Salad Dressing Etiquette from Gorham

“Fifth: Mix very quickly with silver, china, glass or wooden utensils.” – In the Gilded Age, utensil design proliferated to its zenith. New utensils were designed for dining elegantly and in style. Forks specifically for eating salads were introduced in 1885. Sporting unusual tines and each with a unique design, they were perfect for holding on to several varying sized pieces of the salad’s components. By the 1960’s, salad forks had become so generic in size and shape, no longer were they unique, but merely looked like smaller and wider versions of the dinner forks. This fork is in the 1953, Decor pattern, by Gorham. It was one of the last beautiful and unique designs in salad forks.

Certain Rules

Certain rules for salad dressing are well to observe:

• First: Have suitable ingredients and condiments.
• Second: Mix carefully.
• Third: In regular order.
• Fourth: Serve most salads very cold.
• Fifth: Mix very quickly with silver, china, glass or wooden utensils.
• Sixth: Garnish with something that will afford a contrast and at the same time be suitable to eat.
• Seventh: In serving salads, serve rich salads for luncheon and supper. Serve light salads for dinner or for tea.
• In America we are apt to use mayonnaise dressing for everything, but in England and France, they serve French dressings with fish or fowl and most vegetables. Cauliflower and tomatoes are nice with mayonnaise dressing.
• In the dressing no flavor should predominate.
• When a salad is served, no oil should ever remain at the bottom of the bowl.

From the book, “ Ninety-Nine Salads and How to Make Them, with Rules for Dressing & Sauce,” by Gorham

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

Etiquette of a Salad Course

A consensus, if one could be reached, would indicate that for formal affairs it is preferable to serve the salad as the opening course while for simple family dinners it is easier, and therefore more desirable, to serve it with the main course.

Where Does Salad Belong in Dinner?  

Opinions of Experts Clash on Point

Where does the salad belong in the dinner?

Books on table etiquette will tell you. But etiquette, you will find, knows nothing about geography. Even in the far western states which, for years, have championed the salad as the first course, opinions are at a divergence.

Recently, members of the staff of the Safeway Stores Homemakers’ bureau, which is sponsoring its course in “Kitcheneering,” were interviewed as to their individual preferences. At the conclusion of the interview, the voting stood 12 in favor of opening the meal with the salad to nine favoring salads served with the main course, and with but one of the Safeway home economists holding out for a salad to be served following the main course, and then, only in case of a fruit salad to replace dessert.

According to Julia Lee Wright, director of the homemakers’ bureau and one of the West's leading authorities on table etiquette, many interesting reasons were given for individual preferences. One of the bureau’s home economists stated, for example, that she preferred a salad served first in order to “whet the appetite.” while another observed that, in her opinion, it is better to serve the salad as a part of the main course since, to serve it first, “dulls the appetite.”

According to Mrs. Wright, a consensus, if one could be reached, would indicate that for formal affairs it is preferable to serve the salad as the opening course while for simple family dinners it is easier, and therefore more desirable, to serve it with the main course. “Whenever you choose to serve it, however,” said Mrs. Wright, “whether you follow etiquette books or your personal desires, the salad has become a highly important part of the daily diet, and one that is subject perhaps to more variations than any other part of the dinner with the possible exception of desserts. 

As a result, the Safeway Stores Homemakers’ bureau features salad in its course in ‘Kitcheneering’ with due attention to its importance. Visitors to this three- day cooking school will find, we believe, a number of delightfully different salads demonstrated, and each one surprisingly easy to make.” 

–a Second Debut of an article from the San Bernardino Sun, 1934

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

New Lettuce (aka Salad) Forks

A salad fork on the left and gilded lettuce forks (shown with a matching lettuce spoon on the right.) Lettuce forks and spoons soon became attached and were then known as “salad tongs.” The writer clearly had the two confused and also had no idea that salad forks were first introduced to the public in 1885.
Lettuce forks are for serving lettuce, thus the length of up to 9” and longer. Salad forks are a bit shorter than dinner forks. The gilded Towle salad fork above was also marketed as a “pickle fork,” however many salads were pickled up until fresh lettuce and greens, along with other perishable vegetables and fruits, were widely available in markets and as more people acquired refrigerators in their homes. This made fresh, green salads more popular and seen on more tables.

AN EDITORIAL writer in the Los Angeles Times sees a brighter future for Imperial valley lettuce growers as a result of the recent invention of a new table tool designated to simplify the problem of eating lettuce salad.

The Western Growers Protective association is given credit for introducing the new lettuce fork to a public that has been trying for several years to devise a graceful method of devouring lettuce leaves.

Probably our former fellow-townsman, C. B. Moore, had something to do with this. If he did, we ought to erect a monument to C. В.

FOLLOWING is the Times editorial:
"Not content with starting new religions and new architecture and new styles for the flappers, California has invented a new lettuce fork with a blade attachment to cut succulent salads. We are inventing a new etiquette to go with it.

"This naturally cuts the old-timers to the quick. We grow more lettuce in Imperial valley than anywhere else on the globe and something just had to be done so that so much of it would not be left on the plate. The Western Protective Association has taken the heroic initiative in the matter.

"Heretofore it was regarded in good form to twist the salad into a large gob and thrust it into the maw even as the hayfork jams the grass into the mow of the barn. Not even the best circles could see anything pleasant in the struggle to drape one's facial foliage around these large, unwieldy quantities of fodder.

"But with this new trick salad fork, with a combination like the old jackknife with a corkscrew and fifty-seven other varieties of tools, we are able to inhale lettuce with comfort and stimulate another of California's products.

"THE silversmiths are also said to be backing the innovation and that means that the best families will lend themselves to the cause. For many of them have stock in the concern or have mines and will be pleased to have old cutlery out of date.

"California has taken the orange out of the Christ- mas stocking and got it on the breakfast table. For a time it was in peril of being put up in prescriptions like spinach by the doctors; but it has turned the corner and can be gedunked at the soda fountains. The whole country is alkalizing its system by orange juice and we are picking the profits for our purses.

"Once we got the world full of prunes; but it woke up one morning and turned to fruit cocktail instead. It got grapefruit in its eye and hope in its heart. The great question a few years back was how to eat an orange. But now the spiffy are acquiring lettuce forks and the price of sterling silver is about to take a sudden advance."– By R.H. In the Calexico Chronicle, 1930

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

The Science of Salads

An assortment of Gilded Age salad forks, lettuce serving forks and one lettuce serving spoon — “Alexandre Dumas devotes more than 1,000 words in his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine to demonstrating that salad is not natural food for man. Only ruminants, he writes, are equipped to deal with raw greenery in their stomachs, since raw plants are dissolved not by acids but by alkalis. It is, he says, an excess of civilization that has made us take to eating raw salads. The ultimate error is to make salad accompany a roast. To eat salad with haunch of venison, or with roast pheasant or woodcock is simply culinary heresy. One spoils the other.”

The rights and wrongs of the science of dining seem to arouse passions as much as politics or bridge, and nothing is more controversial than the right way to dress a salad.

Alexandre Dumas devotes more than 1,000 words in his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine to demonstrating that salad is not natural food for man. Only ruminants, he writes, are equipped to deal with raw greenery in their stomachs, since raw plants are dissolved not by acids but by alkalis. It is, he says, an excess of civilization that has made us take to eating raw salads. The ultimate error is to make salad accompany a roast. To eat salad with haunch of venison, or with roast pheasant or woodcock is simply culinary heresy. One spoils the other. 

All game of haut gout, he considers, ought to be eaten by itself just with the sauce of its own juices. It is an act of great culinary impiety to allow your salad to be made by a servant. Salad is served at a moment when hunger is three-quarters assuaged and you need an aperitif to restore your appetite and thus it has to be perfect, prepared with loving skill and intelligence. Where, the inference is, will you find this except in the master or mistress of the house? And so the salad must be composed by one of them and at least an hour before it is due to be served. During that hour it should be turned three or four times.

Salad consists of vegetables to which certain aromatic herbs have been added, seasoned with salt, white pepper, oil, vinegar and sometimes with mustard and soya. Herbs, again, are of three kinds: pot-herbs, dressing-herbs and seasonings. There are six pot-herbs: sorrel, lettuce, white beet, mountain spinach (orach) spinach and purslane. Dressing- herbs are parsley, tarragon, chervil, chive, spring onion, savory, fennel, thyme, basil and tansy. There are twelve seasoning-herbs: garden cress, watercress, chervil, tarragon, burnet, samphire, hartshorn, lesser basil, purslane, balm and chives. When seasoning chicory you put at the bottom of the salad bowl a stale crust of bread rubbed with garlic to absorb surplus vinegar.

Until recently salad-dressing seems to have been a peculiarly French accomplishment. After the Revolution several of the aristocratic refugees in England and America made fortunes as salad-dressers. In London, a young man called d'Aubignac accumulated £80,000 in quite a short period from the exercise of this skill, in which he seems to have used considerable imagination, as he is said to have used perfumed vinegars, oils tasting of fruit, soy, ketchup and even caviare among his ingredients. — From “The Joy of Eating,” by Katie Stewart, 1937

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

Salad Serving Etiquette

According to Julia Lee Wright, director of the homemakers’ bureau and one of the west’s leading authorities on table etiquette, many interesting reasons were given for individual preferences. One of the bureau’s home economists stated, for example, that she preferred a salad served first in order to “whet the appetite,” while another observed that, in her opinion, it is better to serve the salad as a part of the main course since, to serve it first, “dulls the appetite.” 

Where Does Salad Belong in Dinner? 

Opinions of Experts Clash on Point

Where does the salad belong in the dinner? Books on table etiquette will tell you. But etiquette, you will find, knows nothing about geography. Even in the far western states which, for years, have championed the salad as the first course, opinions are at a divergence. 

Recently, members of the staff of the Safeway Stores Homemakers’ Bureau, which is sponsoring its course in “Kitcheneering,” were interviewed as to their individual preferences. At the conclusion of the interview, the voting stood 12 in favor of opening the meal with the salad to nine favoring salads served with the main course, and with but one of the Safeway home economists holding out for a salad to be served following the main course, and then only in case of a fruit salad to replace dessert. 

According to Julia Lee Wright, director of the homemakers’ bureau and one of the west’s leading authorities on table etiquette, many interesting reasons were given for individual preferences. One of the bureau’s home economists stated, for example, that she preferred a salad served first in order to “whet the appetite,” while another observed that, in her opinion, it is better to serve the salad as a part of the main course since, to serve it first, “dulls the appetite.” 

According to Mrs. Wright, a consensus, if one could be reached, would indicate that for formal affairs, it is preferable to serve the salad as the opening course, while for simple family dinners, it is easier, and therefore more desirable, to serve it with the main course. “Whenever you choose to serve it, however," said Mrs. Wright, “whether you follow etiquette books or your personal desires, the salad has become a highly important part of the daily diet, and one that is subject perhaps to more variations than any other part of the dinner, with the possible exception of desserts.” — San Pedro Pilot, 1934

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

The Right Table Etiquette

“All sorts of small relishes, like radishes, olives, salted nuts and bon-bons, are eaten from the fingers, but this must be done very daintily.” 

Doing the Right Thing at the Right Time 

is the Giveaway

“A man by nothing is so well betrayed as by his manners.”— Spenser 

THERE are many persons who feel that a man’s table manners are an index to his general good breeding. If he handles his knife and fork in the way that is accepted as “correct” they will put him down as well bred until they have very conclusive evidence that he is not; but if he shows ignorance of, or indifference to, this accepted method then it will take much to make them believe that he has any claim to good breeding. This may be unfair, but it is true. 

Here are some of the things that convention requires us to remember in our manners at the table: 

• The salad is cut with the side of the fork and then eaten from the side of the fork. 
• Fish, soft entrees and, in fact, anything that does not absolutely demand the use of a knife, are separated into small pieces by the use of the fork, which is most excellent, as the knife at its best is a most ungainly utensil. 
• That you should never mash your food with your fork and never sit with your fork or knife upraised, like a telegraph pole. 
• That when not in use, either knife or fork must be laid on the plate at one side. 
• Never tilt your fork and knife on the sides of your plate, that is, with the handle on the tablecloth on either side and the tips on the edge of the plate. 
• That every time a course is removed you should lay the knife, fork or spoon used in eating it on the side of the plate. 
• Do not cross knife and fork on the plate, but lay them side by side. 
• In eating soup, custard, fruit, or any dish which demands a spoon, be sure you sip the food noiselessly from the side of the spoon, never from the tip. 
• Never dip your individual fork or spoon into a dish that is passed to you, but always employ the fork or spoon which will be found on the tray beside the dish, or on the dish itself. 
• All sorts of small relishes, like radishes, olives, salted nuts and bon-bons, are eaten from the fingers, but this must be done very daintily. — By Mary Marshall Duffee, 1921

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

Table Knife Etiquette

We have all seen humorous pictures of the uncouth man who sits waiting for his plate with his knife in his right hand and his fork in his left, points upwards. See that you don't let yourself look so ridiculous. 

The Right Thing at the Right Time with the Knife

“Since trifles make the sum of human things.” —Hannah More

DON’T hold your knife at table as if you contemplated cutting your way through a barbed wire entanglement with it. Take it no further down toward the blade than is necessary to hold it securely. In fact, it is a mistake to let your fingers rest anywhere but on the handle, save that the index finger may be placed on the edge of the dull side. When you have finished with a course in which a knife is used, place the knife across the side of the plate with the sharp side of the blade toward the center. 

If you are dining with your family and send your plate to the carver for a second helping, the knife and fork should be placed in this way, not removed and laid on the butter plate, much less held in mid-air. Never hold the knife in the hand, save when using it. Some persons, you know, forget that they have it in their hand and raise it in an awkward fashion with the point of the blade ceiling-ward. We have all seen humorous pictures of the uncouth man who sits waiting for his plate with his knife in his right hand and his fork in his left, points upwards. See that you don't let yourself look so ridiculous. 

Never use a knife in eating salad. Do not use a steel knife in eating fish. Some persons would say, never use any knives at all with fish, but it is quite all right to use a silver knife and small silver knives are especially designed for the fish course. In the ordinary household where fish is served as a substitute for the meat course, it is served with the usual knife and fork, but this knife should not be of steel. Do not use a knife when eating desserts, although in some provincial hotels, the waiter will give you a knife and fork with pie. A small knife may be served and used with cheese. When this is done, cut off a bit of cheese and place it by means of the knife on the wafer with which it is served and then convey the wafer to your month by means of the left hand. 

Never, never use your knife as an implement with which to assist food on your fork or to scout about your plate the last morsels. In fact, the knife should not be used at all for potatoes or other vegetables, these being broken entirely by means of the fork. If no butter knives are used, it is quite all right to use the dinner knife for buttering bread. Remember, however, never to spread more than a small morsel at a time, and never wipe off gravy or other food on a slice of bread by way of polishing your knife before using it on the butter. — By Mary Marshall Duffee, 1922

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

Salad Etiquette and History

Originally, long lettuce forks and matching spoons were the proper accoutrements for serving salads in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Eventually, by the mid 20th century, they became connected, made of plastic and mass marketed as “salad tongs,” though those who took much pride in entertaining, continued to use separate salad serving forks and spoons to serve their guests leafy, green salads.

To paint a complete portrait of the restaurant’s history, the iconic image of Man Carving a Roast should be accompanied by Man Mixing a Salad. For in haute restaurant-ology it is Man, not Woman, who rules the salad bowl.


In the 19th century wealthy men who styled themselves epicures often impressed their dining companions by rising from the table and mixing the salad. In the 20th century the custom passed into the hands of headwaiters at chi chi venues.

The tradition can be traced to peripatetic Frenchmen who wandered around Europe solemnly ministering to urban dinner parties with the contents of their small yet sacred chests of salad ingredients which included flavored vinegars, soy, caviar, truffles, anchovies, and other delectables.

In the 18th century sallad (spelled in the British manner) referred to a mixture of greens and herbs, possibly radishes, dressed with vinegar and oil and perhaps a raw egg. It could also mean chopped cabbage, known in the early 19th century as “cold” slaw. How many taverns, coffee houses, and other early eating places served salads is unknown but the number was probably very small and their salad days limited to springtime.

Although some green salads appeared on 19th century menus, the word salad more often referred to cold chopped meat or fish dressed with mayonnaise. Lobster and chicken were favorites. Combination salads and fruit salads did not come into popularity until the 20th century, largely due no doubt to the lower price of greens, vegetables, and imported bananas and pineapples.

The type of restaurant that did most to advance the green salad as a basic component of the American diet was the table d’hôte, a small French or Italian restaurant serving a fixed-price meal of about five courses. In 1844, patrons at the Café Tortoni in NYC enjoyed dinners of soup, stew-like entrees, roast meat, salads “mixed a la des Jardins,” and desserts. Head lettuce was rare, so typical salads featured romaine, chicory, dandelions, or field greens. Salad lovers particularly lauded Italian restaurants for their salads, both in the 19th and 20th centuries (despite the common appellation “Wop salad” ca. 1940-1970). In 1909 a patron wrote that Italian restaurant salads “are almost always good, and the dressing, made from red wine vinegar, is usually delicious. The mixed salad, in spring includes tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, celery, sometimes spinach and usually chives. Beet tops are also served as salad.”

In the New England countryside, on the other hand, salads were rare – and unsatisfactory. As a patron in a hotel dining room noted in 1881, “If by any chance there is lettuce on the table – for this happens rarely – and you manifest a desire to eat of it, the waiter puts before you the vinegar cruet and the sugar bowl. If you want to make a fool of yourself, call for salad oil. It will take some time to explain your meaning, and when you have done so the attendant will sneeringly inform her companions that ‘That feller eats grease on his lettis.’”

Although some thought salads were gaining popularity in the 1890s as sedentary city dwellers woke up to the wisdom of lighter fare, hotel cook Jessup Whitehead remarked in 1901 that “salads are not among the common popular dishes, and the average public seldom seems to think of them.” Many cooks had no idea how to prepare them, he added.


Salads became feminized in the 1920s. Perhaps it was the popularity of fruit salads in tea rooms, or the increasing use of flavored gelatin salads, but some male gourmets denounced women for preferring “comic salads” chosen for eye appeal rather than taste. Indeed there were some bizarre ones such as the Candlestick (illustrated), and others with names such as Clara Barton, Bon Ton, Butterfly, and Martini. Even a female tea room proprietor had to admit that “Atrocities have been committed in the name of salad.”

In the mid-20th century the tossed salad smothered under a layer of thick dressing became the standard start of a regulation meat and potatoes restaurant dinner. The high incidence of mediocre salads led syndicated columnist Inez Robb to launch a one-woman campaign in the 1960s against the two-pronged “red menace” to restaurant salads: chopped red cabbage and sludgy red-orange “French” dressing. Relief was on the way, for in the 1970s field greens returned, and ingredients rarely (but sometimes) found in salads of previous decades, such as olive oil, radicchio, and arugula came into wider use.–© Jan Whitaker, 2011

Jan Whitaker

We wish to thank Jan Whitaker for her allowing us to use another wonderful post from her blog. Says Jan, “We eat in restaurants several times a week and yet know very little about their history. I plan to dip into my archive of research and images every so often to present a little tidbit that highlights aspects of our American restaurant culture. Let me know your thoughts”- Restaurant-ing Through History

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

Salad Etiquette

The Waldorf’ Astoria’s maître d’hôtel, Oscar Tschirky is credited with creating the Waldorf salad. After working at other establishments, including Delmonico’s, he retired in 1943, after working at the famous New York hotel  for 50 years.

Everything About Salad Etiquette

🥗 Questions and Answers on Salads 🥗 

Q. Should one eat the lettuce or salad green under the salad? 

A. Yes. It is part of the salad, is intended to be eaten, and polite guests will eat at least a little. 

Q. May lettuce be cut with a knife? 

A. Yes, if necessary—providing the knife has a sliver blade. (This custom arose because steel knives turned black.) Most hostesses serve salad that does not require cutting, but in many homes a salad knife is always provided with leafy salads. 

Q. May salad be served with the meat course ? 

A. Yes, a simple tart salad may be served right with the meat course. The individual salads are placed at left of dinner plate. When salad is a separate course, place it directly in front of the guest, after removing the dinner plate. 

Q. Where does the salad fork go, in the table setting? 

A. The salad fork goes to the left of dinner plate, then come the meat fork and left of that the fork for fish or entree. If a salad knife is used, it goes at right, next to the plate. 

Q. May salad be passed? 

A. Yes, and this is an effective way to serve salad at a party or buffet supper. Be sure, however, that each individual salad is easy to remove from the platter. 

Q. Is salad ever eaten from the dinner plate ? 

A. When garniture salad is served, such as a bit of slaw or similar mixture, to accompany meat or fish course, it may be eaten right on the dinner plate —either taken with a spoon or served as a garnish. 

Q. Must salad always have a plate to itself ? 

A. For parties, such as bridges, teas or luncheons, what the restaurants call a “club plate” may be used—the salad (in lettuce cup or shell) is then right on the large plate, with the other foods grouped on the same plate. 

Q. Should dressings be passed, even when the salad has been prepared with salad dressing? 

A. This is at the discretion of the hostess. Some salads are served without dressing, so that their beauty of arrangement will not be marred, and these require the passing of dressing. Too, some guests may prefer more dressing, and it is courtesy to permit them to have it. — Coronado Eagle and Journal, 1938

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