Friday, September 4, 2009

Fancy Fridays

Today I found a site that goes through table setting etiquette. That's the kind of thing I thought I'd learn about and share on our "fancy fridays". Okay, so it's not so fancy, but it's a start. You can find the site here. This is a little taste of what you can find there.

What goes where on the table

and which glasses go with what drinks

Real easy, the etiquette experts tell us. The general rule with utensils is to start from the outside of your place setting, and work your way toward the service plate (the main meal plate): soup spoon first, then fish knife and fork, then service knife and fork.

Proper table setting for formal dinner

ABCDE

Serviette (napkin)

Service plate

Soup bowl on plate

Bread & butter plate
with butter knife

Water glass

FGHIJ

White wine

Red wine

Fish fork

Dinner Fork

Salad fork

KLMN

Service knife

Fish knife

Soup spoon

Dessert spoon and cake fork

Note that it often is recommended that the salad fork (J) is placed to the left of the dinner fork (I). However, in this formal setting the dinner fork is placed to be used before the salad fork because it is suggested that the guest awaits the main meal before helping him/herself to the salad.


2 comments:

  1. My sister made placemats with outlines of where each thing went to teach her kids how to set the table correctly. I keep thinking I need to do that too. Maybe not with the wine glasses though :)

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  2. That is a good idea! Lincoln is our newly appointed table setter and his first time he just threw everything haphazardly at everyone's places. I should show him this :)

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