I spend a lot of time shopping in home decor stores and it is obvious that we like to set our tables to suit the event. Few people own just one set of china today. We rush out and buy table linens, glassware, candles and whatever else we can find to make our tables beautiful. The term "tablescape" certainly describes our efforts.
People love to collect unusual pieces of flatware and I suspect many actually use these pieces. If you look at my previous posts on silver you will see many of these pieces that you may want to include in your collection.
Let's start with a formal look for your next dinner party. No matter what the occasion, your intent is to make your guests comfortable and this fact dictates the placement of china, silver and crystal. The picture above shows more pieces than you would ever use for one meal. You should use just the pieces you need for your menu and no more.
Here is an idea of the menu for the pieces shown in the picture.
A shellfish appetizer
Soup or fruit and cheese
A fish course
The main course of meat or chicken
A salad
Various wines, water and coffee
A dessert
The dinner plate is in place for food to be served at the table. Atop the dinner plate is the salad plate and a berry bowl. If the salad were already on the table when your guests are seated this would be the placement. After the salad is eaten you would remove the salad plate. If the salad is served after the main course, it would be placed in front of the guest after the dinner plate is removed.
On top of the salad plate is a berry bowl. The berry bowl is one of those pieces you probably are not familiar with. It is an old piece used just as it says for berries...raspberries, strawberries, blue berries, whatever berry you wish! Most likely these would be served at the end of the meal as a dessert. If so the bowl would be placed on a saucer and set directly in front of the guest.
To the left of the place setting is the bread plate. It is smaller that a salad plate and is used to hold your bread and a small amount of butter. The individual butter knife is placed across the top of the plate. Recently I have noticed some restaurants are improperly placing the butter knife. My family was eating at a popular and rather "foo-foo" place in New York. This faux pas was the first thing that caught my eye. Oh, those Yankees! (I will interject a note here on restaurant service. It seems to me these wonderful establishments have their own set of rules for service and placement of dishes and silver. I suspect their ideas are for the convenience of the servers and not for lovers of traditions and proper etiquette. My point is do not use a restaurant as your guide.)
The flatware is used from the outside in. This is universal and guides your guests through the meal without a hitch. Starting on the right side of the plate is a cocktail fork for the shellfish appetizer. Next is the soup spoon. You may serve a fruit and cheese course next so there is a fruit knife on the right. The next knife is a fish knife and to the left of the dinner plate the first fork is a fish fork. Next to this fork is the salad fork. Finally, the dinner knife is the closest to the dinner plate on the right and the dinner fork closest of the left. Above the place setting is the dessert fork and spoon for coffee.
All of those glasses, where do we start? I have heard that you can put up to five glasses at a place setting but I feel that is WAY too many! If you want white wine with the fish course and red wine with the meat course, bring that glass to the table with the food. You would not be drinking both red and white at the same time. My personal rule is a water glass and a glass for whatever beverage is being served with that course.
For most any meal you will want a water glass. That is the stemmed round bowl glass with the gold rim. To the right of the water glass is a red wine glass. To the right of this glass is the white wine glass and the champagne flute is to it's left. The small glass to the upper right of the coffee cup is a sherry or dessert wine glass. Personally, I like to serve this drink away from the table when we have all retired to the parlor!
The coffee cup and saucer should be placed on the table along with the dessert. Of course, this is another drink your guests may enjoy while sitting in a over-stuffed chair by the fireplace after they leave the table.
The napkin has been placed in a napkin ring, which was once a bit casual. Today using napkin rings is most acceptable. For a formal dinner the guests sould leave the soiled napkin unfolded on the table at the end of the meal. For family meals and for house guests who will be eating more than one meal, the napkin is replaced in the napkin ring and left at their place at the table. Depending on your menu and the neatness of your family you should probably launder the napkins every other day.
One more note on napkins. When you use folded napkins the fold should allow you to place the raw edges toward the plate. This is so the guest may pick up the napkin and it will unfold easily for placement in the lap. One popular web site says the opposite of this but I was taught as I have described and I stand by it. It makes sense and remember your intent is to make this easy on your guest.
Here is a place setting more appropriate for week day dinners for the family. Let's ignore all those pieces to the right and we will call this our basic place setting. I don't know about you but my week night meals do not have five courses unless they are the Hungry Man TV Dinner!
A place mat and napkin are for every meal and the formality is decided by your fabrics, style and color choice. Here we have a red straw place mat and a cotton napkin with a hand painted rooster. Tablecloths are not used much today for a couple of reasons. Many of our tabletops are quite beautiful. Place mats allow us to show off those tables. The other reason is who has time to launder and iron a tablecloth?
I remember receiving several Damask clothes with matching napkins as wedding presents. Previously I have disclosed that I have been married more years than I am old so, yes, this was right after the War Between the States. Even then, they were a bit "old fashioned" for me but I remember reading about these beautiful cloths and I must share my knowledge with you.
Damask tablecloths were intended to be used only once and then discarded. I assume this was because even in the time of household help, the chore of ironing these cloths is torture. Although I love the extravagance of this idea, I will tell you I used mine and I washed them and I ironed them. As a young bride of twenty-two, living in Boston, there was no household help! Oh, if I had only known!
The china in the picture is simple and includes a variety of patterns. For most family meals a dinner plate and salad plate are your most used pieces. Once again I have the salad plate on top of the dinner plate although I usually use it on the left above the fork. I show the bread plate in that position in this picture. The bowl is for soup or a fruit appetizer.
The flatware is similar to the pieces used in the formal setting with the exception of an iced beverage spoon and a dessert spoon. Remember this is just for demonstration purposes and most likely you would not use many of these pieces.
In closing, the idea here is to have fun with you meals. Our styles are as varied as our menus and there is room for whatever your taste might be. Just try to keep it proper and follow the time worn "rules" because they are there for comfort and ease which lead to an enjoyable meal.
Post Script
I mentioned Damask napkins and living in Boston. Here I was a little Southern bell in the center of New England Yankee-land and to my horror at one of my first dinners, a woma, who I actually invited, blew her nose at the table into one of my brand new linen napkins. Need I say more about Yankees?
