Placing Silver and Dishes

There are certain time-honored positions for silver and equipment that result from the way food is eaten and served. So keep in mind these basic placements. Forks to the left except the very small fish fork, which goes to the right.

Spoons, including iced-tea spoons, and Knives to the right, with the sharp blade of the knife toward the plate. There is, of course, a practical reason for placing the knife at the diner's right, since right-handed persons, who predominate, commonly wield the knife with their favored hand, and do so early in the meal.

Generally, having cut his food, the diner lays down his knife and transfers his fork to the right hand. Formal dining makes an exception to this rule; and with left-handed or ambidextrous persons the transfer seems to us, on any occasion, superfluous. | Place silver that is to be used first farthest from the plate.

It is also better form never to have more than three pieces of silver at either side. Bring in any other needed silver on a small tray as the course is served. The server is always careful to handle silver by the handles only, including carving and serving spoons and forks, which are placed to the right of the serving dish.

If you look at some of the place settings illustrated, you can, with a few exceptions, practically predict the menu. Let's consider the semiformal luncheon setting above. Line the base of the handles up about one inch from the edge of the table.

Some people still consider it important to serve a knife at luncheon, even if that knife is not needed for the actual cutting of meat. Others omit the knife if a typical luncheon casserole is passed-or served in individual containers.

For a formal luncheon, a butter plate is placed to the left on a level with the water glass. The butter knife is usually placed as shown and a butter ball or curl, page 56, is already in place before the guests are seated. Later, the butter plate is removed simultaneously with the salad plate. Both are taken from the left side. The butter plate is picked up with the left hand, the salad plate with the right.

At semiformal luncheons, you may have the dessert spoon and fork in place above the plate, as sketched. This indicates that no finger bowl will be served. Or you may, as in the dinner service, bring the dessert silver to the table with the finger bowl, as sketched on.

Water and wine glasses are in place as sketched above. The water is poured in the former to about % capacity; the wine glasses are left empty. ) Glasses, filled from the right, are never lifted by the server when pouring. Goblet types are always handled by the stem by the diner and by the server when he replaces or removes them. Tumbler types are always held well below the rim.

When it is time to serve coffee, empty cups and saucers are placed to the right. There is a spoon on the saucer, behind the cup and parallel to the cup handle, which is turned to the diner's right.

After all the cups are placed, they are filled by the server and afterward sugar and cream are offered from a small tray from the left. But the entire coffee service may be served, even for luncheon, in the living room, after the dessert.

Individual ash trays and cigarettes may be placed on the table. Although smoking between courses is frowned on by all epicures because it lessens the sensitivity of the palate, guests must be permitted to do what pleases them. If you are a strong-willed hostess, you may prefer to have the ash trays and cigarettes placed on the table just after the dessert is served.

If your party is not formal, place cards may DC omitted. If the party is to be for six, ten or fourteen, the host is at one end of the table, the hostess at the other. If the guests number eight or twelve, the host is at one end and the hostess just to the left at the other end.

The honor guest, if a woman, is seated to the right of the host; if a man, to the left of the hostess. At a formal meal, food is presented, but | not served, to the hostess first. Food is actually offered first to the woman guest of honor.

The other women are then all served. Finally, the men are served, beginning with the guest of honor. If there is no special guest of honor, you may want to reverse the direction of service every other course, so that the same people are not always served last.

While it is not the best form, some people prefer to have the hostess served first. She Knows the menu and by the way she serves herself sets the pace for the other guests. This is a special help if the guest of honor is from another country.

In America, it is customary for guests to wait until everyone is served and the hostess begins to eat. In Europe, however, where each individual service is usually complete in itself, it is permissible to start eating as soon as one is served.

t Plates are usually removed from the right and placed or passed from the left. Service and dinner plates are frequently of different patterns. For the purpose of clarity in the illustrations following, service plates, as a rule, are sketched with a solid banding, hot plates or plates on which cold food is being served are shown with a thin double-banded edge.