A 1916 Lesson in Table Manners

Left to Right : Correct way to hold the soup spoon, How to hold the knife and fork for cutting food, Position of fork when carrying food to the mouth, Holding the cup — the spoon in the proper place

A Requested Lesson in Table Manners

Every newspaper editor often finds this kind of a query in the mail; 

Dear Editor—My early training in etiquette was much neglected. Now I have made a fortune, travel considerably and am often embarrassed by my ignorance about table manners. Will you aid me? — Signed “WORRIED”

 Table manners are, of course, for the home table all of the year around, but it is at the holiday season when dinner engagements are most numerous, that a great many persons require a little extra preparedness.

The experienced hostess will see that forks and spoons are placed in the order in which they are to be used. If the dinner is of many courses, the appropriate silver is laid with each course. Soup should be dipped away, never toward the individual. If clear soup is served in cups, a small round bowled spoon is used, or the boullllon may be sipped from the cup. 

The knife should never be held in the left hand, but the fork may be transferred to the right hand. The English way of keeping the fork in the left hand is the present fashion among very fastidious society folk. At the end of the course the knife and fork should be placed side by side with the tips in the middle of the plate and the handles resting on its edge. — By Biddy Bye, 1916

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

Etiquette for Soup

For Continental or American Dining, the spoon is dipped away from those dining, then brought to mouth level, and the soup sipped from the side of the spoon bowls. — “Hold your spoon on, or in, your hand, not under it. Do not grasp spoon or knife or fork as if you feared they might escape from you. Hold your spoon and fork in eating something, as you ought to hold your pen in writing. Do not put the spoon into your mouth, but drink from the side near the point.”

In how to serve and eat a dinner, a writer in the “Congregationalist” says of the first course at dinner; Never refuse soup, and never ask for a second helping. “He was such a fellow, now, as would ask for more soup at dinner,” was the condensed criticism passed upon some one by a famous English exquisite; and really it is more comprehensive than would appear on the surface, since one person at the table may keep all others waiting if he asked for a second dish of soup. 

If you wish for more salt, and have an individual cellar and no spoon, do not take the salt in your thumb and fingers; and do not after taking it on the end of your knife, perform upon the knife with your fork or spoon a tattoo. Shake the salt from your knife silently at all times; but do not take the trouble to shake it all over your plate of soup, as if it were solid, when one stir-about is all sufficient to season it to its remotest corner. At all times be sure to keep your fork out of your salt-cellar. 

Never crumble bread into your soup, and do not butter the bread you eat with it. Do not perform a circle all round the plate at every spoonful. Dip from the middle of the plate, and do not tip it to get the last drop. Be careful not to make the least sound with your lips in eating soup, or anything else; the clatter of knives and forks and dishes, and the sound of scraping, are not to be tolerated among refined people. 

Hold your spoon on, or in, your hand, not under it. Do not grasp spoon or knife or fork as if you feared they might escape from you. Hold your spoon and fork in eating something, as you ought to hold your pen in writing. Do not put the spoon into your mouth, but drink from the side near the point. — The Morning Union, 1888

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