Use Of The Spoon

Never allow a spoon to stand in a coffee, tea or bouillon cup while drinking from it. For beverages served in cups and glasses it is enough to stir the liquids once or twice, to sip a spoonful or two to test the temperature and then, laying the spoon in the saucer, to drink the remainder directly from the cup. To dip up a spoonful of soup and blow upon it in order to reduce the temperature is a habit that should be confined to nursery days. Soup should be dipped up with an outward motion, never by drawing the spoon toward one.

Liquids are imbibed from the side, not the end, of the spoon. The foods eaten with a spoon are grape fruit and its cousins, small and large fruits when served with cream, hot puddings and custards, jellies, porridges and preserves and hard or soft-boiled eggs.

Use Of Finger Bowl

A finger bowl is the necessary adjunct to a fruit course. The bowl, half filled with water, is set upon a plate, on which a small doily lies. Unless a second plate is served with the fruit, that on which the bowl of water stands is intended to receive it. Then the bowl and doily must be removed slightly to one side and the former placed upon the latter. When the fruit is finished each hand in turn must be dipped in the water, not both together, as though the bowl were a wash basin. A little rubbing together of the finger tips, without stirring up or splashing the water about, cleanses them thoroughly and they must be dried with the napkin on the knees.

Noiseless And Deliberate Eating

To eat slowly and quietly is an evidence of respect for one's health and personal dignity. Only the underbred or uneducation bolt their food, strike their spoon, fork or glass rim against their teeth, suck up a liquid from a spoon, clash knives and forks against their plates, scrape the bottom of a cup, plate or glass in hungry pursuit of a last morsel, and masticate with the mouth open, pat the top of a pepper pot to force out the contents and drum on a knife-blade, in order to distribute salt on meat or vegetables.

Conversation and small mouthfuls are aids to digestion and it is a useless and ugly exertion to smack the lips together when chewing food.

Individual salt cellars are commonly used today. A well-arranged dinner, breakfast or luncheon table is provided with one between each two covers. A helping from one of these should be taken with the small salt spoon which lies across or beside it and placed on the edge of the plate, not upon the cloth beside the plate. To thrust one's knife point into the salt dish is vulgar in the extreme. When distributing salt upon food, do not take a pinch between thumb and forefinger; a little taken up on the knife's point, or whatever will adhere to the fork prongs, is enough to savor the whole of any helping of food on the plate.

A last and elusive morsel of food should never be pursued about a plate and finally pushed upon a fork by the assisting touch of a finger. A bit of bread may be utilized for this purpose or, better still, the knife if it is at hand.

A mouthful of meat, vegetable or dessert should never be taken up by a fork or spoon and held in midair while conversation is carried on. As soon as food is lifted from the plate it should be put into the mouth.