Part 12

Celery is eaten with the fingers, like asparagus.

This last-named, by the way, if too much cooked, and consequently very soft and unmanageable, may be eaten with the fork, but must not be touched with the knife. And again, should asparagus be served with the melted butter thrown over it, it must be eaten with a fork. It very seldom is so served, but I have met with this mode in some houses.

Cheese ramequins are eaten with the fingers.

Cheese itself is handed round on a dish or plate with the pieces cut ready to one’s hand.

The diner helps himself with the knife laid ready beside the pieces of cheese, not with his own knife. If watercress is handed round, it is taken up in the fingers and eaten in the same way. Cheese is cut in small pieces and conveyed to the mouth on a piece of bread or biscuit. Very few persons continue to eat it in the old-fashioned way by carrying it to the mouth with the knife. I have seen it taken up with the fingers, but as cheese is apt to smell rather strongly it is better to avoid touching it.

With regard to sweets, it is a safe rule to use the fork only when it suffices for the work in hand. With tarts, as a rule, both spoon and fork are necessary, especially when there is syrup. Cold tart can often be comfortably eaten with a fork. Jellies and creams are eaten with a fork only; ice-pudding with an ice-spoon, or, failing that, a teaspoon.

From the moment one has unfolded one’s napkin and placed the bread it contained at one’s left, there is nothing more to do that concerns the “cover,” as the preparation for each diner’s convenience is called, until the dessert-plate, with its d’oyley, finger-glass, silver knife and fork--and perhaps ice-plate and spoon in addition--is set down before one.

Before the or dessert are handed round, one must place the dessert-knife and fork at right and left, respectively, of one’s plate, and, taking up the finger-glass carefully in one hand, with the other place the d’oyley on the cloth to the left of one’s plate, then setting the finger-glass down upon it. I say “carefully,” because these glasses are often of the lightest possible kind, and are occasionally of a costly description. Besides, rough handling might tend to spill the water they contain.

With regard to the dessert fruits, &c., there are a few puzzles to be found among them for the inexperienced.

Grapes present one of these.

They are taken up singly, and afterwards the skin and seeds have to be expelled as unobtrusively as possible. It is a matter of great difficulty to accomplish this by any other method than using the hand, therefore this is the accepted custom. The forefinger is curved above the mouth in a manner which serves to conceal the ejectment, and the skin and seeds are in this way conveyed to the plate, the fingers being afterwards wiped with the napkin.

Bananas are peeled with the knife and fork, and the pieces are conveyed to the mouth by means of the fork.

Oranges are cut in two, then in four, and with the aid of knife and fork the contents of each section are extracted in two or more parts, and carried to the lips on the fork.

Apples and pears are peeled with the knife and fork; peaches, apricots, and nectarines in the same way.

Strawberries are taken by the stem, dipped in sugar and cream, and carried to the lips with the fingers.

If the fruit has been picked free of husks and stem, it may be bruised on the plate with sugar and cream, and eaten with a spoon. Preserved ginger is eaten with the knife and fork.

A spoon is necessary with pines, melons, and very juicy strawberries, after they have been prepared with the knife and fork.

Nuts are cracked with the nutcrackers, and then extracted by the fingers. With filberts and Brazil nuts the knife and fork are called into requisition in order to free them from skin, but walnuts are too intricate for anything less wonderful in mechanism than the human hand. In view of this, they are sometimes prepared before being sent to table, and of late years they have been sold ready cracked and peeled for this purpose.

Almonds are never sent to table in their shells, so that they present no difficulties to the novice. At dessert they are usually accompanied by raisins, which, like the almonds, are carried to the mouth in the fingers.

Crystallised fruits are cut with the knife and fork, unless they happen to be of a small size, such as cherries. In that case they are eaten whole, being carried to the lips on the fork.

Liqueurs are handed round at dessert, poured out ready into the small glasses that are called after them. There is generally a choice, such as “Chartreuse or Bénèdictine, sir?” to which it is unnecessary to reply, “Both, please,” as a historic young man did once.

The servants often leave the dining-room when the dessert is placed on the table, and when this is so, the wine is passed round from hand to hand, each gentleman attending first to the lady he has escorted and then helping himself before passing on the decanter, claret jug, or champagne bottle. The good old fashion of using silver decanter-stands has long disappeared, to the detriment of many a good tablecloth. So has the genial and hospitable fashion of drinking wine with one’s guests, and they with each other. But this may be rather a good thing in the interests of temperance.

Apropos to this subject, I may remark that there is now nothing singular in drinking nothing but water. The days are gone when a man was thought a milksop because he could not “drink his bottle,” or if he refused wine or spirits. Should any young man prefer water, he asks for it when the servants offer him wine. He is then offered Apollinaris or distilled water or soda-water, or some other preparation of filtered and distilled water, and may choose some of these in preference to plain water.

Claret is the favourite dessert wine of the day, but port is still seen at some tables, and it is usual to offer champagne, as many prefer to drink only one kind of wine throughout the meal, from start to finish. In fact, this is becoming quite a fashion in some sets.

The host provides cigars and cigarettes for his guests, and it would not be necessary or advisable to produce one’s own supply.

When the ladies rise to leave the dining-room, the gentleman nearest the door opens the door for them, and stands beside it until they have all passed through, when he closes it after them. However anxious he may be to join them in the drawing-room, he must not do so until the others make a move. Sometimes, if he is very young and rather “out of it” when politics or sport are under discussion, his host says to him, “I’m afraid you are bored. If you would like to join the ladies, don’t stand on ceremony.” But on the other hand he may dread the ordeal of entering the drawing-room alone, and feel that the safer way is to wait for a convoy. This he must decide for himself.

Perhaps his host may wish to talk confidentially with some other guest. If he makes this apparent to the younger man, the latter must accept any such intimation as the above, understanding it to be a courteous mode of dismissing him.

The ordinary rule is that the gentlemen join the ladies all together, the man of highest position leaving the dining-room first, the host last. Tea is then carried round in the drawing-room, and the gentlemen take the empty cups from the ladies and put them down in some safe place, out of the way of risk of accident.