Home › Philosophy And Precepts Of Etiquette › Order of Dishes
Order of Dishes
1. After soup comes the fish, then the entrees, or made dishes; and next comes the turkey, beef, lamb, or other piece de resistance. Where raw oysters are served they are placed, opened, but in one side of the shell, upon the plates before the guests enter the room, and on their removal the soup is served.
2. Game, puddings, jellies, etc., are next in order.
3. Soups are frequently placed on the table, the tureen before the lady, or, if there should be two kinds, one before the host and the other before the hostess, to serve.
4. If there are two soups, there should be two kinds of fish. If only one of each, the soup should be placed before the hostess; the fish, in its turn, before the host.
5. It is perfectly correct for the gentleman occupying the post of honor to relieve the hostess of helping the soup.
6. Side dishes should not be put upon the table, but should be handed around. After these have been removed and the plates changed, the fowls and meats are brought in, in the order mentioned.
7. Fowls are placed before the hostess, heavy meats before the host, to carve.
8. Game should be placed before the gentleman, the pudding before the lady of the house, to serve. 9. Cheese precedes the dessert, which is passed in the following order: First, ices; then fruits, etc. After which the servants leave the room.
X. Family Dinners.
1. At family dinners and chance invitations, there should be no attempt at show. The dinner is supposed to be in a great measure an impromptu affair, and nothing is more out of taste than to deluge a guest with apologies.
2. At affairs of this kind, serve to the guest or guests both soup and fish, fowl and meat.
3. In carving the fowl, give to each a piece of the white and black meats. Add to each plate dressing, and, if so requested, a small portion of the gravy.
4. The carver should stand up when carving, and should not hack up the meat into small fragments.
5. Vegetables, sauces, etc. should be passed quickly, yet quietly
6. If a clergyman is present he should be asked to say grace.
XI. A Few Useful Hints.
1. Never place together husband and wife, near relatives, or members of the same profession, as in such cases the almost invariable tendency of such neighbors is to " to talk shop."
2. Always endeavor to have a nearly equal number of each sex, as these are always found to be the most pleasant parties.
3. Probably the poorest of all policies is to secure some lion or distinguished person for your party, hoping thus to make it a brilliant affair. Either your lion is talkative, thus boring and silencing the other guests, or he is moody, sullen and isolated in his grandeur, when he is sure to cast a gloom over all the others. In either case the dinner proves a failure.
4. Never permit wrangling, argument or heated discussion.
5. All politics and religion should be tabooed subjects, and if the guest should so far forget himself as to give way to contention, the host or hostess can, by the exhibition of a little tact and judgment, lead him off, by degrees, from his hobby, by dextrously asking his opinion of some other matter, or by engaging him on a different topic, thus allowing him time to cool off and see his blunder.
6. Neither host nor guest should look vexed or nervous at any blunder of the servants. Above all things, neither can afford to rebuke or criticise them.
7. Be punctual, not only in arriving, but also in being ready to rise with the other guests, and do not prolong your leave-taking unreasonably.
XII. Table Usages-What to Do and What to Avoid.
1. HAVING removed your gloves, if it is a formal dinner party and you have them on, and taken your napkin, sit perfectly erect and moderately close to the table.
2. The posture should not be stiff and constrained, but easy and natural, and should be maintained until you are served and begin eating. 3. When eating soup, hold a piece of bread in your left hand and your spoon in your right, and sip noiselessly from the side of the spoon near the end.
4. Never put the point of the spoon into your mouth.
5. Do not cut your food into bits ready for eating, as if you had but a limited time in which to eat, but cut off what you desire at the time and carry it to your mouth with your fork.
6. Never use a knife, under any circumstances, to convey food to the mouth. This is perhaps the most quickly noticeable, as well as the most disgusting, of all table blunders.
7. Remember that the napkin is not intended as a handkerchief, nor the handkerchief as a napkin.
8. No well-bred person will ever pick his teeth at the table; it would be fully as cleanly and decent to trim and clean the finger-nails
9. Neither will he use his handkerchief at the table, except in the most modest way and without the slightest noise.
10. While it is not necessary for any one to wait until others are helped, there should not be the slightest haste or awkwardness in eating.
11. Bread must neither be bitten nor cut; it should be broken.
12. At breakfast, or where such are provided, never drink from your saucer; wait until your tea, coffee, or chocolate, is cold enough to be taken from the cup. Never sip it from your spoon.
13. Some very eccentric persons raise the cup in the saucer by taking hold of the latter, while others bend down to the table and sip from the cup without raising it. These may be classed with those persons who use the napkin as a handkerchief, pick their teeth at the table and eat with their knives, and who sin through excessive ignorance of good breeding.
14. Place, at breakfast, your egg in the egg-cup small end downward, chip off a portion of the shell and season and eat by scooping from the shell.
15. Never hesitate about taking the last piece of anything passed to you; it is a poor compliment to your host to suppose he has not made ample provision.
16. Only among the Hottentots and Bushmen is smacking the lips, and making other unseemly noises while eating, considered correct.
17. Wine should be sipped slowly, not swallowed at a single draught.
18. Toasts and healths are out of fashion.
19. Hold the glass by the stem, not the bowl.
20. Port and sherry, not port wine and sherry wine, are correct terms in speaking of these beverages.
21. Vegetables should be passed and taken singly-two kinds should never appear on the waiter at once, though the plate may be helped to the two kinds which may accompany each course.
22. Plates should be changed after each meat and pastry. 23. Pork never figures among the dinner dishes. 24. Cut the meat upon your plate as cleanly as possible from the bones, but never hold the latter in your fingers to eat from.
25. Never use your own knife or fork to help yourself to butter, or to any dish that may be passed or placed near you. seat.
26. A plate should never be overloaded. 27.
Never play with knife, fork, spoon, glass or food, nor move about in your 28. Never appear to be making a selection of any food passed to you-take the first that comes to hand. 29. Never talk while the mouth is full, and at no time monopolize the conversation; remember good listeners are always appreciated-never laugh nor talk loudly. 30. Never ask to be helped a second time to any dish; if it is passed to you unsolicited, you may help yourself. 31. Never tilt your chair, slouch around in it, nor lean your elbows on the table. 32.
Never tilt plate, glass, nor dish, to drain the last morsel. 33. Do not thank, and above all things do not, as some would-be fashionables sometimes do, apologize to the waiters for troubling them-they are paid for their service and are merely performing their duties, for which no man expects thanks. XIII. Wines at Formal and Official Dinners.
AT a formal dinner wine is deemed necessary with each course. The best plan is to place upon the table, between each pair of guests, "caraffes," or open decanters of white glass, filled with the mild red wine, which is always the one most used. At each plate four or five wineglasses, of different shapes and sizes, are placed; for each wine has both bottles and glasses appropriate to it alone. With the raw oysters the servant fills the glasses with chablis, or other white wine. After the soup, sherry is served; with the fish, the white wine again; with the meats, champagne, or other sparkling white wine. After the meats and pastry a higher grade of claret (red wine from Bordeaux), Burgundy, port, or a liqueur may be given.