When and who taught you table etiquette when you were a child?

http://www.britishetiquetterevival.co.uk/Table_Manners

I can't see the pix but I do note that they encourage the use of cutlery.

Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but now that you've brought it up...

Good word! New one for me, so thanks.



And some of it doesn't really matter. Like switching your fork - I don't do that anymore. And I don't tip my soup bowl anymore, either, or sip off the spoon sideways. A lot of that is just guff. We're not back in the day where men spit into spittoons and went into another room to have a brandy and a smoke. I can't remember the last time a guy opened a door FOR me... we all open it for everyone, right? I'm glad some of those things have gone by the wayside, frankly. I always thought it was stupid to sit in the car and wait for him to come around and open it.

But, heartening news, when I was on the subway in NY, I saw several younger people giving up their seat for more elderly ones. Proof that people with manners still exist, even if they do stab their food with a fork.

And hey, Joe - GREAT pic! More like what you look like. Love it.

Oh my! The very NOTION of acting out in a restaurant would never have occurred to my sister and me! I think, had we considered it, we would have thought the earth would open and swallow us!

There were no fast food places and our first restaurant was a HUGE deal...I think I was maybe five or six.

Up straight we sat, the table was innocent of elbowage re us.....

I ordered chicken in a basket, and was traumatised beyond belief when HALF A CHICKEN appeared, with accompanying vegetables AND A BREAD ROLL!

Used to extraordinarily coercive techniques and frosty atmosphere at home if the plate was not cleared (my sister and I had hotly debated and different techniques aimed at minimizing the perceived size of food we could not fit in) the sight of a meal I knew I would not be able to come anywhere NEAR eating was a horror!

My mother noticed and said it was ok if I couldn't fit it in. My similarly horror struck sister also relaxed.

Such pleases and thank yous to the waitress! Such praise of the largely untouched food! Such elbows to our sideness! Such lack of a crumb spilt! Such correct placement of the cutlery in the hands, in the not finished position, and finally in the finished thank you, position.

Such closed mouth chewing, such polite talk, such "please pass the ......s" and "may I pass you the .......s"

Oh my! I used to follow the rules about breaking the bread and buttering one piece at a time and the soup etiquette....there was also special salt etiquette along with a tiny salt bowl and weeny spoon to match.

I wasn't lamenting the passing of how one handles one's cutlery--i consider that a matter of etiquette, but not necessarily of good manners. If you slurp your soup, or talk with your mouth full, that's not only an offense against etiquette, it's bad manners because it will very likely be disgusting to the people you dine with. If you fail to switch your cutlery, i can't see that causing disgust in your fellow diners.

I was talking about holding the door, and giving up one's seat to the elderly, though, and i was glad to see what you wrote about the subway in NYC. When i was in a small town in Québec several years ago, as i came out of the bank, a young man stopped, opened the door and stood aside so that i could pass. I thanked him, of course, but i was of two minds. I was glad to see that manners are still being inculcated in the young, but rather peeved that he perceived me as elderly. Vanitas, vanitatum.

I STILL have a tendency to rocket to my feet when an "older" person enters the bus.....only I have to be careful, because usually they are younger than me!

I find it very distressing when a kid doesn't rise for someone older or frail or pregnant etc.

To me having good manners is more about concern about the people around you - like not talking with your mouth full, not making loud chewing gulping noises, saying thank you and please; getting up for some one who may need a seat more than you.

I understand that many manner rules are more than that - like how to cut your meat and crap like that. That sort of manners I don't enforce to my children, but the other stuff I do - it is more about being respectful for others.

I think most manners stemmed from that and some bozo that thought they knew better than everyone else put all these other inane rules in place - possibly why you have such differences in appropriate table manners from culture to culture.

I still do the thing about buttering only the bit of bun/butter you're about to eat. I get a tiny bit nervous when I'm with people who butter ahead. I keep expecting my aunt to appear to slap them - and I still dread seeing my aunt after decades of carefully avoiding her.

Once upon a time, when I thought I was going to live a fancier life than I do, I bought a lot of lovely French individual salt cellars at an auction. I've also got one darling ceramic-lined metal one in the shape of a swan (about the size of my top thumb joint) with an itty-bitty spoon. Using that salt sppon definitely controlled my use of salt. You could get about 10 grains onto that spoon.

HA! Same here.

Are you sure that little spoon was intended for salt? It used to be a fad to wear something like that on a chain around the neck.

roger, I don't see the cocaine cellar in the pictures hawk posted of proper table settings. Does it go to the left or the right of the salt cellar? Is is considered good manners to share your coke spoon with your table partners if they forgot to bring theirs? Do you wipe it off first to get rid of the chest sweat? All these matters of good table etiquette that most ettiquette mavens never seem to deal with...

And there are spoon collectors....

Definitely. If you could have put a hole in the handle - you MIGHT have been able to get a thread through - no chain. It had interesting provenance. One of the other pieces from the same auction was a professional dancer's travelling sewing kit from the 1920's, in a tiny suede and metal case about the size and shape of a lipstick tube.

I would say to follow the rule of silverware. Whichever tool is used first goes to the outside. You finish the salad, and the little fork is removed. Put the little "salt" spoon at the extreme outside of the place setting.