For those who love love love etiquette
“When ladies have according to the French custom, set apart one morning or one evening in the week for receiving callers, it is a breach of etiquette to call at any other time, unless a short visit in the city or business that will not admit of delay are the excuses. An hour in the…
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“The finger-bowls are usually brought in on the dessert plates which also hold the dessert spoons and forks. Each person sets his finger-bowl and the doily underneath it on the table in front of or at the side of his dessert plate, to be used later. The dessert spoon and fork are generally placed on the table…
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“This is rather a new entertainment. Its novelty lies in the fact that the beverage served is chocolate, and that chocolate enters into all the refreshments served, such as chocolate wafers, etc. A chocolate lemonade will be a nice addition in hot weather, chocolate bon bon being passed in dainty silver bon-bon baskets.” Social Etiquette…
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Here we have one of those weird evolutions of terms where one phrase begins to mean nearly the opposite thing. High Tea is one of the great examples of this. Company dinner is another. For an American in the early and mid 19th century, a company dinner would have been one of the most extravagant…
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The chopstick has been used since 1200 B.C. starting in China and moving steadily throughout Asia over the next seven hundred years, though they were used mainly for cooking not for eating for hundreds of years. Bronze versions of chopsticks were even found at Yinxu archeological digs that date back to near 400 B.C. Over time,…
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“It is bad manners for a gentleman to use perfumes to a noticeable extent.” Encyclopaedia of Business and Social Forms, 1880 Old etiquette books are apparently very opinionated about a man’s toilette. When I was teaching etiquette, I taught a number of eleven and twelve year-old boys. I used to say that cologne should be used…
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Now we really are getting obscure! I’ve only been served demitasse once. On the hubster and my second anniversary, we traveled to France and had dinner in a chateau in the Loire Valley, (schmancy, I know). It was eight courses with the complimentary wines, at the end I was served a demitasse coffee with a demitasse spoon…
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“Teas and “Kettledrums”, High Tea and Afternoon Receptions, have come to bear a strong resemblance one to another, in fact to infringe so much upon the same territory that it is very difficult at times to distinguish between them sufficiently to apply the appropriate name.” Social Etiquette by Maud C. Cooke, 1896 The Kettledrum is…
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“Coffees or early teas are very fashionable of late, very charming in forming social entertainments, and have been in great demand during the two past seasons among the ladies of large cities. The custom has always been popular with the Jewish and German ladies, who entertain afternoon callers with coffee and cake.” Gems of Deportment 1880…
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Victorian’s liked to have a tool for every purpose. Chocolate spoons were used with drinking chocolate or what we would now call hot chocolate. Victorian’s loved drinking chocolate so much there are reports of milk chocolate, dark chocolate and even white chocolate being melted and served warm. Chocolate sets also contained a muddler spoon. This was a…
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