If no grace is said, you will immediately proceed to unfold your napkin and spread it over your lap. There are those that would tell you partly to unfold it and throw it over one knee; others would tell you to throw it over both knees; but when it is simply thrown over your knees, it cannot serve the purpose for which it is supplied – that of protecting your clothing. In fact, the clothing of no man that has a heavy moustache is out of danger, unless he virtually makes a bib of his napkin, a thing that from time immemorial has been considered a sin against good usage. Men that are not slaves to fickle fashion, to the dicta of nobody knows whom, will use their napkins so as to accomplish the object for which they are provided. A man of sense, however, will consider the occasion, and be governed somewhat by it.
Previously to being served and during the waits that occur between the courses, do not play with the knives, the forks, the spoons, or with anything that is before you. Leave everything as you find it, unless you should find a piece of bread on your right hand, in which case you may remove it to your left.
As soon as you are helped, begin to eat, or at least begin to occupy yourself with what you have before you. Do not wait till your neighbors are served – a custom that was long ago abandoned.
Never offer to pass to another a plate to which you have been helped. What your host or hostess sends you you should retain.
The second course, at all formal dinners, however served, is usually a soup, which, if its consistency and the beard on your upper lip will admit of it, you will take from the side of the spoon, being careful the while to make no noise. Better far to put your spoon into your mouth, handle and all, than to make a noise in sipping your soup, as some people do, that can be heard all over the dining-room; better also put your spoon into your mouth than to slobber or to bespatter yourself. The writer would have to materially shorten his moustache, or to go without his daily dish of soup, if he had to take it from the side of the spoon. He is not willing to do either. Soup, when practicable, should be sipped from the side of the spoon, not, as most people suppose, because there is any objection to putting a spoon in the mouth, but because to put the spoon in the mouth the elbow must be extended, whereas, when we sip from the side of the spoon, the elbow remains almost stationary at the side, the spoon being manipulated wholly with the forearm – a much more graceful movement, because simpler than that that the putting of the spoon in the mouth renders necessary. Not only soup, but everything else eaten with a spoon should be sipped from its side when practicable, but then only. For any one to attempt to sip from the side of the spoon certain soups that are usually served nearly as thick as porridge – pea, bean, and tomato with rice, for example – is absurd. Nothing has a more vulgar look than an obvious endeavor to be fine. The spoon should be filled by an outward rather than an inward movement, and the plate should never be tilted to get the last teaspoonful. If your soup is too hot, do not blow it, but wait till it cools. In eating it sit upright, and do not rest your forearms on the table.
Silver fish-knives are now found on most tables. Where there are none, fish should be eaten with a bit of bread in the left hand and a fork in the right. Neither soup nor fish, where there is any ceremony, is ever offered, much less accepted, twice.
At the table, the most difficult and the most important thing to learn is to use the knife and fork thoroughly well. To do this both must be so held that the ends of the handles are directly in the palms of the hand, i. e., when the point of the knife is used.
At all tables where four-tined forks are provided, the knife should be used only to divide the food, never to convey it to the mouth. For this purpose, we use either the fork, a spoon, or the fingers.
As the fork is now used almost exclusively to convey all kinds of food that have any consistency to the mouth, it is very desirable that one should know how to use it properly. There is a right and a wrong way, a skilful and an awkward way to use it, as well as to use any other implement.
The fork must not be used in the left hand with the tines pointing upward, i. e., spoon fashion. Persons that so use it, though they may and generally do think they are doing quite the proper thing, are really doing as awkward a thing as it would be possible for them to do at the table. They have – they will doubtless be surprised to hear – their lesson but half learned.
Food that is conveyed to the mouth with the fork held in the left hand should be taken up either on the point of the tines, or on their convex side. In the right hand, the fork may be used with the tines pointing upward or downward, as one will.
Previously to the advent of the four-tined silver fork, which was introduced into England from the Continent about the year 1814 or 1815, everybody ate with the knife – the Chesterfields, the Brummels, the Blessingtons, the Savarins, and all. The fastidious were very careful, however, not to put the knife into the mouth edge first. That was avoided by the well bred then as much as the putting the knife into the mouth at all is avoided by the well bred now.
Eating with the knife is not, in itself, a grievous offence; it does not, as some pretend, endanger the lips, even though the knife is used edge first. It is simply a matter of prejudice. Yet your lady hostess would rather you would speak ill of her friends and make bad puns than eat with your knife at her table. Why? Because your eating with your knife at her table would argue, nowadays, that she associated with low-bred, uncultured people.
Should you, however, find yourself at a table where they have the old-fashioned steel forks, eat with your knife, as the others do, and do not let it be seen that you have any objection to doing so, nor let it be known that you ever do otherwise. He that advised us “to do in Rome as the Romans do” was a true gentleman.
The fork is used in eating such vegetables as can be easily managed with it; those that cannot be easily managed with it are eaten with a dessert-spoon – peas, stewed tomatoes, and succotash, for example, especially when they are served in small dishes. A high English authority says: “Eat peas with a dessert-spoon, and curry also.”
Asparagus may be handled with the fingers of the left hand. So may Saratoga potatoes and olives. On this subject we recently clipped the following paragraph from one of our periodicals: “That there is a variety of ways to eat asparagus, one may convince one’s self by a single visit to the dining-room of any of our fashionable summer hotels. There one will see all the methods of carrying the stalk to the mouth. But the Paris Figaro, in one of its ‘Conseils par Jour,’ on ‘How is Asparagus Eaten in Good Society?’ says: ‘One must carefully abstain from taking the stalk in the fingers to dip it in the sauce and afterward put it in the mouth, as a great many people do. The tip should be cut off and eaten by means of the fork, the rest of the stalk being laid aside on the plate, of course without being touched by the fingers. Those that proceed in any other way are barbarians.’ We may observe, in reply to ‘Pau de Paris,’ that many persons belonging to the best society do not hesitate to eat asparagus à la bonne franquette, and yet are by no means ‘barbarians.’ We do not agree with our confrère for two reasons. In the first place, the exquisite vegetable cannot be properly appreciated unless eaten in the way that excites the ire of our contemporary. Our second reason is that, from an art point of view, there cannot be a more charming sight than to see a pretty woman ‘caressing’ a piece of asparagus.”
Green corn should be cut from the cob and then eaten with a fork. First run your knife through the middle of each row of kernels and then cut them off. A dull knife is the best, because it does not really cut the kernels off, but forces them out of the hulls.
Cheese is eaten with a fork, or is placed, with a knife, on bits of bread and carried to the mouth with the thumb and finger, care being taken not to touch the cheese.
Pies and pâtés, as a rule, are eaten with a fork only. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to use a knife to divide the crust, but not often.
“Jellies, blanc-mange, iced puddings, and the like are eaten,” says an English authority, “with a fork, as are