Part 18 (1/2)

The term ”cover” signifies the place laid at table for each person. It consists of a table-spoon for soup, fish knife and fork, two knives, two large forks, and gla.s.ses for wines given. For such arrangements see chapter ”Waiting at dinner” in the work ent.i.tled ”Waiting at Table.”

Sherry is always drunk after soup, hock with the fish after the soup.

Champagne is drunk immediately after the first _entree_ has been served, and during the remainder of dinner until dessert. Claret, sherry, port, and Madeira are the wines drunk at dessert, and not champagne, as it is essentially a dinner wine. When liqueurs are given they are handed after the ices.

=Dinner-table Etiquette.=--Soup should be eaten with a table-spoon and not with a dessert-spoon, it would be out of place to use a dessert-spoon for that purpose. Dessert-spoons, as their name implies, are intended for other purposes, such as for eating fruit-tarts, custard-puddings, etc., or any sweet that is not sufficiently substantial to be eaten with a fork.

Fish should be eaten with a silver fork when possible, otherwise with a silver fish knife and fork.

All made dishes, such as _quenelles_, _rissoles_, patties, etc., should be eaten with a fork only, and not with a knife and fork.

For sweetbreads and cutlets, etc., a knife and fork are requisite; and, as a matter of course, for poultry, game, etc.

In eating asparagus, a knife and fork should be used, and the points should be cut off and eaten with a fork as is sea-kale, etc.

Salad should be eaten with a knife and fork; it is served on salad plates, which are placed beside the dinner-plates.

Cuc.u.mber is eaten off the dinner-plate, and not off a separate plate.

Peas should be eaten with a fork.

In eating game or poultry, the bone of either wing or leg should not be touched with the fingers, but the meat cut close off the bone; and if a wing it is best to sever it at the joint, by which means the meat is cut off far more easily.

Pastry should be eaten with a fork, but in the case of a fruit tart, a dessert-spoon should be used as well as a fork, but only for the purpose of conveying the fruit and juice to the mouth; and in the case of stone fruit--cherries, damsons, plums, etc.--either the dessert-spoon or fork should be raised to the lips to receive the stones, which should be placed at the side of the plate; but when the fruit stones are of larger size, they should be separated from the fruit with the fork and spoon, and left on the plate, and not put into the mouth; and whenever it is possible to separate the stones from the fruit it is best to do so.

Jellies, blancmanges, ice puddings, etc., should be eaten with a fork, as should be all sweets sufficiently substantial to admit of it.

When eating cheese, small morsels of the cheese should be placed with the knife on small morsels of bread, and the two conveyed to the mouth with the thumb and finger, the piece of bread being the morsel to hold, as cheese should not be taken up in the fingers, and should not be eaten off the point of the knife.[3]

The finger-gla.s.s should be removed from the ice-plate and placed on the left-hand side of the dessert-plate. When ices are not given, the d'oyley should be removed with the finger-gla.s.s and placed beneath it.

When eating grapes, the half-closed hand should be placed to the mouth, and the stones and skins allowed to fall into the fingers, and placed on the side of the plate. Some persons bend the head so as to allow of the stones and skins of the grapes falling on the side of the plate; but this latter way is old-fas.h.i.+oned, and seldom followed. Cherries and other small stone-fruit should be eaten in the way grapes are eaten, also gooseberries.

When strawberries and raspberries, etc., are not eaten with cream, they should be eaten from the stalks; when eaten with cream, a dessert-spoon should be used to remove them from the stalks. When served in the American fas.h.i.+on without stalks, both fork and spoon should be used.

Pears and apples should be peeled and cut into halves and quarters with a fruit-knife and fork, as should peaches, nectarines, and apricots.

Melons should be eaten with a spoon and fork.

Pines with knife and fork.

The dessert is handed to the guests in the order in which the dinner has been served.[4]

When the guests have been helped to wine, and the servants have left the dining-room, the host should pa.s.s the decanters to his guests, commencing with the gentleman nearest to him.

It is not the fas.h.i.+on for gentlemen to drink wine with each other either at dinner or dessert, and the guest fills his gla.s.s or not, according to inclination.

Ladies are not supposed to require a second gla.s.s of wine at dessert, and pa.s.sing the decanters is princ.i.p.ally for the gentlemen. If a lady should require a second gla.s.s of wine at dessert, the gentleman seated next to her would fill her gla.s.s; she should not help herself to wine.