Etiquette by Emily Post (top novels to read .txt) 📖

But at formal dinners, dishes are never passed twice, and are therefore taken direct to the pantry after being passed.

Clearing Table For Dessert

At dinner always, whether at a formal one, or whether a member of the family is alone, the salad plates, or the plates of whatever course precedes dessert, are removed, leaving the table plateless. The salt cellars and pepper pots are taken off on the serving tray (without being put on any napkin or doily, as used to be the custom), and the crumbs are brushed off each place at table with a folded napkin onto a tray held under the table edge. A silver crumb scraper is still seen occasionally when the tablecloth is plain, but its hard edge is not suitable for embroidery and lace, and ruinous to a bare table, so that a napkin folded to about the size and thickness of an iron-holder is the crumb-scraper of to-day.

Dessert

The captious say "dessert means the fruit and candy which come after the ices." "Ices" is a misleading word too, because suggestive of the individual "ices" which flourished at private dinners in the Victorian age, and still survive at public dinners, suppers at balls, and at wedding breakfasts, but which are seen at not more than one private dinner in a thousand—if that.

In the present world of fashion the "dessert" is ice-cream, served in one mold; not ices (a lot of little frozen images). And the refusal to call the "sweets" at the end of the dinner, which certainly include ice cream and cake, "dessert," is at least not the interpretation of either good usage or good society. In France, where the word "dessert" originated, "ices" were set apart from dessert merely because French chefs delight in designating each item of a meal as a separate course. But chefs and cook-books notwithstanding, dessert means everything sweet that comes at the end of a meal. And the great American dessert is ice cream—or pie. Pie, however, is not a "company" dessert. Ice cream on the other hand is the inevitable conclusion of a formal dinner. The fact that the spoon which is double the size of a teaspoon is known as nothing but a dessert spoon, is offered in further proof that "dessert" is "spoon" and not "finger" food!

Dessert Service

There are two, almost equally used, methods of serving dessert. The first or "hotel method," also seen in many fashionable private houses, is to put on a china plate for ice cream or a first course, and the finger bowl on a plate by itself, afterwards. In the "private house" service, the entire dessert paraphernalia is put on at once.

In detail: In the two-course, or hotel, service, the "dessert" plate is of china, or if of glass, it must have a china one under it. A china dessert plate is just a fairly deep medium sized plate and it is always put on the table with a "dessert" spoon and fork on it. After the inevitable ice cream has been eaten, a fruit plate with a finger bowl on it, is put on in exchange. A doily goes under the finger bowl, and a fruit knife and fork on either side.

In the single course, or private house, service, the ice cream plate is of glass and belongs under the finger bowl which it matches. The glass plate and finger bowl in turn are put on the fruit plate with a doily between, and the dessert spoon and fork go on either side of the finger bowl (instead of the fruit knife and fork). This arrangement of plates is seen in such houses as the Worldlys' and the Oldnames', and in fact in most very well done houses. The finger bowls and glass plates that match make a prettier service than the finger bowl on a china plate by itself; also it eliminates a change—but not a removal—of plates. In this service, a guest lifts the finger bowl off and eats his ice cream on the glass plate, after which the glass plate is removed and the china one is left for fruit.

Some people think this service confusing because an occasional guest, in lifting off the finger bowl, lifts the glass plate too, and eats his dessert on his china plate. It is merely necessary for the servants to notice at which place the china plate has been used and to bring a clean one; otherwise a "cover" is left with a glass plate or a bare tablecloth for fruit. Also any one taking fruit must have a fruit knife and fork brought to him. Fruit is passed immediately after ice-cream; and chocolates, conserves, or whatever the decorative sweets may be, are passed last.

This single service may sound as though it were more complicated than the two-course service, but actually it is less. Few people use the wrong plate and usually the ice-cream plates having others under them can be taken away two at a time. Furthermore, scarcely any one takes fruit, so that the extra knives and forks are few, if any.

Before finishing dessert, it may be as well to add in detail, that the finger bowl doiley is about five or six inches in diameter; it may be round or square, and of the finest and sheerest needlework that can be found (or afforded). It must always be cream or white. Colored embroideries look well sometimes on a country lunch table but not at dinner. No matter where it is used, the finger bowl is less than half filled with cold water; and at dinner parties, a few violets, sweet peas, or occasionally a gardenia, is put in it. (A slice of lemon is never seen outside of a chop-house where eating with the fingers may necessitate the lemon in removing grease. Pretty thought!)

Black coffee is never served at a fashionable dinner table, but is brought afterwards with cigarettes and liqueurs into the drawing-room for the ladies, and with cigars, cigarettes and liqueurs into the smoking room for the gentlemen.

If there is no smoking-room, coffee and cigars are brought to the table for the gentlemen after the ladies have gone into the drawing-room.

Place Cards

The place cards are usually about an inch and a half high by two inches long, sometimes slightly larger. People of old family have their crest embossed in plain white; occasionally an elderly hostess, following a lifelong custom, has her husband's crest stamped in gold. Nothing other than a crest must ever be engraved on a place card; and usually they are plain, even in the houses of old families.

Years ago "hand-painted" place cards are said to have been in fashion. But excepting on such occasions as a Christmas or a birthday dinner, they are never seen in private houses to-day.

Menu Cards

Small, standing porcelain slates, on which the menu is written, are seen on occasional dinner tables. Most often there is only one which is placed in front of the host; but sometimes there is one between every two guests.

Seating The Table

As has already been observed, the most practical way to seat the table is to write the names on individual cards first, and then "place" them as though playing solitaire; the guest of honor on the host's right, the second lady in rank on his left; the most distinguished or oldest gentleman on the right of the hostess, and the other guests filled in between.

Who Is The Guest Of Honor?

The guest of honor is the oldest lady present, or a stranger whom you wish for some reason to honor. A bride at her first dinner in your house, after her return from her honeymoon, takes, if you choose to have her, precedence over older people. Or if a younger woman has been long away she, in this instance of welcoming her home, takes precedence over her elders. The guest of honor is always led in to dinner by the host and placed on his right, the second in importance sits on his left and is taken in to dinner by the gentleman on whose right she sits. The hostess is always the last to go into the dining-room at a formal dinner.

The Envelopes For The Gentlemen

In an envelope addressed to each gentleman is put a card on which is written the name of the lady he is to take down to dinner. This card just fits in the envelope, which is an inch or slightly less high and about two inches long. When the envelopes are addressed and filled, they are arranged in two neat rows on a silver tray and put in the front hall. The tray is presented to each gentleman just before he goes into the drawing-room, on his arrival.

The Table Diagram

A frame made of leather, round or rectangular, with small openings at regular intervals around the edge in which names written on cards can be slipped, shows the seating of the table at a glance. In a frame holding twenty-four cards, twelve guests would be indicated by leaving every other card place blank, or for eight, only one in three is filled. This diagram is shown to each gentleman upon his arrival, so that he can see who is coming for dinner and where he himself is placed. At a dinner of ten or less this diagram is especially convenient as "envelopes" are used only at formal dinners of twelve and over.

When The Hostess Sits At The Side

When the number of guests is a multiple of four, the host and hostess never sit opposite each other. It would bring two ladies and two gentlemen together if they did. At a table which seats two together at each end, the fact that the host is opposite a gentleman and the hostess opposite a lady is not noticeable; nor is it ever noticeable at a round table. But at a narrow table which has room for only one at the end, the hostess invariably sits in the seat next to that which is properly her own, putting in her place a gentleman at the end. The host usually keeps his seat rather than the hostess because the seat of honor is on his right; and in the etiquette governing dinners, the host and not the hostess is the more important personage!

When there are only four, they keep their own places, otherwise the host and hostess would sit next to each other. At a dinner of eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty, etc., the host keeps his place, but at supper for eight or twelve, the hostess keeps her place and the host moves a place to the right or left because the hostess at supper pours coffee or chocolate. And although the host keeps his seat at a formal dinner in honor of the lady he takes in, at a little dinner of eight, where there is no guest of honor, the host does not necessarily keep his seat at the expense of his wife unless he carves, in which case he must have the end place; just as at supper she has the end place in order to pour.

Sidewalk, Hall, And Dressing Rooms

One can be pretty sure on seeing a red velvet carpet spread down the steps of a house (or up! since there are so many sunken American basement entrances) that there are people for dinner. The carpet is kept rolled, or turned under near the foot (or top) of the steps until a few minutes before the dinner hour when it is spread across the width of the pavement by the chauffeur or whoever is on duty on the sidewalk. Very big or formal dinners often have an awning, especially at a house where there is much entertaining and which has an awning of its own; but at an ordinary house, for a dinner of twelve or so, the man on the pavement must, if it is raining, shelter each arriving guest under his