be toothsome and dainty as possible to tempt the appetite, which at that hour, in warm weather, at all events, is not inclined to be robust, so it often takes offense at a trifle and departs bodily. “But we must use the odds and ends and left-overs some way,” says Madam Economy, with a pucker on her forehead.

“You are right, my dear madam; but let your genius so enwrap these made-over things that the victims shall never discover their identity. Then say grace with unction, fervor, and a quiet conscience, and you will see the victims fall to with a will, and devour the bits that, unadorned, are not, like beauty, adorned the most. When, if you had set them on cold, or Laodicean in spirit and temperature, twenty minutes later they might have been gracing the garbage barrel.

First sugar-coat the luncheon pill by daintily setting forth the table. Do not make the mistake of thinking that anything will do for this meal, and do not eat over a colored cloth that, under any and all conditions is an utterly detestable invention. Let the table, therefore, be graced by a fair linen cloth, tenderly coaxed into a satin shimmer by the laundress; and when it is taken off, be sure and fold it just as she did, in order to preserve its freshness.

The table must be padded first, of course, and if one can not afford the cotton felting that comes for this purpose, use a thin quilt, or a well-washed blanket, but let it soften the asperities of the wood, whatever it is. Or, where one has a highly polished table, and plenty of drawn-work squares, put one of these in the center of the table, and small ones under each plate, thus partially exposing the table top.

Put on the pretty dishes next, and put them on artistically. The maid, if her soul is dead within her to a sense of artistic arrangement— and it probably is—will, if intrusted with this duty, indulge in a species of curved pitch on the dishes, that might answer admirably for baseball, but most illy for the desired effect of deluding the victims aforesaid. Always, if possible, add a flower or two in a pretty vase, somewhere on the table, then straighten things up, and see that everything, including your own countenance, shines, before the victims come in.– Good Housekeeping Magazine, 1892

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

Gilded Age Etiquette for Family Dining

“Serviette Complete” — Popular publications like Godey's Lady's Book often included tips on etiquette and entertaining, including instructions like these on elaborate napkin folding. From "Dinner Serviettes," Godey's Lady's Book (Philadelphia) 88, no. 525 (March 1874), Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries.

Finger bowls are not a general institution, and they seem to be quite as needful as the napkin, for the fingers are also liable to become a little soiled in eating. They can be had quite cheaply, and should be half filled with water and placed upon the side table, or butler's tray, with the dessert, bread and cheese, etc. They are passed to each person when the dessert is placed upon the table. A leaf or two of sweet verbena, an orange flower, or a small slice of lemon, is usually put into each bowl, to rub upon the fingers. The slice of lemon is most commonly used. The finger tips are slightly dipped into the bowl, the lemon juice is squeezed upon them, and then they are dried softly upon the napkin. At dinner parties and luncheons, they are indispensable.

In many families there is no waitress, then everything should be placed upon the table before the family are called, and the dessert can be put on a little table at your right. Always make your eldest daughter set the table, and do it neatly. Lay the cloth straight, and put the salt cellar and the butter plate, with the tumbler or cup, at the right hand of each person. Have crocheted macramé twine mats to keep the table cloth from being soiled, and at the head and foot of the table place a napkin cornerwise to the centre, or straight as one prefers. This will prove a great saving of table cloths, and the napkins can be retrieved often. 

Then tell her to look carefully over the table to see that not one thing is omitted. Look at your place, and see that there are enough cups and saucers placed neatly at the left hand, for breakfast or tea, and that the sugar bowl is well filled, and the cream and milk pitcher are prepared for use. Have a stand of metal at the right hand, to hold the coffee or tea pots, and the water pot, and a spoon cup should be placed beside the sugar bowl, with the tea spoons and sugar spoon in it. Also see that the carving knife, fork and steel are laid beyond the plates at your husband's seat. And have these plates well heated, and all the food as hot as possible. It is a decided annoyance to have this child, or that one, asked to leave the table to procure needed appliances, that ought to have been upon it.— From “Hints Upon Etiquette and Good Manners,” In Ladies Home Journal, by Mrs. S.O. Johnston, 1886

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

When a Spoon Became Superfluous

Not a superfluous spoon in site… “The teaspoon is restricted to the teacup and that alone.” 1893 – “One of the biggest mistakes I am used to seeing in Competition Tablescaping or Table Setting, is the error of a superfluous spoon at the place settings. If there is not a soup course or anything else that etiquette requires a spoon for, the spoon is an extra appendage unnecessary at the settings and the table loses much needed points.” – Maura J. Graber, Etiquipedia© Site Editor and director of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette

The teaspoon has been banished from the table of the ultra elegant. Its use has long been forbidden to assist in eating any sort of kernel and soft vegetables, but it survived for a time as an aid to consuming what our grandmothers called “sauce,” and for certain desserts of a custard nature or ices and ice cream. 

Now, its employment is considered, as the fashionable woman told her child, “worse than wicked vulgar” in any such service, and so, like Fatima in the ‘Arabian Nights’ eating her grains of rice, we pick at all those yielding, gelatinous, and elusive substances, with a little fork. The teaspoon is restricted to the teacup and that alone.–New York Times, 1893

 

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