More Crescent Side Plate Etiquette

 A “steel bladed bird knife and bird fork” paired with a typical 19th Century “game plate” and a crescent shaped “bone plate.” –  From What Have We Here? The Etiquette and Essentials of Lives Once Lived, from the Georgian Era through the Gilded Age and Beyond...

The “game course” was once a staple of fine dining and expensive sets of “game plates” were purchased by fastidious hosts and hostesses, to serve the game on to each of their dinner guests. The game sets featured a usual dozen plates, each with a different motif. 

In Gilded Age dining, after the roast course, the game course was next in order (if it was included, as it generally was in an elaborate dinner). Celery was the appropriate accompaniment of the game course, as it was eaten with the fingers. Salads as accompaniments were not recommended. The steel fork tines and knife blades were known to taint the flavor of salads and their dressings.

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

 

Graceful Dinner Seating Etiquette

Formal Table Seating For Groups Divisible By Four, without Host and Hostess at opposite ends of the table— 
Images courtesy Bernadette Petrotta 

“In seating one's self at table a comfortable posture is not incompatible with a dignified attitude. The shoulders should not be thrown back too far, nor should they drop forward. It is the latter pose which produces the inclination of the arms suggestive of the 'all elbows' idea which some people give of themselves.”

– Eliza M. Lavin, 1888

A 2020 Instagram query from Happy Soul —How do you take a seat the dining table i.e from the left of the chair or right of the chair or either way is correct? Then how do you leave the chair ie from left or right or either way is fine?

Reply from Maura J. Graber, Etiquipedia Site Editor: It is dependent on several factors, so common sense and some quick thought comes into play, just as it does with most other etiquette. Is it a formal dinner party in someone’s home? How many others are seating themselves at the same time? How is the table set up? Will seating yourself from the left side of the chair interfere with someone serving food? 

In the U.S., food and drinks are served on different sides — food from the left, drinks from the right. In Europe, everything is served from the right — food and drinks. Silently, ask the same question to yourself as you are walking toward the table on the right side. If one is in a restaurant, is everyone being seated at the same time? Are you joining a party already seated. Does someone have a walker, cane or other aid, sitting next to their chair that will impede your seating yourself? 

As a rule, I personally tend to “enter” the seat from the left and “exit” from the seat on my right. However, I always take a look around me before making those choices, and ask myself it it will work effortlessly, or if I will be causing discomfort or a challenge for anyone near me. Either way is fine, as long as no one else will be put out by the choice made.

Traditional Formal Table Seating For Six, Ten, Fourteen, Or Eighteen People, with Host and Hostess at Opposite Ends

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

“Finger-Eating” Etiquette

Even at formal dinners, “finger-eating” is the well-mannered method for certain foods. Glamorous artichokes are properly eaten with the fingers down to the “heart,” which is in the fork territory. – Above, an individual artichoke plate with bowl for butter.

Green Light Shines On ‘Finger-Eating’

Is it ever proper to eat with your fingers? Etiquette experts say “yes!” Even at formal dinners, “finger-eating” is the well-mannered method for certain foods. Glamorous artichokes are properly eaten with the fingers down to the “heart,” which is in the fork territory. Asparagus, when not covered with a sauce,may be picked up with the fingers in the best of style. There's no need to hesitate to serve guests dishes such as fried chicken or corn on the cob, because they are difficult to eat with knives and forks. Lead the way by picking up the food as a cue to your guests. 

Helpful Deed 

At “sit-down” dinners, the thoughtful hostess provides two large napkins at each place for wiping fingers. Here are some additional socially correct finger foods: 

BACON –If the bacon is crisp, it may be eaten with the fingers. But if you prefer your bacon less than crumble-dry, a knife and fork are required. 

CAKE –Tiny cakes, such as petit-fours, should be eaten with the fingers. Pound cake may be broken into bite-size pieces and also eaten with the fingers. Sticky cake or a larger portion, requires a fork.

 Not in N.Y…

 CHlCKEN— Geography has some effect on chicken manners. According to the experts, fried or broiled chicken may be picked up and eaten with the fingers everywhere, except in New York. In this Eastern area, chicken served at formal dinners calls for knives and forks. Finger eating is for informal occasions only. 

But in other states, it’s considered perfectly acceptable to pick up serving-size pieces of fried or broiled chicken for all occasions. 

RELISHES – Celery and olives should be eaten with the fingers, except when they are a part of a salad or cooked dish. Radishes and small pickles are also finger-food. 

FRUIT – Fresh apricots, cherries, grapes, and plums are always eaten with the fingers. However, when eating fresh apples and pears at the table, peel and quarter with a table knife before eating with the fingers. – Desert Sun, 1963

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

Amy Vanderbilt on 1955 Teen Etiquette

Barbershop poster featuring the latest in haircuts for teen-aged boys and young men from the mid-1950’s– Q. I am a girl almost 14. My parents have reason (they think) to believe that I am turning bad. I like boys, but what girl doesn't? At what age is it proper for girls to go in cars with good boys? At what age is it permissible to smoke?

Teen-Age Topics

Many parents find it difficult to answer their children when they ask about sex either because their own knowledge is faulty or because their own questions to their parents were sloughed off with embarrassed evasions. The best advisers say that children should be told the answers to the specific questions they ask, but should not be given long scientific explanations before they are ready for them. Many of you are writing to me because you have had difficulty discussing this matter with your parents. Here are some of your letters:

Q. I am a 12-year-old girl. I have asked Mother about sex, but she says she will tell me when I am older. I have talked about it with a girl friend, but what she told me just puzzles me. I think if I'm old enough to know the stork didn't bring me I should have an explanation, don't you? S.H., La Junta, Colo.  

A. Girls and boys ask these questions at different ages; perhaps your mother does not remember being interested in the subject so early. Educators know, however, that some children begin to ask such questions as early as the third or fourth year and feel that they should be told what they are able to understand. 

Some time ago I mentioned a booklet put out by the Child Study Association of America. As a result, the Association received many requests for it from readers of this column. It is called When Children Ask About Sex. Call your mother's attention to the booklet; it may help her discuss the subject with you comfortably. 

Q. I am a girl almost 14. My parents have reason (they think) to believe that I am turning bad. I like boys, but what girl doesn't? At what age is it proper for girls to go in cars with good boys? At what age is it permissible to smoke? R.C., Fairfield, Conn.  

A. A child that does not have his parents' complete confidence is often unhappy and defiant. I know that some parents are excessively anxious over their daughters' reputations; however, it is a very difficult age for parents because it is hard indeed to protect children against the very real evils in every community. 

If the relationship between child and parent is such that discussion of problems seems very difficult or embarrassing, the child should have an opportunity to talk to the family doctor, a teacher or other adviser about the things that puzzle him. Parents are usually the best judges of just who is bad company for a child. Let them meet the boys with whom you wish to go in cars, and abide by their rules concerning your returning home. I do not like to see teenagers smoke at all. You must work this out with your parents. 

Q. I am a girl 12 years of age and many people take me for 15 or 16. I don't look a bit my age, except that I don't wear make-up. My parents take me for a baby; I can't wear even a dash of lipstick. S.C., Valley Stream, N.Y.  

A. I think your parents are very sensible. Most girls of 12 like to pretend that they look at least 16. Although in some communities girls of your age wear a little light lipstick, at least to parties, I don't like to see it even then. You have plenty of time in which to grow up. 

Q. You are insulting juveniles' dignity and self-respect by persisting in your column that we let our parents have the final word as to whom we should date, when we should be back home and other matters of etiquette. I know that state laws give our parents the right to control our lives, and no one should be encouraged to try to violate the law, but you could use your influence to correct those laws. Or are you one of those Victorians who believe we are too stupid to run our lives and so should stand helplessly by while our parents ruin them for us? B.L., Salem, Va.  

A. I believe in the protection of minors. The parentless “wild children” of wartime and postwar Europe are pathetic examples of what happens when children must fend for themselves.– Amy Vanderbilt in “Parade Magazine,” 1955

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

Stork Brings Lapse in Etiquette

 The grandchildren surely could overlook the Senator’s overlooking the proper mourning period, as $1,000,000 each was promised to them with the arrival of his newest child–  “Don't you think you should have waited until the year was up?” queried an agitated stickler for etiquette. “Oh, I thought I'd go early and avoid the crush,” responded Mrs. Crocker, and of course after she broke the ice, the rest of the Burlingamites began to thaw.

Stork Brought Along 

One Million Dollars Each for this 

Baby’s Relations

The Charley Clarks are living very quietly these days, awaiting the advent of the stork, who carries a million dollar note in his bill. This is the golden spoon which Senator Clark has promised to present to each of his grandchildren. In spite of the Tobin prestige, the thermometer fell below zero when young Clark took a bride unto himself just a few months after his first wife died. Burlingame society, headed by Mrs. Carolan, decided that it would be very outre to call on the Charley Clarks before his year of mourning for his first wife had elapsed. 

This was finally accepted as the correct solution of the complicated case, but Mrs. Will Crocker, with her usual independence, punctured this neatly evolved etiquette by driving over and calling on the Clarks at once and entertaining them at dinner. “Don't you think you should have waited until the year was up?” queried an agitated stickler for etiquette. “Oh, I thought I'd go early and avoid the crush,” responded Mrs. Crocker, and of course after she broke the ice, the rest of the Burlingamites began to thaw. But now that the flapping of the wings of the long-legged bird is heard, the Clarks have withdrawn from all societal activity. – From San Francisco News Letter, 1905

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

Evolving American Dining Etiquette

From Colonists to First Peoples to American Communal Family Dining

Depiction of Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony 

At Plymouth Colony standards of deportment were established from readings of the poet Richard Braithwait's The English Gentleman and Description of a Good Wife, (1619). From the beginning, American society struggled with questions of identity, debating whether to create a uniquely American code of etiquette or merely to perpetuate the customs of the mother country. Eleazar Moody's School of Good Manners, (1715) did little to differentiate New Englander's manners from those of their cousins in Britain.

Mandan Feast ~ “The simple feast which was spread before us consisted of three dishes only, two of which were served in wooden bowls, and the third in an earthen vessel of their own manufacture, somewhat in shape of a bread-tray in our own country. This last contained a quantity of pem-I-can and marrow fat; and one of the former held a fine brace of buffalo ribs, delightfully roasted; and the other was filled with a kind of paste or pudding, made of the flour of the "pomme hlanche", as the French call it, a delicious turnip of the prairie, finely flavored with the buffalo berries, which are collected in great quantities in this country, and used with divers dishes in cooking, as we in civilized countries use dried currants, which they very much resemble.” –from Catlin's Letters and Notes 

Travelers and explorers sometimes encountered customs that, although different from their own, prompted admiration. While living alone among the Mandan, the US artist George Catlin, known for his depictions of Plains Indian life, remarked on the style of dining that allowed sitting cross-legged or reclining with the feet drawn close under the body. He noted that the Indian women gracefully served the diners and reseated themselves in a movement that allowed them modesty and poise at the same time that it left their hands free for lifting and maneuvering dishes.

A Canadian Inuit 

More common for those traveling or living in unfamiliar climes were manners that struck the visitors as unsanitary– or worse. Sir William Edward Parry, Arctic expeditioner to the Canadian north from 1819-1822, saw Eskimo etiquette from the point of view of a polite Englishman from the Regency Period. He describes how, when serving of food from the “ootkooseek” (cook pot) during a meal, the woman of the house lifted a lump of cooked meat with her fingers and handed it to the man of the house, who began the repast. After clenching the mass between his teeth, he sliced of a portion and passed both knife and remaining meat to the next diner. 
 

Communal American Family Style Dining – This style remains popular in the United States, though it is not always possible in modern day blended or fractured family homes. 

The communal dining style common in farm families of North America dictated an etiquette suited to time and place. The absence of serving pieces required some restructuring of formal rules of table service. “Aunt Betsy's Rule,” and “How It Worked,” 1863, issued by the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School, explained the use of personal knife and fork for removing meat, potatoes, vegetables, and pudding from a single shared dish. The text added, in the same way, a piece of bread or better was cut, and the tip of the knife dipped in the salt. The pitcher of water was passed around the table, and all drank from it.

The Shakers, who lived and worked in communes in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ohio, observed a strict separation of the sexes in the commune refectory. Rules for the clan required that all wait until the elder begin eating. Diners cut their meat into square and equal parts and took some of all foods on their plates. They clean their plates and “shakered” them by laying knife fork and bones to one side before scraping up crumbs. 

The rules of the table mandated covering the nose and mouth with a handkerchief when sneezing or coughing, using a clean knife to cut butter, and swallowing chewed food and using a napkin before speaking or drinking.

In the 1880s, works such as “Social Etiquette of New York” demonstrated that the ongoing debate between traditional European manners and new American ways favored the Continent. In the late 19th century however, Americans began to become comfortable with themselves and formulate their own rules for formal table setting, serving, and eating.

                  

Front and back of late 1800’s collectors’ cigarette card for Thanksgiving Day, from a set featuring different holidays around the world. 

–Most text from the Encyclopedia of Kitchen History by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

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

Gilded Age Bathing Fashion

Larking about with a “ride” on the beach, two young women in their proper sea bathing attire.— Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society detailed the fabric and shape of the garment, which “should be made of flannel.” A “gray tint” was advisable because “it does not soon fade and grow ugly from contact with salt water.” The “best” style was either a “loose sacque” or “yoke waist.” The dress was belted at the waist, and the skirt reached “mid way between the knee and the ankle.”

- Image source, Etiquipedia private image library

At the Newport shoreline, Bailey’s Beach offered “a dip in the sea at the society bathing grounds on which the public were not permitted to trespass.” Guarded by a low wall, Bailey’s Beach, according to May Van Rensselaer, was "the favorite bathing beach of the fashionable world" Elizabeth Lehr called it “Newport's most exclusive club. A syndicate called the Spouting Rock Beach Association (aka Bailey’s Beach,) purchased the beach in the little cove in 1896, having constructed one hundred new oceanfront bathhouses and a pavilion was guarded by a “watchman in his gold-laced uniform” who “protected its sanctity from all interlopers” (“He knew every carriage on sight, fixed newcomers with an eagle eye, swooped down upon them and demanded their names.”) Those who did not have proper credentials were dispatched to Easton's Beach, "the Common Beach," as the habitués of Bailey's were wont to call it.

Some few ventured to swim, but a lady's bathing costume, when wet, almost nullified the effort. The apparel for Bailey's Beach (or any seashore of the Gilded Age) was better termed a “bathing dress.” Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society detailed the fabric and shape of the garment, which “should be made of flannel.” A “gray tint” was advisable because “it does not soon fade and grow ugly from contact with salt water.” The “best” style was either a “loose sacque” or “yoke waist.” The dress was belted at the waist, and the skirt reached “mid way between the knee and the ankle.” Beneath this dress were “full trowsers” with the pant legs “gathered” into bands at each ankle. An “oilskin cap” was suggested “to protect the hair, which becomes harsh in salt water.” A pair of “socks the color of the dress complete the costume.” — From Cecelia Tichi, in “What Would Mrs. Astor Do?” 2018

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

Gilded Age Card Style Etiquette

An elegant use of the card distinguishes the well-informed in social usage. This distinction shows when the distribution of cards begins.

STYLE OF CARDS

The prevailing style of cards for women is nearly square (about 2 x 3 inches). A fine smooth-finished card-board of medium weight and stiffness is used. The color is pearl-white, not cream. The engraving is plain script of medium size. A man's card is smaller and narrower, proportionately (about 1 x 2 inches), and is of slightly heavier card-board. The engraving may be somewhat larger and heavier, but should not appear coarse.

The responsibility of furnishing the correct style of card rests with the engraver, whose business it is to know the ruling fashion of the day. Any one may have an elegant card by intrusting the choice to a first-class stationer. But it is not half the battle to secure an elegant card. An elegant use of the card distinguishes the well-informed in social usage. This distinction shows when the distribution of cards begins.— Agnes H. Morton, 1899

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