Etiquette for Boarding House Tables

Women do not require napkins as frequently as men, particularly where the men have moustaches. But in any event the napkins should be examined with care and none should be permitted to be brought to the table that is in any way soiled, even if it be used but once.

Cleanliness, of course, should be the first consideration in regard to the table. If you are charging your boarder — and we are assuming that the establishment is for the average wage-worker — from $6 to $8 a week, you cannot give them such choice of food as they would have at a first-class hotel. There may or may not be soup for dinner. There is sure to be some kind of meat, and a few vegetables, as a mainstay, and dessert, with tea and coffee on which to finish. No matter how well these things are cooked, if they are not well served, they will not be enjoyed by the ordinary man and woman of refinement. 

The table cloth should always be clean, as should the napkins which are served to each guest. Of course, it is not required that each guest should have a clean napkin for every meal as at a hotel; here each should have an individual napkin ring, and this article may serve for one or two days, depending altogether upon the person. Women do not require napkins as frequently as men, particularly where the men have moustaches. But in any event the napkins should be examined with care and none should be permitted to be brought to the table that is in any way soiled, even if it be used but once.

One of the most successful boarding-house keepers, in a small way, that we have met, is very careful about her table linen, In addition to this, she has always in the center of the main table, and on some of the smaller ones, a bouquet of flowers. These flowers are not artificial, nor are they the best that can be purchased at the florist's. As a rule, they are good, homely garden flowers, bright and pleasant to the eye. They not only decorate the table, but they also have an influence upon the boarders, a refining influence that tends to give the table a homelike appearance, and to recall the past when a mother presided at the board. — From Helpful Talks with Girls, 1910

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

Etiquette of the Napkin is Important

Ideally speaking, a napkin is used but once between trips never used to the laundry and hence napkin rings would be unnecessary. But practically a great many persons cannot afford to do this and so the napkin ring has a perfectly legitimate place on the dining table and its use is infinitely preferable to the practice of folding the napkins in fantastic shapes as a means of identification. 

“If it is not seemly, do it not.” —Marcus Aurelius

Some people seem to think that they have learned all there is to know about managing the napkin when they have learned not to tuck it in the collar or otherwise use it as a sort of chest protector while eating.

But there is much more to the gentle art of using the napkin than that. Several hundred years ago, you know, it was the correct and altogether elegant thing to use the edge of the tablecloth for a napkin. At another period persons who knew what to do at the right time carried the napkin over the right arm when eating and, it is said, the custom among waiters of carrying a towel over the right arm dates from that time. 

At still another time in luxurious households a fresh napkin was served with each course and as the diners finished the course they let the used napkins slip to the floor so that at the end of a banquet a pile of damask lay on the floor at each place— the more bountiful the banquet the higher the pile of linen.

Now we find one napkin, simply folded at the right of our place of lying on the plate, as we sit down to dinner. We unfold it as deftly as possible and place it across our lap— “across the left knee” the strict authorities used to say. As need may require we wipe our fingers on the napkin beneath the table and occasionally raise it to our lips. 

When finger bowls are passed the fingers are dipped in the bowl, first one hand and then the other, and then wiped on the napkin. Never under any circumstances dip the napkin in the finger bowl. If we wish to wipe the lips with the water we should merely moisten the fingers, touch the lips, and then wipe the lips and fingers.

Ideally speaking, a napkin is used but once between trips never used to the laundry and hence napkin rings would be unnecessary. But practically a great many persons cannot afford to do this and so the napkin ring has a perfectly legitimate place on the dining table and its use is infinitely preferable to the practice of folding the napkins in fantastic shapes as a means of identification.

At a hotel or restaurant the napkin should never be folded after a meal but left at the right side of the place. When we take but a single meal at another person’s home we should do the same thing, but when taking more than one meal we should watch and see what others do. If they fold their napkins it would be rude for us not to do the same. When a napkin is folded do it unostentatiously as possible, never laying it out on the table and smoothing it into its original folds.

The question is sometimes asked whether or not it is in good form to serve paper napkins with refreshments at a social gathering. One would not find them at the homes of persons of means who could perfectly well afford to have damask napkins. However, since they are perfectly clean, inconspicious and conveniently answer the purpose for which napkins were invented, it would be absurd to say they were not in good form. 

Paper napkins would be in far better form at a an entertainment where the use of damask napkins would mean an extravagance on the part of the hostess. Where paper napkins are used for a supper it is best to have those that are perfectly white. — Morning Union, 1917

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

Using Napkins and Napkin Rings

It seems that Miss Manners “has survived into a world where people believe that napkin rings are useless but decorative items to be put out on the company table. Of course there are always fresh napkins out for company, which is why napkin rings were strictly an informal, family device that would be considered ludicrous at a dinner party.” — 

A little over 100 years earlier from when this article was written, a gilded age design for a combination napkin ring, menu holder and bud vase was patented.

— Photo source, Etiquipedia library

The Finer Points of Correct Manners 

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Qualms were a sensation unknown to Miss Manners. If you invariably do everything right, there is never any occasion for that sudden "whoops" that starts a downhill slide of misgivings.

So it was rather a shock for Miss Manners to experience a slight semblance of this feeling in regard to, of all things, a dinner-table practice. Miss Manners' dinner table is not, as you can imagine, lax. But twice in a week, different people had expressed shock upon discovering that at the Miss Manners family dinner table, napkin rings are used in the traditional way. That is to say, each member of the family has a different napkin ring (in this case, the designs are different, but it is also customary to have similar rings with identifying names or initials), replaces it on the napkin after a meal, and thus is able to receive the same napkin for use at the next meal.

"Do you mean to say," each of her interlocutors had asked with widened eyes and mouths, "that you don't have fresh napkins at every meal?"

Well, yes, that is what Miss Manners had meant, if not what she had necessarily meant to blab. Just as ordinary households have the sheets and towels changed once a week (not twice a day, as fastidious tycoons with full-time laundresses are said to demand, since tycoons require afternoon naps on fresh sheets to soften the stress of all that money), ordinary households have the napkins changed every few days, barring accidents or finger-food orgies.

Or so Miss Manners had thought. It was the expressions of surprise that prompted her qualms. Are other people doing a load of napkins every day, one for each meal that each member of the family takes at home?

Since Miss Manners agrees that in an ideal world there would be no recycling of used napkins, ought she to be spending her time attending to the home question rather than the world's etiquette problems?

Not really. The world of etiquette is not unfamiliar with compromise and trade-offs, and Miss Manners can live with recycled napkins in order to have time for doing other things, and in order not to create a water shortage.

It was only later that Miss Manners discovered the real meaning of those questions.

It seems that she has survived into a world where people believe that napkin rings are useless but decorative items to be put out on the company table.

Of course there are always fresh napkins out for company, which is why napkin rings were strictly an informal, family device that would be considered ludicrous at a dinner party.

But it seems that there are also now fresh napkins out for each family meal - not because household laundry has increased, but because "napkin" has come to mean something made out of paper. Cloth napkins are thought to be too much trouble in a busy modern household.

Miss Manners urges a revival of the daily use of cloth napkins, along with the labor-saving napkin rings. Contrary to anti-etiquette propaganda, various prematurely abandoned tableware devices were not invented in order to put sensible people to unnecessary expense and trouble. On the contrary.

For example, finger bowls have survived only where they are least needed - at formal dinners, where there is little likelihood of finger food being served.

The effete versions on doilies, with floating rose petal, to be put to one side untouched by the diner, disguise the fact that finger bowls properly serve the purpose of a moist towelette in a package.

Salad knives have pretty much passed out of use (but not at Miss Manners' table), but it continues to be impossible to cut a wedge of lettuce or tomato with the side of a fork.

In regard to napkin-ring usage, Miss Manners has been asked whether it isn't disgusting to reuse a napkin. Not if you also use another quaint old tradition that has also fallen into disuse. Table manners.— By Judith Martin, Miss Manners, 1989

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

Basic Edwardian Social Graces

At the “home dinner,” the napkin, if not too soiled, should be placed in the ring to be used again at breakfast or luncheon. —  A Webster Company silver catalog page of all the napkin rings they offer.

1. A gentleman always rises from his chair when a lady enters or leaves the room. 
2. On a man's visiting card, only titles that indicate a rank or profession for life, should be used. 
3. At a ball, one may not refuse a certain dance to one gentleman and then dance it with another. 
4. A letter to a married woman is directed with her husband’s name or initials and her own as, Mrs. Thomas R. Gibbs or Mrs. T. R. Gibbs. 
5. To be polite to one we dislike is not necessarily being insincere. Politeness is not so much a manifestation toward others, as an indication of what we are ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to be well bred. 
6. On formal occasions, no napkin rings appear on the table and the napkin is used but the once. 
7. At the “home dinner,” the napkin, if not too soiled, should be placed in the ring to be used again at breakfast or luncheon. — Auburn Journal, 1904

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

Gilded Age Etiquette of the Napkin

A silver plated napkin ring, festooned with cherries and commemorative monograms of dates and initials. — “Napkin rings should be abandoned, or relegated to the nursery tea table.”

• A napkin should never be put on the table a second time until it has been rewashed, therefore napkin rings should be abandoned, or relegated to the nursery tea table. 
• At a fashionable meal, the guest does not fold his napkin. 
• At a social tea or breakfast, he may do so if the hostess set the example, but there is no absolute law governing that branch of the subject. 
• Never fasten your napkin around your neck; lay it across your knee, convenient to the hand and lift one corner only to wipe the mouth. 
• Men who wear a mustache are allowed to “saw” the mouth with the napkin, as if it were a bearing rein, but for ladies would look too masculine. 
• Nothing is more unpleasant than a damp napkin. 
• Never allow a napkin to be placed on your table until it has been well aired. - From Mrs. John Sherwood’s, “Manners and Usages,” 1887

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

Domestic Notes on Table Etiquette

 An antique, King’s pattern, corn stripper or kernel scraper. Victorians loved green corn, and by the late 1800’s and early 1900’s had produced numerous patented items, like the one above, for making the eating of green corn from the cob a more graceful process.

A writer in Harper's Bazaar takes up her pen to put us all to rights on our behavior at the table. We give a part of her lecture as follows: A cream-cake, and anything of similar nature, should be eaten with knife and fork, never bitten. Asparagus may be taken from the finger and thumb. Peas and beans, we all know, require the fork only. Potatoes, if mashed, should be mashed with the fork. Green corn should be eaten from the cob, but it must be held with a single hand. Celery, cresses, radishes, and all that sort of thing, are, of course, to be eaten from the fingers; the salt should be laid upon one's plate, not upon the cloth. 

Fish is to be eaten with the fork, without the assistance of the knife; a bit of bread in the left hand sometimes helps one to master a refractory morsel. Berries, of course, are to be eaten with a spoon. It is not proper to drink with a spoon in the cup; nor should one, by the way, ever quite drain the cup or glass. Spoons are sometimes used with puddings, but forks are the better style. A spoon should never be turned over in the mouth. 

Ladies have frequently an affected way of holding the knife half way down its length, as if it were too big for their little hands, but this is as awkward a way as it is weak. The knife should be grasped freely by the handle only, the forefinger being the only one to touch the blade, and that only along the back of the blade at its root, and no further down. In sending one's plate to be helped a second time, one should retain one's knife and fork, for the convenience of waiter and carver. At the conclusion of a course, where they have been used, knife and fork should be laid side by side on the plate, never crossed; the old custom of crossing them was in obedience to an ancient religious formula. 

The servant should offer everything at the left of the guest, that the guest may be at liberty to use the right hand. If one has been given a napkin-ring, it is necessary to fold one's napkin and use the ring; otherwise the napkin should be left unfolded. One's teeth are not to be picked at the table; but if it is impossible to hinder it, it should be done behind the napkin. One may pick a bone at the table, but, as with corn, only one hand is allowed to touch it; yet one can usually get enough from it with knife and fork, which is certainly the more elegant way of doing; to take her teeth to it gives a lady the look of caring a little too much for the pleasures of the table; one is, however, on no account to suck one's fingers after it. 

Wherever there is any doubt as to the beat way to do a thing, it is wise to follow that which is the most rational, and that will almost invariably be found to be the proper etiquette. There is a reason for everything in polite usage; thus the reason why one does not blow a thing to cool it, is not only that it is an inelegant and vulgar action intrinsically, but because it may be offensive to others– cannot help being so indeed; and it, moreover, implies haste, which, whether resulting from greediness or from a desire to get away, is equally rude and objectionable. Everything else may be as easily traced to its origin in the fit and becoming. 

If to conclude, one seats one’s self properly at the table, and takes reason into account, one will do tolerably well. One must not pull one's chair too closely to the table, for the natural result of that is the inability to use one's knife and fork without inconveniencing one's neighbors; the elbows are to be held well in and close to one's side, which cannot be done if the chair is too near the board. One must not lie or lean along the table, nor rest one's arms upon it. – Pacific Rural Press, 1879

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

Napkin or Serviette Etiquette

An origami, flower-folded napkin, rests in the plate for the first course of an informal, luncheon table. More formal or simple, napkin folds are recommended for more formal settings.

Modern Day Napkin Etiquette

Paper napkins can be very decorative, but they can also can be flimsy. If you choose to use, or must use paper napkins, it is okay to use more than one. 

Paper napkins are generally recommended only for the most casual of dining, or for large parties when crudités and other types of small finger foods are being served.

In a pinch, a paper towel can be used as a napkin for a small child. 

Tablecloths are no longer napkins. They were at one time in history, but that was very long ago.

Your wrists and the backs of your hands are not napkins.

Napkins are never a part of your clothing, so never use your shirt sleeve or shirt tail to wipe your mouth. 

Napkin rings are placed to the left of your fork(s), after you have first removed your napkin from a ring. 

Place your napkin in your lap when you first are seated at the table. It should be folded in half and lays across your lap with its fold closest to you and the open ends pointing away from you.

Once you are old enough, and/or able to eat on your own, napkins should never be dipped in a water glass to then wipe your face.

A napkin stays on your lap the entire time you are seated to eat.  If you have to leave the table for a moment and others are still eating, your napkin goes on your seat until your return. 

Napkins do not go back on to the table until everyone at the table is finished eating. Placing, or crumpling and tossing, your napkin upon the table while others are still enjoying their meals, is tantamount to throwing down the gauntlet and challenging the others in your party to finish their meals as rapidly as you.

Paper napkins can be crumpled and put on your plate when you are done, if the plate will be thrown away, as well.  Cloth napkins go beside your plate, to the left.  

Unless you are a member of a family with whom you are dining, do not put your napkin back into a napkin ring after dining, unless you have been advised to do so by your host or hostess. Napkins to be reused by the same family members over the course of several meals, are usually identified by the monogram or design on each family member's ring.

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