Etiquette, Emily Post [read people like a book txt] 📗

people dine before eight. But invitations should, of course, be issued for whatever hour is customary in the place where the dinner is given.

The Butler In The Dining-room

When the dinner guests enter the dining-room, it is customary for the butler to hold out the chair of the mistress of the house. This always seems a discourtesy to the guests. And an occasional hostess insists on having the chair of the guest of honor held by the butler instead of her own. If there are footmen enough, the chair of each lady is held for her; otherwise the gentleman who takes her in to dinner helps her to be seated. Ordinarily where there are two servants, the head one holds the chair of the hostess and the second, the chair on the right of the host. The hostess always seats herself as quickly as possible so that the butler may be free to assist a guest to draw her chair up to the table.

In a big house the butler always stands throughout a meal back of the hostess' chair, except when giving one of the men under him a direction, or when pouring wine. He is not supposed to leave the dining-room himself or ever to handle a dish. In a smaller house where he has no assistant, he naturally does everything himself; when he has a second man or parlor-maid, he passes the principal dishes and the assistant follows with the accompanying dishes or vegetables.

So-called "Russian" service is the only one known in New York which merely means that nothing to eat is ever put on the table except ornamental dishes of fruit and candy. The meat is carved in the kitchen or pantry, vegetables are passed and returned to the side table. Only at breakfast or possibly at supper are dishes of food put on the table.

The Ever-present Plate

From the setting of the table until it is cleared for dessert, a plate must remain at every cover. Under the first two courses there are always two plates. The plate on which oysters or hors d'oeuvres are served is put on top of the place plate. At the end of the course the used plate is removed, leaving the place plate. The soup plate is also put on top of this same plate. But when the soup plate is removed, the underneath plate is removed with it, and a hot plate immediately exchanged for the two taken away. The place plate merely becomes a hot fish plate, but it is there just the same.

The Exchange Plate

If the first course had been a canapé or any cold dish that was offered in bulk instead of being brought on separate plates, it would have been eaten on the place plate, and an exchange plate would have been necessary before the soup could be served. That is, a clean plate would have been exchanged for the used one, and the soup plate then put on top of that. The reason for it is that a plate with food on it can never be exchanged for a plate that has had food on it; a clean one must come between.

If an entrée served on individual plates follows the fish, clean plates are first exchanged for the used ones until the whole table is set with clean plates. Then the entrée is put at each place in exchange for the clean plate. Although dishes are always presented at the left of the person served, plates are removed and replaced at the right. Glasses are poured and additional knives placed at the right, but forks are put on as needed from the left.

May the Plates for Two Persons Be Brought in Together?

The only plates that can possibly be brought into the dining-room one in each hand are for the hors d'oeuvres, soup and dessert. The first two plates are placed on others which have not been removed, and the dessert plates need merely be put down on the tablecloth. But the plates of every other course have to be exchanged and therefore each individual service requires two hands. Soup plates, two at a time, would better not be attempted by any but the expert and sure-handed, as it is in placing one plate, while holding the other aloft that the mishap of "soup poured down some one's back" occurs! If only one plate of soup is brought in at a time, that accident at least cannot happen. In the same way the spoon and fork on the dessert plate can easily fall off, unless it is held level. "Two plates at a time" therefore is not a question of etiquette, but of the servant's skill.

Plate Removed When Fork Is Laid Down

Once upon a time it was actually considered impolite to remove a single plate until the last guest at the table had finished eating! In other days people evidently did not mind looking at their own dirty plates indefinitely, nor could they have minded sitting for hours at table. Good service to-day requires the removal of each plate as soon as the fork is laid upon it; so that by the time the last fork is put down, the entire table is set with clean plates and is ready for the next course.

Double Service And The Order Of Table Precedence

At every well-ordered dinner, there should be a double service for ten or twelve persons; that is, no hot dish should, if avoidable, be presented to more than six, or nine at the outside. At a dinner of twelve, for instance, two dishes each holding six portions, are garnished exactly alike and presented at opposite ends of the table. One to the lady on the right of the host, and the other to the lady at the opposite end of the table. The services continue around to the right, but occasional butlers direct that after serving the "lady of honor" on the right of the host, the host is skipped and the dish presented to the lady on his left, after which the dish continues around the table to the left, to ladies and gentlemen as they come. In this event the second service starts opposite the lady of honor and also skips the first gentleman, after which it goes around the table to the left, skips the lady of honor and ends with the host. The first service when it reaches the other end of the table skips the lady who was first served and ends with the gentleman who was skipped.

It is perhaps more polite to the ladies to give them preference, but it is complicated, and leaves another gentleman as well as the host, sitting between two ladies who are eating while he is apparently forgotten. The object (which is to prevent the lady who is second in precedence from being served last) can be accomplished by beginning the first service from the lady on the right of the host and continuing on the right 6 places; the second service begins with the lady on the left of the host and continues on the left five places, and then comes back to the host. The best way of all, perhaps, is to vary the "honor" by serving the entrée and salad courses first to the lady on the left instead of to the lady on the right and continue the service of these two courses to the left.

A dinner of eighteen has sometimes two services, but if very perfect, three. Where there are three services they start with the lady of honor and the sixth from her on either side and continue to the right.

Filling Glasses

As soon as the guests are seated and the first course put in front of them, the butler goes from guest to guest on the right hand side of each, and asks "Apollinaris or plain water!" and fills the goblet accordingly. In the same way he asks later before pouring wine: "Cider, sir?" "Grape fruit cup, madam?" Or in a house which has the remains of a cellar, "Champagne?" or "Do you care for whiskey and soda, sir?"

But the temperature and service of wines which used to be an essential detail of every dinner have now no place at all. Whether people will offer frappéd cider or some other iced drink in the middle of dinner, and a warmed something else to take the place of claret with the fish, remains to be seen. A water glass standing alone at each place makes such a meager and untrimmed looking table that most people put on at least two wine glasses, sherry and champagne, or claret and sherry, and pour something pinkish or yellowish into them. A rather popular drink at present is an equal mixture of white grape-juice and ginger ale with mint leaves and much ice. Those few who still have cellars, serve wines exactly as they used to, white wine, claret, sherry and Burgundy warm, champagne ice cold; and after dinner, green mint poured over crushed ice in little glasses, and other liqueurs of room temperature. Whiskey is always poured at the table over ice in a tall tumbler, each gentleman "saying when" by putting his hand out. The glass is then filled with soda or Apollinaris.

As soon as soup is served the parlor-maid or a footman passes a dish or a basket of dinner rolls. If rolls are not available, bread cut in about two-inch-thick slices, is cut cross-ways again in three. An old-fashioned silver cake basket makes a perfect modern bread-basket. Or a small wicker basket that is shallow and inconspicuous will do. A guest helps himself with his fingers and lays the roll or bread on the tablecloth, always. No bread plates are ever on a table where there is no butter, and no butter is ever served at a dinner. Whenever there is no bread left at any one's place at table, more should be passed. The glasses should also be kept filled.

Presenting Dishes

Dishes are presented held flat on the palm of the servant's right hand; every hot one must have a napkin placed as a pad under it. An especially heavy meat platter can be steadied if necessary by holding the edge of the platter with the left hand, the fingers protected from being burned by a second folded napkin.

Each dish is supplied with whatever implements are needed for helping it; a serving spoon (somewhat larger than an ordinary tablespoon) is put on all dishes and a fork of large size is added for fish, meat, salad and any vegetables or other dishes that are hard to help. String beans, braised celery, spinach en branche, etc., need a fork and spoon. Asparagus has various special lifters and tongs, but most people use the ordinary spoon and fork, putting the spoon underneath and the fork, prongs down, to hold the stalks on the spoon while being removed to the plate. Corn on the cob is taken with the fingers, but is never served at a dinner party. A galantine or mousse, as well as peas, mashed potatoes, rice, etc., are offered with a spoon only.

The Serving Table

The serving table is an ordinary table placed in the corner of the dining-room near the door to the pantry, and behind a screen, so that it may not be seen by the guests at table. In a small dining-room where space is limited, a set of shelves like a single bookcase is useful.

The serving table is a halfway station between the dinner table and the pantry. It holds stacks of cold plates, extra forks and knives, and the finger bowls and dessert plates. The latter are sometimes put out on the sideboard, if the serving table is small or too crowded.

At little informal dinners all dishes of food after being passed are left on the serving table in case they are called upon for a second helping.