Pretentious Manners Adopted by 1880

Depiction of Delmonico’s restaurant in New York City, late 19th Century — There is speculation as to the origin of each method and why they differ. Edward Munves Jr. of James Robinson, dealers in antique silver and table wares, says it may be traceable to the robber barons of the 19th century. “It was a form of pretentiousness adopted here around 1880, when the robber barons went respectable,” Mr. Munves said. “But by now, it would be more pretentious than practical for people to return to the old, or European, way of eating.” On the same era in America, James Beard, gourmand and cookbook author, said: “It was considered more elegant to sit with one hand in your lap during most of a meal than to use both hands to simplify dining.”

In Europe, Table Knife Is Versatile

Use of Silverware Often Puzzling

Americans who travel abroad for the first time often wonder why Europeans handle their knives, forks and spoons in ways so contrary to American custom. They may even disapprove, judging it ill mannered. In Europe, the table knife is versatile and the use of silverware is often puzzling. The Continental way of dining involves the simultaneous use of fork and knife. The fork is held in the left hand, the knife in the right. At no time is the knife put down and the fork transferred to the right hand. The knife is used not only for cutting, but also to press foods onto the back of the fork.


According to Emily Post, it is Americans and not the rest of the Western world who are out of step. As long ago as 1922, when Mrs. Post's book on etiquette was first published, she deplored this “zigzag” custom in which the fork is constantly transferred from the left to the right hand, saying that it was “strange” and “not seen at the tables of fashionable people.” Amy Vanderbilt, however, believes that either custom is proper, as long as it is performed with ease and grace. “But the Continental style often encourages people to bolt their food,” Ms. Vanderbilt warned. “I've noticed that women who dine in the European way often bend too far over the table in a way that is less than elegant.”


Many Americans stoutly defend their custom and say to adopt foreign ways would be an affectation. Others, however, have chosen to switch because the European manipulation of the table implements seems faster and more efficient. Robert Meyzen, maitre d'hotel of La Caravelle restaurant, reports that more and more Americans are adopting the Continental method. “I think that people are beginning to realize that to put the knife down after cutting the meat, and then to switch the fork into the right hand represents a loss of both time and taste,” Mr. Meyzen said.


There is speculation as to the origin of each method and why they differ. The American custom, Mrs. Post has suggested, may have started as a way to slow down children who were fast eaters. Edward Munves Jr. of James Robinson, dealers in antique silver and table wares, says it may be traceable to the robber barons of the 19th century. “It was a form of pretentiousness adopted here around 1880, when the robber barons went respectable,” Mr. Munves said. “But by now, it would be more pretentious than practical for people to return to the old, or European, way of eating.” In commenting on the same era in America, James Beard, gourmand and cookbook author, said: “It was considered more elegant to sit with one hand in your lap during most of a meal than to use both hands to simplify dining.”— By Rita Reif, 1963

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

Zigzagging Table Manners

It’s in everyone’s best interest that we all retain our senses of humor and our best manners. Here’s a fun article about the history of our table manners. It’s full of facts that you can use as small talk, when attempting to gracefully sit through one more holiday with a mask on your face! — The most cherished, family-oriented holidays are just around the corner and we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic. Celebrating with any sense of tradition or normalcy, seems unattainable with the crazy sounding restrictions put in place across the globe. In California, the Governor has issued these restrictions:   “No more than three households can gather together at a time. Gatherings must be held outside and should last less than two hours. Attendees may go inside to use restrooms as long as the restrooms are frequently sanitized. Also, singing, chanting, and shouting are strongly discouraged.”

For the holidays, a brief history of manners

According to Emily Post, “All rules of table manners are made to avoid ugliness.” They exist to shield us from other people’s effusions and emissions — and to conceal our own. Manners can act as a lubricant, minimizing social friction, but mostly their purpose is protective. They muffle our primal urges. In effect, they turn our natural warrior-like selves into elegant courtiers.

That may be something to keep in mind today, especially if you find yourself seated between fastidious Uncle Eric and belligerent Cousin Kenneth at the Thanksgiving table.

Early guides to manners were fixated on proper behavior at table. In medieval England, meals were occasions not only for celebration, but also for diplomacy. A leading arbiter of manners was Petrus Alfonsi, who served at the court of King Henry I. He urged his readers (male, aristocratic) not to speak with their mouths full or let crumbs shower from their lips. King David I of Scotland, who spent time in Henry’s household, proposed that any of his subjects who learned to eat more neatly should get a tax rebate.

Disappointingly, that idea never caught on. Yet the prescriptions of writers such as Petrus Alfonsi endured. They were amplified by later writers such as Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutchman who produced a systematic account of manners in the early 16th century, in which he gave guidance on how to share a bed (don’t steal all the blankets for yourself) and how to pass wind (mask the sound with a well-timed cough).

Later that century it was Italians who dominated the field. None was more influential than Baldassare Castiglione, who wrote suavely about the need to control one’s social space. His key concept was sprezzatura, a stylishly effortless excellence: The truly decorous individual must be both self-possessed and unassertive.

Castiglione thought of manners as a technology, and during the Renaissance there were real technical developments that changed notions of correct behavior. None of these was more significant than the introduction of the table fork: Previously there had been large crude forks for hoicking food from a shared dish, but now the fork became an implement for the individual.

It was the traveler Thomas Coryat who introduced the table fork to Britain. When he returned from Italy in 1608 with this fancy novelty, he met with a torrent of ridicule. Twenty-five years after Coryat’s Italian jaunt, the first table fork reached America — a gift for John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the accompanying missive, the sender suggested Winthrop use his discretion in handling this precious item, and Winthrop saw fit to keep it in a special leather case. Gradually, as forks became popular, they brought finesse to the act of eating, making it possible, for instance, to consume berries without staining one’s fingers.

Nearly 300 years later Emily Post reflected on the need for forks (though “If you are able to eat a peach in your fingers and not smear your face … [you may] continue the feat”). Parsing such matters, she was the inheritor of traditions at once profuse and prolix. She had to concede that among those rules of the table “there are a number of trifling decrees of etiquette that are merely finical, unreasonable, and silly.” She cited as an example the insistence that one shouldn’t cut salad into small pieces. She went on to damn those who choose to “condemn the American custom of eating a soft-boiled egg in a glass, or cup, because it happens to be the English fashion to scoop it through the ragged edge of the shell.”

It was George Bernard Shaw, of course, rather than this doyenne of American social niceties, who supposedly observed that Americans and Britons are “divided by a common language.” That assessment may be a little less apt where manners are concerned than in questions of vocabulary. Yet while most of the essentials are the same on both sides of the Atlantic, there are a few clear differences between what’s normal in Los Angeles and what holds true in London.

Comment on this gap tends to veer into rueful specifics: A Californian friend of mine complains that the British have no grasp of the potluck dinner. Alternatively, it drifts toward generalizations about American directness and British reserve, or Americans’ comparatively fluid sense of social class.

But there is one really salient difference — and we observe it at table. In the U.S., when food needs cutting with a knife, you cut a bite, then lay aside the knife and transfer your fork to your right hand. Then, with the fork’s tines pointing upward, you pick up one bite at a time.

By contrast, the British keep the fork in the left hand and don’t lay the knife down. The American cut-and-switch method, which Post termed “zigzag,” may have been influenced by fashionable French practices in the early 19th century. Other theories abound. The zigzag technique may stem from the fact that early American forks were unwieldy and needed careful manipulation, or from the belief — a hangover from medieval culture — that it is best to put down a knife when it’s not in use. It may also have been calculated to draw attention, as Coryat once did, to the sheer magnificence of one’s modish fork.

As globalization fosters a new international standard of manners — pragmatic rather than necessarily refined — the zigzag method seems to be in the first stages of decline. Those who stick with it are preserving something distinctively American. They are also hanging on to a form of behavior that, like so much in the realm of manners, favors tortuous delicacy above blunt efficiency. — By Henry Hitchings, the author of, “Sorry! The English and Their Manners,” 2013

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

Differing Dining Styles — USA vs U.K.

Abigail Van Buren... “Letter on ‘manners’ stirs response.”

DEAR ABBY: My English husband and I howled with laughter when we read the letter from the Americans who had returned from England. Scotland and Wales and noticed the “strange” manner of eating. They said, “After cutting meat, they do not set the knife down and change the fork from the left hand to the right; they eat left-handed, which looks rather awkward.” Worse yet, these visiting Americans were not content to merely observe the “foreign” manner of eating, they attempted to instruct an Englishman in the “correct” way — theirs. What nerve! I’ll bet you get a ton of mail on this. — S and S in Menlo Park

DEAR S AND S: I did. Some samples;

DEAR ABBY: I married a man from Finland who always thought that European table manners were superior to ours because they never touch their food with their fingers as Americans so often do. However, after living in Indiana for six years, my husband has become slightly Americanized. Instead of using a knife and fork to eat a Big Mac or a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken, he eats with his fingers. I'm so glad. It was getting a little embarrassing with company. And you should see him tackle an Ortego taco!— Susan M. Clarksville, Indiana

DEAR ABBY: Now I know where the phrase “Ugly American” originated. It was partly from people like your reader who had the nerve to visit a foreign country and criticize age-old eating habits. When I dined in England during World War II, my hosts were very charming; they must have been vastly amused as they watched me switch my fork from one hand to the other, but no one had the bad taste to call it to my attention. It’s like the American who asked the British sergeant why his stripes were upside down. Or Americans who ask foreigners, in their own country, why they drive on the “wrong” side of the street. —Jack Corzette, Houston

DEAR ABBY: I was born in England and now live in the United States While dining in an American restaurant, imagine my horror when I was asked to keep my fork from the main course to use for my dessert. This disgusted me no end At least we use clean utensils for each course. —Doreen in Pine Bluff, Arkansas

DEAR ABBY: Who do those Americans think they are to criticize the way the English use their eating utensils? I’m English, and one thing we do not do is struggle with the side of a fork to cut our meat. We use a knife. And we do not use our fingers to eat bacon regardless of how crisp it is, as I've seen countless Americans do. Have you ever chased the last few peas around your plate, trying to get them on a fork? Well, that’s where the knife comes in, to “rake” them, as you say, onto your fork. I offer this little rhyme a favorite with my countrymen,  ‘I eat my peas with honey, I've done it all my life, It may sound awfully funny, But it keeps them on my knife.’ — Born in England

DEAR ABBY: Please leave King Henry VIII at rest. The English learned their “strange eating habits” centuries before America was even born. So who is “wrong”? The American tourists who thought the English need eating lessons should visit China and “teach” the Chinese to use a knife and fork, and throw away those funny little sticks they’ve been eating with for 5,000 years! — Proud Canadian 

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

Amy Vanderbilt on Dining Etiquette

Even when one uses the American zigzag method, it is sensible to convey food one has just cut to the mouth with the fork in the left hand, if one wishes. –  The traditional European style of dining was originally what was considered the American style. The dining style division was the result of British colonists sailing across the Atlantic, bringing their multi-step, or “zig-zag” method to the New World. The Continental (or European, as in the continent of Europe) style of dining became fashionable. A French etiquette book from that period read: “If you wish to eat in the latest mode favored by fashionable people, you will not change your fork to your right hand after you have cut your meat, but raise it to your mouth in your left hand.” 

The Use of the Knife and Fork

Knives and forks may be used American or Continental fashion, but a combination of the two systems is now often seen and is quite acceptable. Even when one uses the American zigzag method, it is sensible to convey food one has just cut to the mouth with the fork in the left hand, if one wishes. In other words, if you have cut off a bit of chop, it is not necessary, even conservative American style, to lay down the knife, place the fork, tines up, in the right hand and convey the meat to the mouth. Instead, one may use the fork in the left hand, with the tines of the fork down. 

Also, in eating a bit of bread and gravy by impaling the bread on the fork (in either hand), tines down, and sopping up the gravy it is now more usual than otherwise to convey the bit to the mouth with the fork tines down rather than up. Of course, nothing that would leak off the fork apple pie or other things needing a shoveling technique should be eaten this way. In the European fashion, food eaten with fork and knife is piled with the knife on the back of the fork, held in the left hand, and pressed down so it won't fall off or in the case of meat, impaled on the tines. The fork is then conveyed to the mouth, upside down, with the left hand.

Drinking Beverages at the Table

In drinking any beverage at table, a sip is never taken until the mouth is empty and has been wiped with the napkin. This keeps cup and glass rims free from food marks.

The Napkin

Napkins are placed on the lap entirely open if they are lunch-size or in half if they are dinner napkins. Guests wait until the hostess has taken up hers before placing their own. Napkins are tucked in only for children. They are never refolded; at the end of the meal, they are gathered and laid casually to the right of the place setting. Paper napkins are preferable to napkins to be used for more than one meal and placed in rings, but, if rings are used, they are given only to the family. A guest staying over should have a clean napkin each meal. Napkins reused are as incomprehensible to me as beds which have only one sheet changed. There are so many more sensible ways to economize.

Tipping of Dishes

The tipping of soup or dessert dishes is acceptable if the plate is tipped away from the spoon, not toward the eater.
          

The Soup or Bouillon Cup

Soup or bouillon served in a handled cup or even in a small cup-size bowl (Oriental fashion) is drunk. If there are dumplings or decorative vegetables or other garnish floating on top, these may be lifted out first with the spoon before the soup is drunk. Noodles or other things which may be in the bottom of the cup are spooned up after the liquid has been drunk.

Testing Liquids

Coffee or tea may be tested for heat or sweetening by one sip from the spoon, then drunk. If it is too hot, it must be allowed to stand until it is tolerable it may not be blown, spoonful by spoonful, until it is cool enough to drink.

“Stirring” Food

Nothing should ever be stirred up or mashed into a conglomerate heap on the plate. Gravy unless it is a gravy in which meat, fish or other protein is incorporated (rarebits, curries, blanquettes, chilis, etc.) is never poured or ladled onto rice, noodles, or other than meat on the plate. It is an insult to the cuisine to inundate everything on your plate with gravy or with that American favorite, catsup. If you want to eat your potatoes with gravy, you dip a forkful into the gravy that has escaped from the meat.

Conserves and Jellies

Conserves and jellies (jam and marmalade are for breakfast and tea) may be served at dinner or lunch with meat and are placed on the side of the plate, as are horse-radish, cranberry sauce, apple butter, relish. They are incorporated onto the fork as the food is taken into the mouth. Hard sauce is placed on the side of the dessert plate and incorporated with the pudding with dessert fork or spoon. Dessert sauces are ladled onto the dessert. Liquid sauces (mint, Chateaubriand, Worcestershire, etc...) meant for the meat are poured only onto it.

When Food is Too Hot

Too hot foods taken accidentally into the mouth are never hastily spit out in any way but are quenched with a drink of water before being swallowed (exception to rule against drinking with anything in the mouth).

“Spoiled” Food

Spoiled food, not even a bad clam, is ever spit, however surreptitiously, into a napkin. But it is sheer masochism to down, for the sake of manners, something really spoiled, once you have got a goodly mouthful. Anyone with experience in those foreign countries where such things are common knows it is better to seem unmannerly than to brave ptomaine or worse. Certainly, a partly chewed mouthful of food looks unappetizing to one's dinner partner if it has been necessary for you to deposit it from your fork on the side of the plate. It should be screened, if possible, with some celery leaves or, perhaps, a bit of bread. And, in taking it out of your mouth, try not to look as if anything were the matter. After all, if you were eating stewed or canned cherries, you would place the pits in the spoon with which you were eating, then place them on the side of your plate without anyone thinking the procedure disgusting.

Coughing at the Table

Ordinary coughing at table is done behind the hand, without excuse, but a coughing fit, brought on by something being caught in the windpipe, indicates that you must leave the table immediately without excuse (you can't talk, anyhow). If necessary, your partner at table offers help in the next room a pat on the back or a glass of water. If there is a servant present he or she attends to this unless the hostess indicates to some member of the family or to a nearby guest that help might be better from that source.

Blowing One’s Nose at the Table

If the nose must be blown at table, it is done as quietly as possible, without excuse to draw attention to the fact.

“Foreign Matter” in Foods

Foreign bodies accidentally taken into the mouth with food gravel, stones, bird shot are removed with thumb and forefinger, as are fish bones and other tiny bones. If a gnat gets into a beverage or some other unappetizing creature turns up in or on a diner's food, he fishes it out, unobserved (so others won't see it and be upset), and then either proceeds or leaves the drink or dish untouched, depending on the degree of odiousness of the intruder. A gnat or a tiny inchworm on lettuce shouldn't bother anyone, but most fastidious people draw the line at a fly or worse. If the hostess notices an untouched dish, she may say, "Do let me serve you a fresh portion," and she has the dish or drink removed without remarking clinically as to the need for the move. Or if a servant notices, she asks if the guest would like a fresh serving. In a restaurant, if host or hostess does not notice (and both should be alert for this sort of thing) that something is amiss, the guest may tactfully murmur to the waiter that the dish or drink needs changing preferably when host or hostess's attention is directed else-where.

When You Need Silverware

Your own wet spoon should never be placed in a sugar bowl, nor your butter knife in the jam or butter dish. If the serving utensils have been forgotten, pause long enough for the hostess to notice what's happened.

Tasting Another's Food

Sometimes a couple dining in a restaurant wish to taste each other's food. This is informal but permissible, though only if a fresh fork or spoon is used, with the possessor of the dish then handing the "taste" implement, handle first, to the other person. The other must not reach across the table and eat from a companion's plate, no matter how many years they have been married. If one of the two has had included some item say French fried potatoes in his order and doesn't wish them, he asks the waiter to serve them to the other, if desired he doesn't take them on his plate, then re-serve them.

Using Bread as a “Pusher”

A bit of bread, if available, is used to push food onto a fork never use the fingers. At formal dinners when bread is not served one may always switch to the Continental style, if one is adept, and chase the peas onto the back of the fork held in the left hand, pressing them down before conveying the fork, upside down, to the mouth. Or, holding the fork in the right or (French and Italian fashion) left hand, tines up, on plate, one may guide difficult food onto it with the side of the knife.

Reaching at Table

Reaching at table is now preferred to asking neighbors to pass things one can well take up himself, but one should not have to rise out of his seat.

From the original Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette


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