Japanese Spring Tea Ceremony

The springtime, Hanamatsuri, or “Flower Festival”— One of the key rituals practiced in spring is the tea ceremony, an ancient art that promotes appreciation of nature and beauty. 
-Photo source, Pinterest

The spring season in Japan is typically heralded by Hanamatsuri, or “Flower Festival,” and one of the key rituals practiced at this time of year is the tea ceremony, an ancient art that promotes appreciation of nature and beauty.

The tea ceremony, with its strict rules of etiquette, epitomizes the politeness that is a means of self-preservation in crowded Japan. Rules govern how to brew and serve the fine tea, how to hold and admire the tea bowls, and how the guest verbally responds to the server.

The goal of the ceremony is contentment in one’s lot and the teaching of the virtues of urbanity, respect, cleanliness and imperturbability, according to one published assessment.

More and more ceremonies are being conducted in the misono-dana style, in which participants sit in chairs rather than on their knees on tatami mats. Guests are traditionally served tea and small cakes, typical of those served at similar traditional celebrations in Japan.

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

Russia’s 1990s Etiquette Revolution

In today’s class-conscious new Russia, however, refinement is on the rise, and those pondering careers in international business or diplomacy are seeking to rectify their deficit of graces. From social etiquette classes that have been added to public school curricula to resurrected pre-revolutionary finishing schools like those within the New University of Humanities founded here by Natalia Nesterova, there is growing interest— and income— in the teaching of proper manners.
—Photo source, Instagram

Minding Manners in Moscow

Vera Ignatieva’s lecture on how proper young ladies accept an invitation to dance is interrupted by a door slamming behind a tardy pupil. Ignatieva halts the culprit in her tracks with a glare as powerful as a stun gun.

“Is that any way for a cultured person to enter a room?” she demands of the trembling 7-year-old arriving for a first lesson. “Go back outside and try again— this time in a civilized manner!”

Across town, the latecomer is slightly older, but the reproving glance from Alena Gil is as withering as Ignatieva’s. “You are late again, Vika. And furthermore,” says the appalled etiquette teacher, “how dare you come into my classroom with gum in your mouth!”

Slammed doors, snapping jaws, slouchy posture and sloppy table manners are under attack in places such as Ignatieva’s Ballroom Dancing and Court Etiquette School and the Institute for Noble Young Ladies, where Gil teaches socially aspiring teens.

But after eight decades in which society put more stock in a young person’s skill handling a forklift than in his or her way with a salad fork, the purveyors of polish at Russia’s revitalized charm schools concede that they have their work cut out for them.

Boorish behavior was a hallmark of the Bolshevik era, when civility was thrashed by the coinciding brutalities of war, widespread poverty and social leveling. The remnants of the Russian aristocracy fled abroad to escape exile or execution.

In today’s class-conscious new Russia, however, refinement is on the rise, and those pondering careers in international business or diplomacy are seeking to rectify their deficit of graces.

From social etiquette classes that have been added to public school curricula to resurrected pre-revolutionary finishing schools like those within the New University of Humanities founded here by Natalia Nesterova, there is growing interest— and income— in the teaching of proper manners.

“We could hardly have operated during the Communist era, when the very concept of nobility was officially targeted for destruction,” says Nesterova from beneath the net veil of a milliner’s fanciful creation. “But now that it is possible, it is all the more important that we prepare a new generation of young women to be credits to their families, to their future husbands, to their employers and, most importantly, to themselves.”

The Institute for Noble Young Ladies, which is one branch of her private university, was reconstituted three years ago on the reputation of an imperial-era boarding school that trained the daughters of wealthy merchants and noblemen in the czar’s court.

Nothing but that somewhat antiquated ideal survived the traumas of communism, says Nesterova, and the institute now strives to incorporate the modern demands of society into the structure of education in more traditional spheres.

“In today’s conditions, it is not wise for a woman to be without the intellectual means to compete in the workplace, even if she expects to be a homemaker,” she says. “That is why we have added courses in office management and business to our cultural repertoire.”

Sexology, family planning and body-shaping aerobics are also new twists to the classic agenda, but they are additions graduates need to deal with modern realities, Nesterova says.

Vika Zavalnaya plans to study law at Moscow State University beginning next year, but she enrolled at Nesterova’s institute at the urging of her older brother, a successful businessman who supports her and their widowed mother.

“This is the kind of instruction that will give me an advantage in my profession,” says the exuberant 17-year-old, not yet weaned of her affection for gum. “When you work with clients, especially foreigners, it’s important to know how to conduct yourself gracefully in a restaurant as well as the office.”

Looking for Employees With Polish

Russian and foreign hiring executives say they are on the lookout for employees with polish and that something as simple as a thank-you note after an interview can affect their choices.

“Knowing how to present oneself is as important as professional and technical knowledge,” says Konstantin Korotov, head of personnel development here for Ernst & Young, the international accounting firm that employs 500 local professionals throughout the former Soviet Union. “We’ve always managed to recruit well-educated people, but we want those representing our firm in the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] to do so with the same level of quality and professionalism as we have in Sydney or Paris or Cleveland.”

For 15-year-old Nina Babicheva, a charm school diploma is the ticket into the most desirable social circles.

“I’m not very good at math or science. What I love here is the attention to art and culture,” says Babicheva, who is balancing the finishing school program with her high school education. “I don’t have any big career goals. If I have to work, I think I’d like to be a journalist. But what I would really like is to get married and be free to spend my whole day riding horses.”

Private finishing schools such as the institute in central Moscow remain beyond the means of the vast majority of families, even at what might seem a reasonable tuition by Western standards of $1,500 a year.

But programs tailored to local circumstances are growing alongside the charm-school courses for the well-heeled, including weekly etiquette classes introduced in most elementary schools over the past two years. It is mostly young women who have expressed interest in learning social graces, but some schools also aim to prepare boys for a more courtly environment.

“We are educating tomorrow’s business and social leaders, and we cannot do that properly with yesterday’s practices,” says Irina Sirina, vice principal of Moscow Elementary School No. 184 in the far northern suburb of Dmitrovsky. “Personal hygiene and good behavior were discussed in schools indirectly during the Communist era, but there was no encouragement of the individual at that time. Etiquette then existed only as another measure of conformance.”

Her school, like many other public institutions, has taken aim at the surly behavior exuded by older generations, in which even the most highly educated can be found spitting on the sidewalks or hunkering down over their dinner plates like prisoners. The hourlong classes cover both personal and social behavior, from good grooming to diction to table manners.

“In the past, etiquette was not considered important because the measure of an ideal student was his ability to multiply and write properly and learn by heart poems about Communist Party heroes,” says Marina Nayanova, deputy director of a private finishing school with 50 students in the provincial city of Kostroma, 250 miles east of Moscow. “We see how much children’s behavior has deteriorated, and parents now have to work so hard that the last thing they have time for is [worrying about] manners.”

Extensive instruction in the social graces tends to be limited to private schools, where tuition runs to thousands of dollars each year, or to hybrid institutions such as the Donskoy Military Academy, where commercial sponsors augment the fees paid by parents.

Ignatieva, who has been teaching ballroom dancing for 45 years and etiquette since it became politically safe to do so about a decade ago, accepts payment only as individual parents can afford it and relies on connections with the artistic elite to cover the rest of her expenses.

She teaches a few dozen children who come to her studio in small groups twice each week for dance instruction and brutally candid assessments of their social skills.

“All of the popular and elegant dances were forbidden under [Soviet dictator Josef] Stalin— the fox trot, the tango, everything, especially if it was foreign,” says the feisty proprietor of the children’s dance academy. “It wasn’t until a few years ago that there were enough of us to rise up and demand our dignity back.”

The ninth child in a poor family, Ignatieva learned how to behave in high society only after it was banished. She married the son of a count who had been driven into exile after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and acquired her knowledge of etiquette from a hidden book on English manners and in whispered lessons from her husband.

“What is nobility and how do you teach it?” asks the snow-haired widow who is long past retirement time but coy about age specifics. “Some are born with it, but it can also be acquired through learning, and one of the most elegant expressions of nobility is ballroom dancing.”

But to dance well requires self-confidence, elegance and poise— commodities she says were hard to come by in the Soviet era, which glorified the spartan lifestyle of the working class.

Those deficits have compelled Ignatieva to broaden her dance instruction to include a general education in social graces.

“You cannot act like a gentleman when you are dressed like a laborer,” Ignatieva admonishes a hapless and humiliated preteen who has come to her studio in jeans and black T-shirt.

Parents Learn Manners From Their Children

The young patrons of Ignatieva’s studio and at etiquette classes being offered across the country bear up determinedly despite the upbraiding, often because they are encouraged by their parents to take advantage of opportunities they never had.

Oksana Abramova, a homemaker whose 8-year-old daughter, Ella, is enrolled in an after-school etiquette class, confides in a visitor that she too is taking instruction— indirectly.

“We like it when she practices at home, because my husband and I are learning from her,” Abramova says of her daughter’s recent recitals on how to set the table.

Older students undertaking more extensive training for entrance into the new elite cite a need to find a middle ground between the crudeness of the past and the garish excesses of the present.

Gil, a former drama instructor who teaches posture and grooming at the Institute for Noble Young Ladies, helps her young charges learn to use makeup with moderation and to dress appropriately for the business environment that is currently populated more by those wearing leather miniskirts and spike heels than by devotees of tailored suits and silk blouses.

“We have many people in our society who are smart and capable, but in the future it will take more than that to be successful,” says 16-year-old Yekaterina Vorontsova, who wants to become a financial secretary after finishing her course work at the institute. “What we need isn’t just a matter of clothes and expensive cosmetics. What we need is sophistication.” — Los Angeles Times, 1997

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

Centerpiece Etiquette and History

A thing of beauty, and social one-upmanship: An epergne, heavily laden with pineapples... an extravagant and expensive fruit in the Regency Era — “Fresh flowers were not used until the 19th century, but flowers of porcelain or silk often were part of the decoration in the 18th century. Because decorations were meant to show one’s status, rare, make-believe decorations were preferred. Large epergnes often were filled with fruit or dessert sweets in the center of the table. The 19th century hostess preferred fresh fruit, foliage and flower centerpieces. One writer suggested using a board for the table with a hole in the center. The hostess would place a tall plant beneath the hole so the leaves would form a large centerpiece.”

When Dinner-Party Centerpieces Spoke Volumes

Dinner-party decorations have been relatively unchanged for centuries. Many a hostess has been faced with a large, long table that had nothing in the center. The void has been filled with attractive vases, epergnes, figurines and fruit and flowers.

The 17th century table featured large and small platters of food. The platters, often made of silver or gold, helped to declare the wealth and importance of the host.

The food on the platters was prepared to be decorative. A cooked peacock was served with its colorful feathers adorning the platter, for instance. Some cooked animals were presented using their head and feet as decorations.

Fresh flowers were not used until the 19th century, but flowers of porcelain or silk often were part of the decoration in the 18th century. Because decorations were meant to show one’s status, rare, make-believe decorations were preferred.

Large epergnes often were filled with fruit or dessert sweets in the center of the table.

The 19th century hostess preferred fresh fruit, foliage and flower centerpieces.

One writer suggested using a board for the table with a hole in the center. The hostess would place a tall plant beneath the hole so the leaves would form a large centerpiece.

Other hostesses used high stands decorated with greenery and flowers.

Tables continued to have large centerpieces in the 20th century. Etiquette suggested that the arrangements should be low so the dinner guests could talk across the table. The wealthy arranged fruit or low flowers in silver bowls with decorations of three-dimensional cherubs or animals. Those with less money used simple bowls. — By Ralph and Terry Kovel, the Times, 1999

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

80 Years of Table Setting Ware

1970s-look breakfast settings, before the flatware is added —  “Tableware reflects society’s new directions. Natural, crafted looks become popular, like earth-tone dishes with a handmade look that coordinate with hand-woven linens and macrame. Sleek, pared-down Scandinavian designs grab attention...”
— Photo, Etiquipedia’s private library

Time and Place Settings

The 1930s

Art Deco influences china and tableware. The introduction of sleek, streamlined dishes from Fiesta and Russell Wright departs from the elaborate Georgian and Renaissance styles of the 19th century and signals the beginning of modernism. This pottery blends form and function, is easy to maintain and is mass marketed for a country mired in the Depression. Still, it is so avant-garde it won’t gain a solid following until the ‘40s and ‘50s.

The 1940s

The emphasis is on recycling old and current tableware, because of the country’s preoccupation with World War II. But wartime technology will become enormously influential in the home in the next decade.

The 1950s

The kitchen becomes the showplace. Technology produces better refrigerators, toasters, coffee makers, juicers. Families eat in the kitchen, and dishes with informal, playful patterns become popular. Colors like harvest gold, aqua and tangerine appear with ‘50s design influences of tail fins, diners, rocket ships and biomorphic shapes like amoebas. Cocktail parties become chic, and entertaining the boss calls for more formal tables, set with solid linen tablecloths (replacing lace) and stem wine glasses. China is decorated with stylized classic motifs: Greek key, acanthus leaves, along with basic gold and platinum borders.

The 1960s

Some brides still want to create the perfect dream house. The major social shifts that came later don’t affect table design and china instantly. Women who get married during cultural upheaval, even if on a mountaintop in bare feet, expect at least some traditional china, such as Lenox, whether they like it or not.

The 1970s

Tableware reflects society’s new directions. Natural, crafted looks become popular, like earth-tone dishes with a handmade look that coordinate with hand-woven linens and macrame. Sleek, pared-down Scandinavian designs grab attention, and Dansk’s Generation pattern, speckled earthenware with simple blue and brown bands, is a hot seller. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a classic Spanish style, with its scrolled lines and bright, dripped glazes in oranges and browns. The practical bride loves Corelle dinnerware, heat-tempered and break resistant, perfect for young families.

The 1980s

The era of excess runneth over into tableware. Anything goes, including Americana looks, animal prints, ethnic designs and tailored lines. Etiquette-book rules about dressing the table go out the window. Brides mix and match, indulging their sense of self-expression, and meals become epicurean theater. Swid Powell hires such international architects as Charles Gwathmey, Robert Siegel and Ettore Sottsass to do dramatic collections of china, silver and crystal. Fashion designers like Ralph Lauren get into the mix.

The 1990s

Tableware becomes part of a bold marketing strategy bent on selling an entire lifestyle, from clothing to bed linens. Companies like Eddie Bauer, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Guess coordinate everything, down to the napkin ring. Transitional patterns in bone china become popular; simple designs with a bit of color or texture that can be dressed up. More fashion designers enter the market, including Calvin Klein, Gianni Versace and Christian Lacroix, offering signature looks in dishes, stemware and flatware. Companies pick up on the trend of mixing and matching, offering numerous patterns that can be swapped to create different looks.

The 2000s

Romance returns, in the form of rose motifs and muted colors like dove gray. The passion for finding remnants of the past at antique stores and flea markets is translated into classic, clean borders and blue and white patterns. Homespun pictorial designs include nature accents such as flowers, fruits and vintage seed packets and bring a sense of prettiness to the table. —Donna Ferrari, Bride’s magazine, 1998

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

The 1950s

The kitchen becomes the showplace. Technology produces better refrigerators, toasters, coffee makers, juicers. Families eat in the kitchen, and dishes with informal, playful patterns become popular. Colors like harvest gold, aqua and tangerine appear with ‘50s design influences of tail fins, diners, rocket ships and biomorphic shapes like amoebas. Cocktail parties become chic, and entertaining the boss calls for more formal tables, set with solid linen tablecloths (replacing lace) and stem wine glasses. China is decorated with stylized classic motifs: Greek key, acanthus leaves, along with basic gold and platinum borders.

The 1960s

Some brides still want to create the perfect dream house. The major social shifts that came later don’t affect table design and china instantly. Women who get married during cultural upheaval, even if on a mountaintop in bare feet, expect at least some traditional china, such as Lenox, whether they like it or not.

The 1970s

Tableware reflects society’s new directions. Natural, crafted looks become popular, like earth-tone dishes with a handmade look that coordinate with hand-woven linens and macrame. Sleek, pared-down Scandinavian designs grab attention, and Dansk’s Generation pattern, speckled earthenware with simple blue and brown bands, is a hot seller. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a classic Spanish style, with its scrolled lines and bright, dripped glazes in oranges and browns. The practical bride loves Corelle dinnerware, heat-tempered and break resistant, perfect for young families.

The 1980s

The era of excess runneth over into tableware. Anything goes, including Americana looks, animal prints, ethnic designs and tailored lines. Etiquette-book rules about dressing the table go out the window. Brides mix and match, indulging their sense of self-expression, and meals become epicurean theater. Swid Powell hires such international architects as Charles Gwathmey, Robert Siegel and Ettore Sottsass to do dramatic collections of china, silver and crystal. Fashion designers like Ralph Lauren get into the mix.

The 1990s

Tableware becomes part of a bold marketing strategy bent on selling an entire lifestyle, from clothing to bed linens. Companies like Eddie Bauer, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Guess coordinate everything, down to the napkin ring. Transitional patterns in bone china become popular; simple designs with a bit of color or texture that can be dressed up. More fashion designers enter the market, including Calvin Klein, Gianni Versace and Christian Lacroix, offering signature looks in dishes, stemware and flatware. Companies pick up on the trend of mixing and matching, offering numerous patterns that can be swapped to create different looks.

The future

Romance returns, in the form of rose motifs and muted colors like dove gray. The passion for finding remnants of the past at antique stores and flea markets is translated into classic, clean borders and blue and white patterns. Homespun pictorial designs include nature accents such as flowers, fruits and vintage seed packets and bring a sense of prettiness to the table.

Source: Donna Ferrari, tabletop, food & wine editor, Bride’s magazine

Handling Faux Pas in Public

The social circuit is a breeding ground for embarrassing moments. There are names to remember, table manners to watch, dress codes to adhere to. Perhaps nowhere else in life are we under as much scrutiny as we are during social occasions. People can go a long way toward reducing awkward moments by remembering to “think of someone other than yourself,” says Letitia Baldrige, author of a ‘90s guide to manners.
— Photo, Etiquipedia’s private library

There’s No Pas Like a Faux Pas in Society

A CEO wipes his mouth with a tablecloth. A community leader mistakes a man’s second wife for the daughter of his first. A socialite backs into a pool.

These are some of the gaffes that have been played out on the Orange County social scene.

And no wonder, say the blunderers, since stepping out is what they love to do, sometimes as often as five times a week.

“I’m out so much, I’m bound to make mistakes,” says Thomas Penn Jones, CEO and president of Children’s Hospital of Orange County. “I just try to laugh them off.”

Jones bemoaned his faux pas out loud at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach. After realizing he had wiped his mouth with a portion of the tablecloth, he told table-mates: “Why can’t they make dinner napkins and tablecloths in different colors? This isn’t the first time I’ve done this!”

Janice Johnson of Laguna Beach still blushes when she recalls “that luncheon.” She attended a fund-raising home tour and admired a lovely hostess--a young mother with two small children.

A week later, she was seated at a luncheon next to a mature woman whose married name was the same as the woman she had met earlier.

Striking up conversation, she said: “I met your lovely daughter and your two grandchildren last week

She quickly learned that the young woman was the new wife of her lunch partner’s ex. Says a wiser Johnson: “Before you open your mouth, think!”

Vesta Curry of Laguna Beach recalls with embarrassment the luncheon where she took pictures of friends: “I was snapping away and backed right into the pool. Thank God it was the shallow end. I can’t swim!”

The social circuit is a breeding ground for embarrassing moments. There are names to remember, table manners to watch, dress codes to adhere to. Perhaps nowhere else in life are we under as much scrutiny as we are during social occasions.

People can go a long way toward reducing awkward moments by remembering to “think of someone other than yourself,” says Letitia Baldrige, author of a ‘90s guide to manners.

Deferring to others is the foundation of social etiquette. One of the reasons you place your knife and fork together on your plate after a meal, for example, is to assist the waiter during his trek back to the kitchen.

But if you do blow it, Baldrige says, the best way to recover is to make a joke.

“Everyone else is dying, so you need to break the tension. Of course, you apologize if you ruin a tablecloth or break someone’s prized Dresden centerpiece.

“But if it’s a burp you couldn’t help, you apologize, then say, ‘It didn’t exactly sound like the symphony orchestra, did it? I’ll try to do better next time.’ ”

Even an etiquette guru has red-faced moments. One of her worst, Baldrige recalls, was the night a couple arrived at her door for Sunday supper. She had forgotten she issued the invitation.

“There we were, my husband smoking a cigar, me in a nightgown, and the doorbell rings.”

She teased the guests about being so formally dressed, rushed into the kitchen, threw some frozen beef stew into a pot and drenched it with wine. “We made it through the evening. My husband thinks they were being polite, but I don’t think they knew the difference.”

As chairwoman of dozens of Orange County social events, Catherine Thyen of Corona del Mar has seen her share of excruciating moments. The worst came at an awards banquet.

“As a woman walked up to receive an award, her slip fell to the floor. She stepped right out of it, left it in a little pool. She never went back to retrieve it. I was impressed by her grace.”

To survive the demands of the polite life, Thyen has developed her own list of do’s and don’ts. “Do drink lots of water,” she advises. “It’s a good way to avoid coated coffee tongue and champagne breath.

“Don’t eat much, especially hors d’oeuvres. It can be very embarrassing to have someone come up to you when your mouth is full.”

And, do a run-through in new attire before attending a gala. “Get the kinks out around the house. You need to rehearse sitting in a bustle or dancing in a strapless gown.”

When Mark Johnson of Tustin received an invitation to a private party with a dress code that read: “Black Tie, Fun” he was confused.

So he called upon a new friend, Tom Tucker of Irvine Cove, who told him it meant having fun with his penguin suit. “He told me to wear black tie and whatever else I wanted,” said Johnson, chairman of the Orange County Performing Arts Center. “He said he was wearing Bermudas with his tux jacket and that others would dress equally crazy.”

Johnson didn’t know his friend was a prankster, that the invitation really meant to wear a fun-looking black tie. So he wore Reeboks and Levi 501’s with his tux.

“I arrive, feeling like I’m going to fit right in,” Johnson said. “And everybody is in form! I was embarrassed, but I had more fun than I’ve ever had when I was dressed like everybody else.”

Tucker, a center board member, remembers dressing for a black-tie gala and leaving his jacket at home. He was mortified when he walked into the event. “But after I had a glass of wine I decided it wasn’t worth driving home for,” he said.

Becoming embarrassed in social situations is common for adults, says Linda Algazi, a Corona del Mar psychotherapist. “However, when it becomes excessive and uncomfortable, it becomes something in psychology we call social phobia.”

People with the condition experience anxiety symptoms, stomach problems, muscular tension and confusion. “It can develop into a full-blown panic attack,” she says. “We all worry about being appropriately dressed, saying something dumb. Only when it becomes excessive does it become a real phobia.”

Embarrassing moments happen to everyone, Baldrige believes. Forgetting someone’s name is probably the most common cause of social humiliation. “If you’re smart, you will own up to it and say something like, ‘I can’t even remember my mother’s name.’ ”

In her research, Baldrige has come upon dozens of interesting incidents. A favorite stands out: “It was at the White House during the Eisenhower era. A woman guest lost her panties while she stood at a party.

“You only had elastic around the waist in those days. She was horrified, and stepped out of them. A White House aide whisked them up and put them in his pocket.” — By Ann Conway, 1997

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

Proper Etiquette Requires Response

What was on the fashionable Gilded Age or Victorian Era dinner sideboard? See the image above— No R.S.V.P. is used on the dinner card, for every one knows that a dinner is a solemn occasion, calling for the utmost punctiliousness in etiquette. The invitation sent out two weeks before the dinner, demands an immediate answer, on account of allowing the hostess to invite another guest in case you decline, and the engagement once made, the same rule holds good that maintains in following your partner's lead in trumps; only sudden death releases you. 
— photo source, Pinterest 

English Dinner Ideas 

The Latest Conventionalities Dictated by Fashion

If you would entertain according to the latest London idea, says the New York Commercial Advertiser, you will send out for a dinner an engraved card, bearing the formula: Mr. and Mrs.______ request the pleasure of company at dinner on at _____ o’clock, with the address in the lower left hand corner. No R.S.V.P. is used on the dinner card, for every one knows that a dinner is a solemn occasion, calling for the utmost punctiliousness in etiquette. 

The invitation sent out two weeks before the dinner, demands an immediate answer, on account of allowing the hostess to invite another guest in case you decline, and the engagement once made, the same rule holds good that maintains in following your partner's lead in trumps; only sudden death releases you. It will be noticed that the invitation reads Mr. and Mrs. request the pleasure, etc... In balls, concerts, everything but a dinner, the invitation goes out in the name of the hostess only. The form may be engraved on a card, a folded sheet, or for small dinners be written on the sheet by the hostess or her secretary. 

Unpunctuality is without excuse at a dinner, and in some London houses the guests go into the dining-room promptly at the hour, whether the party is complete or not, and, as a rule, at such houses there are no delinquents. In London, too, thanks to the universal use of cabs, a woman, even if she keep no carriage of her own; is not supposed to require any preparation for entering the reception-room, and a maid relieves her of her wrap in the hall without showing her to any room. 

Of course, the lady enters the room first, as the old custom of coming in arm in arm has quite gone out. In the first arrivale are strangers, they are introduced, and the hostess also introduces the gentleman to the lady he is to take into diuner, if they are strangers. Young ladies are not invited with their parents to formal dinners, and it is usually arranged to have an equal number of ladies and gentlemen among the guests, though often a man may be included who has no one to take in. 

Following the usual custom, the host, when dinner is announced, leads the way with the lady guest of honor, the hostess coming down last of all with the gentleman of most importance. If the dinner is large, the hostess may introduce the gentlemen to the ladies they are to take in a short time before the announcement. If the company is small, she says simply, “Mr. H., will you please take in Miss R. ?” and the name at the places seat the guests. Dinner à la Russe is served in London at fashionable houses with everything carved off the table by servants. Even the soup tureen is placed on the sideboard. In the matter of wines, sherry is served after soup, hock with the oysters, champagne is handed round with the first entrée, and may be continued through dinner, and placed with other wines before the host when dessert time arrives. 

Occasionally, a bowl of rose water is handed round, into which guests dip their fingers, wiping them on their own serviettes. When the dessert has been handed round,  the servants leave the room, and when it is finished the hostess must catch the eye of the lady sitting by the host, and making a slight inclination, rise and stand near the door, which one of the gentlemen holds open, until all her guests have passed through. Coffee is then served in the drawing-room to the gentlemen. No other refreshments are served, except the fashionable liqueurs, which are brought round directly after the coffee, though few ladies take them. English hospitality provides a tray of wine in the hall-room where the wraps are left, to be offered as a stirrup-cup when the guests depart at 10:30 or 11 o’clock. —Mercury News, 1893

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

Milk Etiquette... Like Fine Wine

Diplomats, you know, set great store by protocol and other social niceties. And wine drinking is steeped in ritual, tradition and formality. Milk-drinking, on the other hand, has almost no etiquette of its own.
— Photo, Etiquipedia’s private library

Develop Milk Protocol To Rival Wine Niceties

WASHINGTON (UPI) - At President Johnson’s suggestion, U. S. ambassadors recently began serving mostly American wines, rather than foreign vintages, at dinners and receptions overseas. Let us now hear from Rep. Samuel S. Stratton. D-N.Y., whose home district includes both vineyards and dairy farms. In his weekly newsletter, Stratton commended to the attention of the State Department the product of the little old winemakers in his consituency. “Drink Finger Lakes.” he urged. Then, in deference to the cowmen, he added. “I can't help wondering if perhaps the quality of our international diplomacy might not have been enhanced if more milk had been consumed .” Stratton may have a point there, but I rather doubt that milk will become a beverage of diplomacy until something is done about its image. 

Indulge in Niceties 

Diplomats, you know, set great store by protocol and other social niceties. And wine drinking is steeped in ritual, tradition and formality. Milk-drinking, on the other hand, has almost no etiquette of its own. You just slop some of the stuff into a big jelly glass and gulp it down. The first thing to do is to stop delivering milk in thick glass jugs and unesthetic paper cartons. It should be poured from crystal decanters by candlelight. A different milk should be served with each course: skim milk with the salad, homogenized with the entree and buttermilk with dessert. With each in a different type of goblet. The skims and wholes are preferable chilled, but the buttermilks, both cultured and churned, should be served at room temperature. 

Develop Connoisseurs 

The next thing to do is develop milk connoisseurs — experts who can discuss in esoteric lingo the bouquet, texture and flavor of individual milks and identify their backgrounds. The conversations should go something like this: “I believe you will find this next buttermilk interesting. It can hardly be called ‘noble,’ of course, but you have to admire its spirit.” ‘‘Ah, yes, it has a spunky quality that is almost presumptuous. Judging from the tang, which is a bit on the mellow side. I’d say that it came from a 3-year-old Guernsey who grazes on clover on the shady side of a hill 45 miles northwest of Madison. Wis.” Once these criteria have been met, and a little alcohol is added, milk will be well on its way toward winning diplomatic recognition. — From ‘Dick West Reports,’ 1965

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

Place Settings Fit for King

His Majesty’s cover for dinner at the French Embassy, including an ashtray— “Right in front was the first wine glass, on which His Majesty’s place card was laid—so he would not have to bend over to read it. Other glasses were two more for white wine, one for red wine, and another, in the center, for the Romanee Conti, famed Burgundy vintage, of which 200 bottles were sent from Paris especially for this dinner.”

— Photo, Etiquipedia’s private library

This Table, Set For The King, 

Starts U. S. Experts Talking

Etiquette authorities, trying to determine how tables should be set tot wining and and dining royalty when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visit the United States in June, are interested in this picture. It shows the cover set for His Majesty at a dinner given recently in the French embassy in London. Its especial interest is that it isn’t exactly what American authorities had in mind. The glasses, the turned-down silver and an ash tray caused most comment. Eyebrows weren’t raised at the number of glasses—but at their placing. 

It’s an old American custom to put glasses above and to the right of the knife—not above the service plate. At the dinner given by President M. Lebrun of France, and Mme. Lebrun, however, the water goblet was placed to the left front, near the entrée fork. Behind it came the champagne glass. Right in front was the first wine glass, on which His Majesty’s place card was laid—so he would not have to bend over to read it. Other glasses were two more for white wine, one for red wine, and another, in the center, for the Romanee Conti, famed Burgundy vintage, of which 200 bottles were sent from Paris especially for this dinner. 

The turned-down silver was a surprise in this country. Never, said one authority, is silver turned down. Glasses, perhaps—they might collect a little dust. A waiter will turn them up before serving starts. But the choicely-patterned silver? It can’t happen here. The ash tray is pointed out somewhat gleefully. It’s a long-needed concession to smokers, one authority explains. He points out that until a few years ago, ash trays would have appeared only at the end of the meal. — By Joan Durham, AP Feature Service Writer, 1939

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