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Food Etiquette

Topics:

• Body Language at the Table
• Conduct at the Table
• Meal Time Dilemmas
• Mealtime Decorum
• Tipping

 

• Maintain good posture at table; you can sit nicely straight on the chair and not sit collapsed like a rag doll.

 

• You have options on what to do with your hands when not actually eating; you may have the hands rest on the table or leave the hands under the table in the lap.

 

• It’s certainly all right to rest an elbow or two on the table between courses, but when eating it’s best to keep elbows off the table.

 

• Sometimes it’s boring just to sit there waiting for people to finish their plates and their endless conversations, but keep those fingers from drumming nervously on the table or from playing with pieces of flatware or with the glasses.

 

• When cutting something, keep your elbows as close to your body as possible, so your neighbor won’t have your elbow in his or her ribs.

 

• Food is passed at a family meal by a parent at the head of the table, often in a counterclockwise movement around the table, starting with the person on the mother’s or fathers right to the honor guest.

 

• "Please" and "Thank you" are basic manners at the table. Say "Please when you people to pass you something and Thank you when you receive something.

 

• When serving yourself, take modest portion of your food.

 

• Adding sauces and spices can be ill-mannered: It is an insult to pour sauce, salt or pepper all over your food before you even tasted it.

 

• Cut your meat one piece at a time: Cut your meat into small piece and then eat before cutting another piece.

 

• The only way to eat is quietly: Chew small bites of food and swallow with the mouth closed.

 

• Don’t eat too fast: Swallow each mouthful before shoveling in the next.

 

• Wipe your fingers and mouth often with your napkin: You don’t want people to your greasy fingers and or a dribble of something around the mouth.

 

• If you want a second helping in your own home, ask for it. If you are a guest, don’t ask because if there are,  it will be offered to you, and if there are not, everyone will be embarrassed.

 

• Yes, you may mop up that delicious last bit of sauce remaining on your plate; provided you spear a small piece of roll or bread on your fork, squish it around in the sauce, and then put it in your mouth - making sure that it doesn’t drip all over you as you do that.

 

• If you are served a certain food in someone’s home that you really dislike, rather than protesting, just leave it on your plate. If anyone ask why you didn’t touch your food, just say "I am not hungry" instead of "I hate the fish".

Dilemmas at Mealtime

• Catching Food in Your Teeth.  Never use a toothpick at the table. Try drinking some water or excuse yourself and go to the restroom to rinse your mouth or use your toothpick.

• When a Bug Appears.  If a bug appears in your salad, quietly dispatch it and do not point it out because it might ruin the entire dinner for the rest of the people.

• Coping with Garlic or Onion Breath

• Chew and swallow some fresh parsley
• Rub a piece of lemon over your tongue and the insides of your mouth.
• Chew a few coffee beans.
• Take some antacid

• Saying Grace. When you are a guest in someone’s home, and grace will be said before the meal, follow your host’s lead. Don’t eat or drink before the grace has been said.

 

• When do you start eating? The last person to be served should be the father or mother at a family dinner or the host or hostess at a dinner party. Everyone else at the table should wait to eat until the last person is served or has served himself.  If there is no hostess, then the woman guest of honor on the host’s right should be the first one to begin eating at the table. Everyone else will follow her, so it’s her responsibility to start. If the food in front of her is cold, she should wait until everyone at her table has been served and then begin. Her male host should not start before she does.

 

• Serving Yourself from a Platter.  All food bowls and platters should be passed to you from the left. If you are being served something like mashed potatoes, it is easy: You simply take a glob of it with the serving spoon, put it on your plate, and put the spoon back in the bowl. The main thing to remember about serving yourself from a platter is that you should leave the serving utensils lying neatly side by side in a manner that makes it easy for the next person to serve himself.

 

• Taking Modest Portions.  As a guest, consider how much food is there and how many guests there are. You can always go back for more if the food supply is enough.

Tipping

   Questions of tipping puzzle people particularly because the custom seems to spread ever more widely and the amounts change constantly. For example, when should you tip? When should you not? How much is proper? Is it humiliating to undertip? Is it crass to overtip? When should you withhold a tip, and if you do, should you spell out exactly why you are withholding it, or should you just say nothing?

GENERAL GUIDELINES ON TIPPING

     Most people feel that their moral obligation to tip ceases entirely when the service is rendered in an irritable, sloppy, or inefficient manner.  My philosophy is that you tip a great deal less when service is rendered in a negative way. Many people rely on their tips for the major part of their income, and to deprive them of every cent of what you had planned to give could be a real hardship. I always rationalize myself into giving an unpleasant person at least a small tip, because I feel (without any supporting evidence) that each time I encounter an obnoxious person, he or she has probably just lost a spouse or found out that the bank account is hopelessly overdrawn or that the children are in trouble at school--and that is why I am being treated so badly.

Again you are not obligated to tip the young person who brings something like a Domino’s Pizza to your home, but it’s nice to do it. Give $2 for one or two regular pizza boxes, but if you have a large quantity or group of over-sized pizza delivered for a party, tip $5. Large quantities are difficult to handle, and a larger tip helps.