Etiquette and Dining Intimacy

“Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.” - M.F.K. Fisher – (Above) Jacqueline Kennedy smoking at dinner. – Mrs. Kennedy understood that State Dinner guests at the White House needed more of a feeling of intimacy, so she changed the tables from the traditional, long tables at which everyone sat, to round tables. She felt people could get to know those they were dining with, if each group was dining at a smaller, round table. And at those State Dinners, smoking at meals was so commonplace, the Sunset "Host and Hostess" book on entertaining cautioned that for a properly set dining table, each place setting needed an ashtray, no less than 3 cigarettes, and matches or a lighter. It wasn't until the Clinton administration that smoking was banned in the White House at the dining tables.

“I feel now that gastronomical perfection can be reached in these combinations: one person dining alone, usually upon a couch or a hill side; two people, of no matter what sex or age, dining in a good restaurant; six people, of no matter what sex or age, dining in a good home. Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat - and drink! - with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.”―from M.F.K. Fisher's, Serve It Forth

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

Etiquette and Francatelli's Legacy

"At Windsor Castle, Francatelli, and then the royal chefs who followed him during Victoria’s long reign, had at least two Yeomen of the Kitchen and 24 assistant chefs to prepare these meals, and then, of course, all kinds of servers and lackeys were involved in washing, table-setting, serving and clearing away." —M.F.K. Fisher 

"Her Majesty’s (Queen Victoria's) French? Italian? English? chef, Charles Edme Francatelli, wrote ''The Modern Cook'' in 1846, and it sold almost as well in America as in England. Few kitchens here could follow all its directions for the light Gallic dainties Francatelli introduced to counteract the basic heaviness of royal dining habits, but gradually his style of making two courses of a meal, with a predominance of sweet dishes in the second, was adapted by our housekeepers to shape the way we now eat lunch and dinner.

In the Queen's menus, there were often three soups, three fishes, a kind of savory (for instance, marrow patties with a fines-herbes sauce), four dishes and eight entrées in the first course, all served at once. In the second there were three roasts and poultry and game, three sweet desserts, two more side desserts of pastry, and 12 entremets, including vegetables, aspics and fruit tartlets.

At Windsor Castle Francatelli, and then the royal chefs who followed him during Victoria’s long reign, had at least two Yeomen of the Kitchen and 24 assistant chefs to prepare these meals, and then, of course, all kinds of servers and lackeys were involved in washing, table-setting, serving and clearing away. 

Nonetheless, American housewives as far west as Iowa and then beyond, helped by one or two immigrant servants, read ''The Modern Cook'' and its lesser imitators and gradually changed the accustomed pattern of one long hodge-podge of dishes served together, even in a plain Family Meal, to two courses, with sweets alone finally constituting the second course. This might consist of two kinds of pies or tarts, a cool pudding, a jelly and a tall layered cake, but at least these did not appear side by side with roast pigeons, asparagus soup and a haunch of venison flanked by boiled vegetables." — From Food: The Arts (Fine and Culinary) of 19th Century America
By M. F. K. Fisher