A New Flatware Debuted in 1929

In 1929, House Beautiful Magazine interviewed Eliel Saarinen, a well-known Finnish architect who immigrated to the U.S., on the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibit he had participated in.

“Table knives,” says Eliel Saarinen, the Detroit architect who showed a dining-room at the Metropolitan Museum exhibit, have been constructed on the wrong principle. “The blades have been much longer than necessary, while the handles have been much too short, so that the user, when cutting, has always been obliged to brace his finger well down on the blade, which has obvious disadvantages.” 

The science of ergonomic design really only started in earnest during WWII, but just a little over a decade earlier Eliel Saarinen came up with an ergonomically designed knife and a matching fork when he created this line of flatware.— Public domain image of architect Eliel Saarinen, courtesy of Wikipedia

Mr. Saarinen has designed some new knives which are quite as attractive as they are practical, and one wonders why we have so long clung to the old irrational and conventional kind. This search for the logical and simple is leading us away from some of our outdated habits.” — House Beautiful, May 1929

More on the briefly popular Grille Flatware

This settings above feature the style flatware known as, “Grille”, “Viande” and “Vogue.” The knife is about 2/3 handle and 1/3 blade, as opposed to the normal 1/2 handle with 1/2 blade. The handle of the fork is nearly 3/4 of the fork with the bowl and tines 1/4. This “modern” style of flatware was introduced first to the public in 1927. 

According to a 2003 article by William P. Hood of Magazine Antiques, “The story begins in 1927 or 1928, when nine architects were invited by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to design thirteen room settings for The Architect and the Industrial Arts, its eleventh exhibition of contemporary American design. The organizers requested that all furnishings and accessories for a room be included, and they stipulated that no object to be displayed could already be in production.

The new flatware designed was sleek with patterns reminiscent of the skyscrapers dotting the skylines of modern cities. Several different American flatware companies produced the knives, forks and spoons. “The dinner knife executed by International Silver, for example, was 9 1/4 inches long, with its handle measuring about 6 inches. The handle of its dinner fork was about average (approximately 5 inches), but the functional end was shorter than usual, to match the abbreviated knife blade. The idea for the new style of table knife came from the perception that it is uncomfortable for the extended index finger to press against the narrow back (or ‘top’) of the blade when one cuts with a conventional knife.”

By 1930, the new style of flatware was available to the public, but its popularity only lasted about 25 to 30 years. The flatware shown in the setting above is the 1940 “Treasure” pattern, by Wm. Rogers. The dishes are early 1940’s “Desert Rose” Franciscan ware. — Maura J. Graber, 2023

Contributor, and Site Editor, Maura J. Graber has been teaching etiquette to children, teens and adults, and training new etiquette instructors, since 1990, as founder and director of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette. A writer, Graber has been featured in countless newspapers, magazines and television shows, and was an on-air contributor and correspondent for PBS in Southern California for 15 years. She is working on her 4th book on etiquette and antiques throughout history and was a historical etiquette consultant for Julian Fellowes’ newest period drama, The Gilded Age. Her popular books on antique flatware and etiquette history are available on Amazon

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Luncheon Menu Etiquette

Once fruit and fruit cocktail could be purchased in cans, fruit cocktail was a popular starter at meals and could be served regardless of the season. Normally served in a small soup-type cup, berry bowl, or a champagne saucer, this mid-century modern place setting features grille-sized, silver plated flatware and Desert Rose plates, with the fruit cocktail served in a fashionably tall martini glass. – Originally made for decades by Franciscan Pottery, then sold to Josiah Wedgwood & Sons,Ltd., the wildly popular “Desert Rose” dinnerware line was first introduced in 1941. It was created in the style of Mexican folk pottery, which was very typical of Southern California décor of the early 20th C.. Inspired by the pink, rosa rugosa flower, “Desert Rose” remains a beloved china pattern today, though production in China stopped in 2004. Let the buyer beware! The earlier made pieces have a high lead content and need to be handled, used and even washed with great care. 

Filed Under “Standard Rules of Etiquette”

Question: What is an appropriate menu for a luncheon?

Answer: At a formal luncheon never more than five courses are served and the smartest of hostesses usually content themselves with serving four in contrast to the previous generation when luncheons were almost as long as dinner.

For a five course luncheon some such menu as the following 18 served: Fruit, or soup in cups, eggs, meat and vegetables, salad, dessert.

For a four course luncheon, fruit, or soup may be served, and the eggs omitted, or sometimes, the dessert. – Imperial Valley Press, 1931

 

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

Etiquette of Serving Water

A mid-20th century place setting, with plates and flatware from the 1940’s. The plates are in the highly popular, 1941 “Desert Rose” pattern by Franciscan, and the grille-sized flatware by Wm. Rogers, is in the 1940, “Treasure” pattern.
Grille-sized flatware was designed with longer handles for the knives, dinner forks and salad forks. It enjoyed brief popularity and was also called “Vogue” or “Viande” flatware. Designers felt that the longer handles made the flatware easier to use.
The “water glass”, or “water goblet”, is properly placed above the dinner knife. Water specific glasses weren’t made for the dining table until 1851, when the Corning Glass company catalog first offered a “water glass” in their glassware line.

The customs attached to the serving of water are widely different from those of other drinks. Water is the only drink which, whether at the dining-room table or in the living room, can always be poured before it is served. As we have said in the chapter “Setting the Table,” under the most elaborate system of service, water is not poured until the guests are seated at the dining-room table. But, as a matter of widely accepted practice, the water glasses are usually filled before the guests come into the room, and refilled from a pitcher as soon as any considerable quantity has been drunk.

Water served in the living room is brought in filled tumblers on a small tray; stemmed water goblets belong only on the dining-room table. It is perfectly cor rect, of course, to leave a pitcher of water in the living room or hall, on a tray with empty glasses, but whenever a guest asks for water, except in the dining room, it may always be brought already poured in a tumbler on a small tray.— From “Vogue’s Book of Etiquette,” 1948

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