Published 2004
How one sets a table and serves a meal depends, quite obviously, on the menu and cultural norms. A multicourse “soup to nuts” dinner requires different accoutrements than does a casserole supper. Compare the differences in even the simplest dinners over the past four hundred years. Early-seventeenth-century Dutch colonists ate a steaming pottage from the center of a dining board (some were specially hollowed out with a shallow depression to restrain the runny mash) by scooping bites with a spoon, a bit of bread, or the last three fingers carefully arched. No plates formed an intermediate way station for food to rest on in the journey from common dish to mouth. The eating utensil (spoon or fingers) returned unwashed to the trough, although unwritten rules of etiquette sanctioned precisely how one would divide areas within the common dish for each diner. Drinks were drained from a communal cup, the lip wiped in a nod to delicacy before passing it on. The entire experience was based on sharing comestibles. A comparable stew dinner, even in a very modest household from the late nineteenth century forward, came to the table in a serving vessel with a serving spoon and individual plates, utensils, and drinking glasses for each diner. The diners helped themselves to portions, rather than mouthfuls, from the common dish, with each portion transferred to a personal plate before being eaten. Contemporary etiquette bans using the serving utensil for eating, and any diner (except those on the most intimate terms) who tries to sneak a fork into the common pot to grab a tempting morsel is slapped on the wrist. The entire dining experience stresses eating from the individual plate rather than the communal platter.
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