Gilded Age Etiquette Observations

My English friend was very much struck with the fact that American women all sat on the left side of the carriage, the opposite side from what they do in England. “Ladies,” he said, “Should always sit behind their coachman, but the desire to see and be seen, prompts them here to take the other side.

A short time ago, a handsome, well-dressed Englishman, well up in all matters pertaining to society, went with me to my tailor to see me try on a dress coat. I was struck with his criticisms. Standing before a glass, he said, “You must never be able to see the tails of your dress coat; if you do, discard the coat. Again he advised one’s always wearing a hat that was the fashion, losing sight of the becoming, but always following the fashion.


“At a glance,” he said, “I can tell a man from the provinces, simply by his hat.” If you are stout, never wear a white waistcoat, or a conspicuous watch-chain. Never call attention by them to what you should try to conceal. And going to the opera, if you go to an opera box with ladies, you should wear white or light French gray gloves. Otherwise, gloves are not worn. A boutonnière of white hyacinths or white pinks on dress coats is much worn, both balls and the opera.


My English friend was very much struck with the fact that American women all sat on the left side of the carriage, the opposite side from what they do in England. “Ladies,” he said, “Should always sit behind their coachman, but the desire to see and be seen, prompts them here to take the other side. In this city, some half a dozen ladies show their knowledge of conventionalities and take the proper seat.” — Ward McAllister, 1890

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

Whatever Happened to Manners?

Manners ... should we be more old school? — Perhaps nowhere is more prone to the evidence of gross bad manners than on internet forums, where some think it is open season on being unnecessarily rude and disrespectful to people whose opinions they take disagree with.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Spitters, swearers, armrest hoggers and interrupters be warned: there is a growing gang of radicals coming after you.

Taking aim at what he sees as the demise of good manners, demographer Bernard Salt and his increasing army of followers want to eradicate rudeness.

Affronted by bad manners at business functions Mr. Salt recently formed a Facebook group called the Society for Normal People as a place where people "who feel aggrieved by the bad manners of others can publicly, but ever so politely express displeasure".

He has attracted over 2000 people mad about manners.

"We are a group of normal people and we intend taking over the world with our radical ideas of manners and respect for everyone," Mr Salt said.

"This all flowed from an article I wrote maybe two months ago, where I said I was sick of ... people not returning phone calls, not returning emails, people who hog the armrest on a plane.

"People who go to functions and they talk to each other in tight little circles, so that if you don't know anyone you're effectively excluded.

"Have you ever felt that when you come away from an event like that and you think: 'Am I the only normal person in the world that sees that rudeness?"'

Among the group's pet peeves are people who swear, spit, interrupt others or push their shopping trolleys straight down the middle of a supermarket aisle, he said.

Mr. Salt said he blamed bad manners on people being brought up to think only of themselves.

"I think we are now a society of individuals - we all think we're special, we're all unique.

"We're being told we're special and unique by parents, by teachers, by employers and all of a sudden it's all about us, it's all about me."

Perhaps nowhere is more prone to the evidence of gross bad manners than on internet forums, where some think it is open season on being unnecessarily rude and disrespectful to people whose opinions they take disagree with.

Etiquette queen June Dally-Watkins said it is websites like Facebook and Twitter that are contributing to a demise in manners.

"I think people spend too much time on Facebook and their mobile phones, just pressing buttons," Ms Dally-Watkins said.

"They're losing touch with human beings and they're losing their personality and their charm.

"The greatest part of good manners is being kind and respectful to other human beings."

"Good manners and correct etiquette are all about being courteous and thoughtful and considerate to other people."

Her tips for improving manners included saying "thank you", moving aside to let others through and being aware of other people's feelings.

Ms Dally-Watkins also felt strongly about people who wear sunglasses during conversations.

"When you speak to people you look them in the eye. Don't talk with sunglasses on because our eyes are the window to the soul."

Sydney University's Associate Professor Penny Russell, the author of Savage or Civilised? Manners in Colonial Australia, said manners were once very elaborate rules that helped people define what class they belonged to.

In the 19th century etiquette was something you could read up on, but navigating manners is a little more complex in modern society.

"We do live in so much more of a multicultural society today and also we travel so much more, we belong in a global culture, which means ... being aware of the fact that there are enormous differences across ethnic and social groups about what constitutes good manners.

"So I think we're all aware we can all break rules that we don't even know about in the eyes of other people.

"In the 19th century there was a particular type of rudeness that was 'you should all behave as I do'.

"Now we're required to have a different level of courtesy that is ... how to be respectful of difference rather than to judge people by our own rules."

Etiquette books in the 19th century used to speak of the importance of both good form and good feeling in social settings and the same principle applies today, she said.

"I think it's the most important thing.

"When people launch into tirades about other people's bad manners, when they get personal about it, I think probably the rudest thing that you can do is to point out somebody's else's faults in a way that is designed to expose them as, in some way, inferior or inadequate or as coming from the wrong class." — Sydney Morning Herald, 2011

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

Etiquette and Flatware Placement

What’s wrong with this illustration? The cocktail, or oyster fork, on the left makes four forks — there should be no more than three. It would be easy to encroach on the next place setting, and better to place the cocktail fork to the right of the soup spoon. — “Place settings should be orderly and symmetrical, with convenient room on either side for each person’s comfort. The basic minimum place setting in flatware include six pieces: knife, fork, teaspoon, soup spoon, salad fork, and butter knife or spreader.”

Whatever the menu calls for, no more than three forks should be set at the left and three knives and the oyster fork at the right. If more pieces are required, they can be brought in as needed. This will avoid a cluttered appearance. Desert flatware, except at family meals, when it is placed with the rest of the utensils, is brought with the dessert service and finger bowl. The finger bowl is set on the dessert plate, with or without a doily, and the desert fork on the left and the desert spoon on the right.

The diner, following the hostess, should remove the flatware to the table, and place the finger bowl above the fork on the left. Spoons for coffee served with the dessert, come with the service at that time. Otherwise, when this service is set up in another room, to be served at the end of the meal, they are placed on each individual saucer.

The cutting edges of all knife should be turned toward the plate. Lay all flatware one inch from the edge of the table, inline with the service plate and napkin, making a neat, parallel row. The exception would be at a round table; there the row of utensils would start at the table edge, on the outside, but the last piece to be used should be one inch in, and next to the plate. Place them far enough apart for convenience, yet sufficiently close to avoid and untidy or careless appearance.

Place settings should be orderly and symmetrical, with convenient room on either side for each person’s comfort. The basic minimum place setting in flatware include six pieces: knife, fork, teaspoon, soup spoon, salad fork, and butter knife or spreader.— Patricia Easterbrook Roberts, 1960

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

Etiquette for “Touching Up” in Public

At the risk of sounding absolutely inflexible, Etiquipedia disagrees with this advice from the dawn of the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1960’s. Powdering one’s nose at the dinner table, or anywhere in public (except possibly the privacy of one’s automobile), is not condoned as good manners. Limit your touch ups to lipstick. Anything more should be taken care of in the nearest powder-room (called such with good reason!) or ladies room.

Fixing Up in Public

Your clothes should be fitted, worn and anchored so you need not pull them down, tuck them in, or twist them around once they are on. If they don’t stay where they should, excuse yourself and make your adjustments in the ladies room. 

It is common practice these days for a lady to renew her lipstick or powder her nose after dinner at the table if she does it lightly and unobtrusively. But anything more elaborate than that should be taken care of privately. Particularly if it involves hair, which many people find repulsive in juxtaposition with food. — From “McCall’s Book of Everything Etiquette,” 1960

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

Etiquette for First Fork Placement

There are 3 different places you can properly find a “first” fork or “oyster fork.” 

Since the Gilded Age in the latter 1800’s, more than 3 forks on the left side of the place setting at one time has been frowned upon. “First” forks, however, cocktail forks, oyster forks, fruit forks, etc..., are allowed to be placed to the right of the setting, with the tines resting in the bowl of the soup spoon (so a diner on one’s right doesn’t think it goes with his or her forks on the left of their setting), or placed flat on the right, next to where the spoon sits. This leaves plenty of room. 

More dinner course forks can always be brought out with subsequent courses. And dessert forks are either allowed to be set above the dinner plate or may be brought out with the dessert course or finger bowl.

 

Images from the McCall’s “Book of Everyday Etiquette”

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

A Social Arbiter Loses Lofty Perch

“The first object to be aimed at is to make your dinners so charming and agreeable, the invitations to them are eagerly sought for, and to let all feel that it is a great privilege to dine at your house, where they are sure there will be only those whom they wish to meet. You cannot instruct people buy a book on how to entertain, though Aristotle is said to have applied his talents to a compilation of a code of laws for the table. Success in entertaining is accomplished by magnetism and tact, which combined constitute social genius. It is the ladder to social success. If successfully done, it naturally creates jealousy.” — Menu and quote from Ward McAllister, in his book, “Society as I Have Found It”

First Talk of Deposing the 400’s Ward McAllister from His Societal Dictatorship 

Ward McAllister's venture into the ranks of the great public to take a hand in the management of the centennial ball is likely to be attended with disastrous results to him as a social leader. When Mr. McAllister awoke to the fact that he was not the entire committee— merely a member of it—it astonished him.
To have his dictates questioned in social affairs was a new, novel, and rather unpleasant experience. That the world should continue to move after his deposition from the absolute dictatorship was a surprise indeed. But the world does move, and the motion doesn’t suit ward McAllister.


The trouble is that the deposition from leadership in centennial affairs isn’t all that is liable to be the outcome of the sudden and startling discovery that the social world can wag without the assistance of Mr. McAllister. The latter factor struck the society leaders, or those who would be such, with peculiar force. At the clubs it has created as much of a sensation as did the recent cable bulletin to the effect that the Prince of Wales had appeared in public without gloves. 

It has led to more animated discussion in the Union and Knickerbocker Clubs than has any subject since the announcement that trousers were to be one and one-half inches narrower in the vicinity of the knees, than they were last season. The matter was started at the Union Club, when a member, who is also a Patriarch, is said, after an hour’s deep thought, to have created almost a panic by the inquiry: “I say there, would it be possible to give a Patriarch’s Ball and have it managed by a committee instead of Mr. Ward McAllister, doncher know?”


The question alone seemed like the starting of a social rebellion. A revolution it would be, at least. The news that the question had been to asked spread to the Brunswick and thence to the Knickerbocker with cyclonic speed and before the members of the Union had fairly recovered from its effects, it was the only question of any moment discussed or even thought of. Social circles caught it up, and now the ladies talk of it with bated breath between discussions cut painfully short about the hitherto all important questions, as to how to trim hats or whether costumes shall tend toward the Directoire or Empire style.


Society is deeply agitated about the matter. The Knickerbocker Club has already decided against Mr. McAllister. The Union Club is very evenly divided just now, with a tendency committee word, though the official action of the governing committee had not been bullet and up to midnight last night. The general belief, however, is that the next assembly of the patriarchs will be under the management of a committee instead of under a dictatorship. Social lights fear that the result may be disastrous, but the male element in the much talked of 400 seem determined, because Mr. McAllister has actually brought them into scorn and ridicule by his failure to retain his dictatorship and thus their prestige. — The New York Times April 1889

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

A History of Mealtimes and More

 

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, courses were not served separately; several dishes would be set on the table together as part of one “remove.” A dinner might involve three “removes,” and a banquet, many more.
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The “Removes,” a popular Gilded Age dinner course, is the most confusing of courses.“The Removes” or “Remove” wasn’t originally referring to a food. Its name was merely referencing the time used to remove and switch out side dishes and crumb the table perhaps, in the preparation for the inexplicably named, “Second Main Course” (an oxymoron — which sounds like poor grammar to us at Etiquipedia), or the British “Roast Course.” 

The Changeable Hours of Mealtime

The excepted normal hours for eating varied from century to century and from country to country, and indeed they have varied, and still vary to some degree, in each individual household.


By the 16th century the French and Italians had developed elaborate, highly season dishes. English fare, by comparison, was simple, although just as hearty. The Elizabethan table was a gargantuan display of meat, bird, fowl, and vegetables, and special dishes like salmagundi and peacock pâté.


In those days dinner was served to the upper classes at about 11 o’clock in the morning and was the day’s main meal. Supper, usually the only other meal, might appear at about 5 o’clock p.m. It was considered smart to dine early, for the working classes, and some merchants, ate later in the day.


There are also references to people breaking their fast earlier in the morning before going on a long journey, or if they were ill, and to certain ladies in London, who “break their fast in their beds”. On occasions there were also snacks in between of bread, butter, milk, and cheese with ale or beer, that extended to “rear suppers... when it was time to go to rest.”


Travelers ate at the inns— “ordinaries“ —which supplied an assortment of snacks for those who did not bring their own food along. There were no restaurants, even in London, but one could buy pies and prepare dishes from the cooked-meat shop.


From the 16th to the 19th centuries, courses were not served separately; several dishes would be set on the table together as part of one “remove.” A dinner might involve three “removes,” and a banquet many more.


Silver, pewter, and wooden platters were used, and the same one kept throughout the meal. Some wooden platters, flat ones, were turned over for another “remove.” Poorer people used a thick slice of bread (or trenchers) to set their food on. This absorbed the juices and was eaten at the end of the meal.


There were many changes in English and American eating habits before the present pattern began to evolve at the turn of the 20th century. Dinner, the chief meal of the day, is ordinarily thought of as the evening meal. This was not always so. In some European countries the main meal is still taken mid-day, while in others – particularly Spain —it is eaten after 10:00 p.m.


In the 17th century, the day began with a good, healthy breakfast. This was followed by a heavy noonday meal, served at about 1 or 2 o’clock, and a comparatively light supper. In America, the custom of eating supper (usually three or four hours after tea) was in keeping with the English practice of earlier decades. Among the fare served to the settlers at suppertime, we read of such tidbits, mentioned by Jean McClure in her booklet, “Early American Table Settings,” as “hogs ears forced, pickled pigs feet and ears, ox-Palates.”


In farmhouse is on both sides of the Atlantic, tables were “set out” with all the food at once, but in the village, the squire’s wife “set out two courses” in English fashion. In city homes, the two courses were extremely elaborate and offered great variety.


This habit of covering the table with platters of food was not so that each person would sample everything, but so that each would find something to his taste. Since it was considered ungenteel at the time for the ladies to drink more than one glass of wine, they retired to the drawing room or parlor, after the desert course. Later, the gentleman join them for tea or coffee.– Patricia Easterbrook Roberts, 1967

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

Etiquette and Lebanese Cuisine

When Lebanese expatriates are asked what they miss the most about the country, oftentimes the answer is the same: “The food!”. The lavish cuisine consists of more than forty mezzé dishes with a variety of cold plates followed by hot ones artfully presented in Service à la Française. 

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Table layout for the second course, in Elizabeth Raffald's The Experienced English Housekeeper, 4th Edition, 1775. Identifiable dishes include three mammal species, four birds, and four of fishes and seafood.

  Image source, Public Domain Wikipedia 

Lebanese cuisine is not only a reflection of national heritage, but also a world- famous cultural staple, elevating Lebanon to prominent gastronomic standards. The food is rich with aromatic flavors, inspired at once by the cooking of regional influences and of dominant powers throughout history. Even so, the most famous dishes remain the home-made recipes passed down from one generation to another and among communities from grandmothers, to mothers, daughters, granddaughters, neighbors and friends.

When Lebanese expatriates are asked what they miss the most about the country, oftentimes the answer is the same: “The food!”. The lavish cuisine consists of more than forty mezzé dishes with a variety of cold plates followed by hot ones artfully presented in Service à la Française.

Unlike other Arab cultures, Lebanese enjoy chatting at mealtimes. Conversations can easily shift from travel, fashion and TV shows to heated political discussions, which most likely end with pleasantries and good laughs to cheer up the mood.

Unlike other Arab cultures, Lebanese enjoy chatting at mealtimes. Conversations can easily shift from travel, fashion and TV shows to heated political discussions, which most likely end with pleasantries and good laughs to cheer up the mood.

Lebanese indulge their guests by offering them meals with abundance. Invitees should gracefully appreciate the generosity of the hosts, for no food gets wasted at the end of these feasts. Based on Arab customs, food charity is practiced by caring and sharing with others, be it the relatives, the neighbors, the helpers or the needy ones in the community.

A lot of mezzés are eaten with Arabic bread, otherwise known as the pita bread. The traditional Lebanese table setting does not include a bread plate however. Therefore, once the bread is cut by hand, it is best to place it on the side of the plate rather than on the table cloth.

When guests are not familiar with some ingredients offered by the host, it is mannerly not to refuse the suggestions, unless for health reasons, but to savor them graciously, as much as possible. For this shows humility, kindness and appreciation to the hosts’ efforts.

Contributor, Irma Vartanian Balian, founding Director of ProtocolWise ™ has lived in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Her rich cultural background, her commitment to excellence, along with her expertise in Protocol and Soft Diplomacy, equipped lrma to provide valuable advice to her clients while putting them at ease. Irma trains leaders, corporate teams, diplomats, individuals, families and professionals, both regionally and internationally with assurance and professionalism.

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