Table Manners ! part of GMCS

It is said that while good table manners make any meal more appetising, poor manners may dissolve a table companion's appetite. Gentle people are often acutely embarrassed by the slipshod table manners of those with whom they find themselves eating. Table manners have been devised for the safety of both the eater and his table companions and also to make eating look more attractive.


Whether you eat on a banana leaf or sit at a table with snow-white linen and use a diversity of crockery and an array of cutlery there is an art of eating, an art that lifts an everyday action from the common place to the level of an aesthetic ritual.


It would be wrong to generalise the details of table manners, because there is no standard form. What is considered as good manners among certain people is considered bad manners by others. The important points can be boiled down to: Be relaxed but considerate. Be tidy and avoid any act that might be disagreeable to others.

Getting Started

At a dinner party, the hostess will tell you which chair is yours. A man, even at an informal dinner, will take the opportunity to pull back the chair for the woman on his right, and will not take his seat until all the woman are seated. Tip you chair at your own risk- the risk of losing not only your balance, but also the friendship of your host. Once seated all the guests may open their napkins and place them on their laps.

While no one should eat with his elbows on the table, there are no present-day rules about doing this between courses. Feet should be kept well on the floor, nor streched out under the table or wound around chair legs to interfere with others.

Napkin

Napkins are placed on the lap. Guests wait until the hostess has taken up hers before placing their own.

Wipe your mouth with the napkins before drinking from your glass or cup, to avoid leaving marks on the rim, and also use it after eating something. Lift only a corner to your to your mouth.

At the end of the formal meal, pick up the napkin by the centre, gather it together loosely, and place it at the left or right of the plate. If you have to leave the table during the mael drop your napkin in your chair.

Wiping the silverware with the napkin is not polite and impractical. It won't really remove the dirt anyway. If the utensil is dirty, ask the server to bring another in its place.

When to Start?

If the dinner is hot and there are many people present, guests may begin eating after three or four having been served. When children are alone with their parents it is wise, at all meals top wait until their parents begin eating before beginning themselves, unless they are told to go ahead.

How to Serve?

Food is served from the left of each person, only beverages are served from the right. The serving spoon and fork are on the platter. Pick up the serving spoon with one hand, and the fork with other. Use the spoon to lift the food from the platter and steady it with the fork. Take the portion of food nearest to you on the platter and return the silver to the platter.

After food is finished, dishes are removed from either left or right. When somebody serves food, it is not necessary to thank him every time. To refuse a particular food a simple, 'No Thank You' is sufficient.

Beverage at Table

Seizing one's water glass upon coming to the table and gulping down its contents at a draught is very unmannerly. If you are extremely thirsty get a drink elsewhere before you come on the table.

It is also very unattractive to drink a beverage when you still have food in your mouth. A sip should never been taken until the mouth is empty and has been wiped with the napkin. This keeps the cup or glass from being stained by food particles. Make use of the napkin to blot your lips and save the glass from food or lipstick marks.


Bottled beverages, as a rule, should be poured into a glass. Drinking directly from bottles is acceptable only in very informal circumstances.

Coffee or tea may be tested for heat or taste by one quick sip from the spoon. If it is too hot, it must be allowed to stand until it is tolerable- it should never be blown. Always use a dry spoon for sugar. When adding sugar to tea or coffee, excessive stirring is unnecessary. Remember always to remove the spoon from the cup or glass before drinking. A spoon should never be left standing in the cup. Neither should you cuddle your cup in both hands when you drink. Avoid the most common and perhaps the most offensive habit of drinking from a saucer.

When Food is too Hot

Hot food taken accidentally into the mouth is never hastily spit out any way but quenched with a drink of water before being swallowed. This is the only exception to the rule against drinking with anything in the mouth.

Spoiled Food

Nothing, not even spoiled food is ever spit, however surreptitiously, into a napkin or on the plate. However it will be self-torture to gulp down, for the sake of manners, something that is really spoiled. Certainly partly chewed mouthful of food looks unappetising to one's dinner partner. But if it is necessary for you to take it out of your mouth, make use of your fork or spoon and deposit it on your plate. In doing so, try not to look as if anything were the matter. Try to screen the offending portion with a piece of bread or some other bread.

Foreign Matter in Food

Foreign bodies taken accidentally into the mouth- gravel stones, birdshot etc. - are removed with the thumb and forefinger as are the fish-bones, and placed on the plate. If a gnat or any other fly gets into your food, you are just to fish it out unobserved( that others won't see it and be upset) then either proceed or leave the food untouched depending on the degree of odiousness of the intruder.

Accidents at Table

Even the most careful person occasionally has an accident at table. If the food is spilled, for instance, you may retrieve it with any convenient utensil- fork or spoon-and place it at the side of your plate. Occasionally a bit of food or liquid may spill or drip on to your clothes. In such a case the best thing to do is to collect it with a spoon or fork before it sucks into the fabric and place it in your plate. Do all this quietly and without apology. Then take the corner of your napkin, dip it into your water glass and lightly rub the spot and forget about it. The real social grace consists in not making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Watch what you are doing at table and you will often make blunders like overturning a glass of water or spilling food on the table-cloth. When you do- none of us is a proof against mishaps- say, "I am sorry".

Coughing at Table

Ordinary coughing at table is done behind the hand, without excuse, but a coughing fit, brought on by something being caught in the windpipe, indicates that you must leave the table without excuse (you can't talk anyhow). If necessary your companions might offer help. Similarly, if the nose must be blown at table, it is done as quietly as possible, turning your face aside and without excuse.

Reaching Out

Reaching out at table is now preferred to asking neighbours to pass things when one can well take up oneself. But one should not have to rise out of one's seat. Passing a pitcher, fork or knife is done with the handle pointing the person recieving it.

Conversation at Table

Conversation and laughter should always be controlled at table. Loud guffaws are disturbing at any time but worse at table. General conversation, though it should not fall to a too confidential tone between dinners should never be so loud that the hostess cannot make herself heard, if she wishes make an announcement. No two partners ever allow themselves to become so engrossed in conversation as to exclude everyone else, specially diners directly facing them.

Food Problems

If there is something which you don't like or are unable to eat for various reasons, you may take only a very small portion and leave it on the plate with bits of other food. You may also refuse it. If you have a peculiar allergy or you have been placed on a restricted diet, you should mention that fact when you are invited.

On the other hand, dinner may turn out to be something you could eat but you don't want to eat. Then it is your problem and no one else should notice it. Eat what you can and try to leave inconspicuous what you can't. If you have just managed to down the dinner, don't praise it too much unless the hostess goes to a great deal of trouble to prepare the same menu for you the next time you visit.