|
|
GLASSES
On the dinner table, glasses are placed slightly on the right, referring to the
centre of the plate. Two glasses, at least, are essential: one for water (bigger)
and one for wine, lined in such order from the left. So they remain also while
the drink is poured. Basically: never raise them to help the service out.
The number of glasses cannot be higher than four. From the left: water (big),
red wine (medium), white wine; behind the lot, dessert-wine or champagne.
The glasses which won't be used again must be taken away before the dessert is
served.
Only for dessert-wines the use of glass is allowed.
Wine glasses do not ever have to be completely filled: wine must be served,
instead, up to slightly over the half, still never more than 2/3, also depending
on the kind of wine. Whenever you want to stop having wine served, never cover
the glass with your hand, but express your wish through a discrete gesture.
The glass must be changed even when the new wine has the same colour, since even
a single drop could change the taste. Such necessity is particularly felt by who
appreciates good wine.
Glasses must be chosen according to the type of wine and its aging.
- New-wine glasses (served cool), goblets with a long stem: there you place your
fingers.
- Wines in need of giving off their aroma find at ease in more or less paunchy
goblets.
- Cognac, served in the traditional round-belly glass (ballon), has to be warmed
up by the palm.
|
|
TOP
|
| Buffet |
|
Food proposed in the buffet needs be easy
to handle, since some guests could be munching on something while standing
up. Canapés and sandwiches must be small enough to be eaten in a single
mouthful.
The table must be accessible for everyone. Who's been already served must
allow others to get trough. Plates must immediately be swapped, since they
could leave the impression of a rationed meal.
Plates and cutlery 'use and dump' are accepted in simpler buffets, less
demanding.
When introduced to somebody never hold hands, simply nod. A buffet can be
an inconvenient place for introductions and meetings: a glass in one hand,
a sandwich on the other, possibly the mouth full. |
|
TOP
|
|
Knife
Right of the plate, with the blade facing
the inside, the knife cannot be approximated to the mouth. It helps cutting when
the fork alone cannot do the job, its use therefore must be limited to the
emergencies. The little knife, for desserts, is used to peel fruit and, in case,
for cheese.
Fish knife is essential when eating fish. The lack of it concedes the permission
to use a bit of bread.
About certain fellows, taunted with the accuse of being revolutionaries, Leo
Loganesi used to say: "They deem themselves 'leftists' merely because they eat
fish with the knife!".
Actually, the path of civilisation carries towards its abandon. In China
disappeared centuries ago. To Chinese eyes the way in which westerners eat is 'uncivilised'.
"Europeans are barbarians, they use swords to eat", so they say. "It is possible
to affirm - explains Norbert Elias, peoples' costumes expert - that the attitude
developed in China is to draw back to the fact that for long the upper social
layer, which influenced traditional models, wasn't formed by warriors, but by a
tremendously pacified class: the cultured bureaucrats".
|
|
TOP
|
|
Spoon |
|
On the right of the plate, with the concave
side leaning on the table, spoon is used to eat minestre (soups with
pasta) from the bowl. Half filled, with a movement that slides from the
edge of the plate to its centre, spoon tip reaches mouth, without noisy
aspirations.
Medium-size spoon is needed for soups, purées, creamy desserts; you never
leave the spoon inside the cups, but on the little plate.
The little spoon stirs sugar in tea or coffee cups, with a vertical (circular
is banned) motion: top to bottom, and vice versa.
Shovel little spoon is for ice cream and sorbet.
In the beginning the spoon was used only to eat snails. "Ancient Romans -
Cesare Marchi tells - went crazy for snails, whose singular is 'cochlea'.
'Cochlear' and 'clochlearium' was the tool used to eat them, from there to
'Cucchiaio' (spoon)". |
|
TOP
|
|
Fork |
|
Placed on the left of the plate, the concave side
leant on the table, the fork must be held by thumb and forefinger, with the
prong facing upward. When it co-operate with the knife, the handle must be
grasped, forefinger stretched, prong downwards.
During the pauses it must be leant on the plate (not on the edge, not on the
table-cloth), parallel to the table.
"It's against good manners to grasp fork or spoon with the whole hand, as if
wielding a club; absolutely only with the fingers", recommended La Salle in
1729, when fork still didn't manage to affirm.
You don't use fork to crush food, or to load two mouthful at a time.
The little fork is used for fruit and solid dessert.
Two-pointed fork, on the right of the plate, to pull out snails from the shell
and for oysters.
|
|
TOP
|
| Elbows |
|
At the table, while eating, elbows can never lean
on. On the table you can put your hands up to the wrists. Elbows close to the
body even while drinking. Differently, it could be a reason for the accuse of 'raising
the elbows', that is drinking too much.
"You should not keep your hands on the plate, nor lean your elbows on the table,
such use is for the ill or the old", recommended a booklet for kids in 1780!
|
|
TOP
|
|
Bread-sticks |
|
When particularly crumbly, bread-sticks must be
taken entirely to the mouth, in order to avoid crumbling. Otherwise it is
possible to break a stick before taking it to destination.
|
|
TOP
|
| Soup
with pasta |
|
Ready inside your bowl when you sit at the table,
or in the soup-tureen from which the guests can serve themselves with a proper
ladle.
It is served only for dinner, without 'impositions' or requests for a second
portion. Poured on a bowl, it cannot overcome the level of the inner edge. It is
eaten with the spoon (never full), fished with a centre-ward movement from the
edge. For the last spoonfuls the bowl is slightly lifted towards the inside of
the table.
The spoon reaches the mouth with its tip; better forget about blowing.
Once the soup is over, the spoon stays in the bowl.
Minestra is better named:
- soup, when fish or onion based;
- consommé, when shrunk without lumps left, served either cool or warm in a cup;
- minestrina, when it's a light soup;
- minestrone, when vegetables prevail.
|
|
TOP
|
| Olive |
|
When you are in a bar, a small olive must be
taken in a mouthful. The core, placed on the palm of the cup shaped hand, must
be put in the ashtray, or in the little plate.
The big olive must be nibbled with little bites, held with two fingers, then
little plate for the core.
At the table olives must b picked up with a fork. Even the core, once cleaned
up, finds its place on the fork, which carries the responsibility of leading it
to the edge of the plate.
|
|
Torna
su
|
| Bread |
|
On the table already sliced, if in big portions.
Placed on the special plate, in front of the left cutlery, the table companion
does not have to slice it, but to break it into mouthful to be taken straight to
the mouth, never nibbled or bitten.
When the plate is missing, the bread position remains the same.
The landlady makes sure that nobody is left without bread, even because for the
guests it is forbidden to ask for some.
Bread and mate-plate are removed from the table before fruit and dessert come.
Occasional crumbs spread on the table must be swept by special shovel and broom.
The crumb-sucker, whether electric or not, has to be excluded from classy
dinners.
The white of the bread, when disliked, must be set aside on the bread plate,
avoiding to indulge in making bread-balls.
"Scarpetta" (little shoe), banned by formal meals, is permitted at one condition:
it must occur with the help of a fork, never with hands.
Pieces of bread cannot be dipped in wine or soup. In the latter it is possible
to put in the bread, not to dip it!
You can spread pâté or some sorts of cheese on a slice of bread.
|
|
TOP
|
|
Pasta |
|
You can only have it with a fork. Even long ones,
like spaghetti, cannot be cut, but rolled up around the fork, without any spoon
help.
In respect of pasta, the prong does not have to be turned to the plate, but kept
slightly inclined, almost horizontal.
|
|
TOP
|
| Fish |
|
As a second course fish always comes before meat,
even in case of barbecues. Each fish, with the exception of canned ones, need
proper cutlery. Indispensable in formal meals, in other occasions fish can be
eaten with a fork, while a piece of bread can help out. "The knife, never! -
states the Englishman horrified - Fish cut with a knife takes a bad smell".
Shellfish and molluscs require fork. In formal meals shellfish is skinned,
occasionally recomposed to display the shell (claws are only used for decoration).
Molluscs and oysters are opened up and disposed on the plates, occasionally on
grinded ice.
The lobster, when served in a piece, impose: nutcracker for claws, a finger wash
bowl, and a big napkin.
Small lobsters can be held with fingers, like shrimps, when mingled in an
assorted seafood dish. If served alone, instead, can be opened with fingers, but
must be eaten with the fork.
Same applies to prawns. Astici, besides fish cutlery, need two essential
accessories: nutcracker and special two-teeth fork. Also a finger-washing bowl
is fundamental. The body must be eaten with fish knife and fork; claws and limbs
require the nutcracker, then the special fork has to pull the meat out, which is
now taken to the mouth with normal cutlery.
Oysters demand a special little fork, to be placed on the right of the plate. It
must be held with the left hand, while the little fork sticks the muscle out of
the shell.
A fishbone trapped inside the mouth's meanders has to be discretely extracted
with the aid of thumb and forefinger, then laid on the plate edge. When the
operation appears seemingly awkward, you better go straight to the toilet and
perform it there.
|
|
TOP
|
| Plates |
|
An intimate meal (between friends or relatives)
implies three courses: minestra or first dish, main course, cheese and fruit or
dessert. A small plate must be added in case of salad.
"A plate with a good face" is the expression used by who invites a guest to a
modest but nice and warm meal.
A formal dinner needs as many plates as the courses. Moreover, for the most
important dishes, when they take rather long to finish even the plates need to
be warm. A further plate helps in case of oyster shells, fish bones, game or
birds bones, artichoke leaves...
Bowls: for liquid soups, whose content cannot overcome the inner edge.
To empty the bowls, two main schools of thought are in competition: can they be
tilted? Who supports the cause would only do that directing the inclination to
the inside of the table. Probably when such rule was adopted, spilling must have
been quite frequent; does it still have reasons to exist?
Flat plate: accepts each sort of food, with the obvious exception of liquid ones.
Small flat plate: for salad, fruit, cake.
Soup cups: for consommé and purée. They arrive on the table already filled, laid
on a little plate. On the latter a spoon is prepared, in order to just stir and
taste the soup, as the rest must be drunk holding the cup from the two handles.
Bread little plate: it is important even because if you keep it underneath while
breaking bread, crumbling can be partially prevented. Bread cannot be cut with a
knife, but broken into pieces to be taken to the mouth by means of the right
hand. Bread and plate must be removed from the table before fruit and dessert
are served.
Butter little plate: altogether with a special rounded-point knife.
Asparagus plate: allows draining when asparagus are boiled. Each guest possesses
pincers, adequately prepared on the right of the plate. With pincers an
asparagus at a time must be taken, eating the tip and leaving aside the hard
bit.
Snails plate: it has little cavities, in which the molluscs have been cooked,
and is laid on an under plate. Pincers, left of the plate, help in holding the
shell still, while the thin double-pointed fork pulls the snail out.
Salad half-moon: On the table before the second course, to be placed left of the
plate.
|
|
TOP
|
| Burp |
|
Noisy and sometimes stinky emission of air
climbing up from the stomach to the out of mouth, the burp - in western society
- is an indecent vulgar deed. Not so in other civilisations, where it fiercely
stands as a blatant expression of appreciation.
If it 'escapes', the burp must be hidden, if possible, while the table simulates
distraction
|
|
TOP
|
| Scarpetta
(little shoe) |
|
To collect the sauce left over with a piece
of bread, that is "fare scarpetta" (do the little shoe), is not acceptable
in formal meals.
It is tolerated in rustic, friendly atmospheres, but only when made
through the aid of the fork. Never with hands! |
|
TOP
|
| Stuzzicadenti |
|
Toothpick
Officially, they do not exist, that is cannot be used neither during the meal,
nor afterwards. Who really cannot help must do it in the toilet. They do not
have to be put on the table, and cannot be ordered. Would you ever dress the
table with a toothbrush? It exists, but only for intimacy.
|
|
TOP
|
|
Napkin |
|
Square tissue, you can find the napkin on the
left of the plate or on top of it, folded simply. Creative folding are not
suggested, in what they imply unhygienic manipulations. Once at the table, it
has to be unfolded and laid on the knees. It has the sole function of furbishing
the mouth before and after drinking.
Neither hung from the neck, like barbers do, nor used to wipe glasses and
cutlery: it would be like blaming the hosts not to have provided a proper
cleanliness.
When the meal is over the napkin has to be put left of the plate, unfolded (except
when used in the following meal).
The mouth must be furbished with the inner part of the napkin, not with the name
of the place, or symbols of the hosting family. Watch for exaggerate lipstick
marks.
TOP
|
