Miss Manners: I want to have a 14-course dinner party. What are the rules?
For one thing, the sorbet comes in the middle.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My grandmother lived her life to its fullest: making calls on Tuesdays, remaining “at home to guests” on Wednesdays, and serving tea promptly at 4 every day.
Throughout her life, she would tell me of grand dinner parties that would last all evening with numerous courses and the table “turning” twice during these amazing fetes. When I asked her what the menu was, she replied, “It was 14 courses and then some. Write to Miss Manners; she’ll know.”
She recently passed, and I had the honor of inheriting her entire retinue of china, linens, flatware, glassware, serving platters, bowls, tureens, urns, cups, saucers, etc. I do not wish to “show off” this collection of flatware and glasses, but I do want to have one of these dinners in honor of my grandmother.
Could you please tell me what the courses are, and what order they should be served? And what are the rules of “turning the table”?
GENTLE READER: The first ingredient would be guests in robust health with hearty appetites. Your grandmother must have been such a one, because these menus did not survive World War I. Evidently she did — and then some, as she would say.
Courses varied, as did the order, but here are the basics:
1. Raw oysters
2. Soup, with both a cream soup and a thin soup offered
3. Hors d’oeuvres
4. Fish
5. Entree: This is not the main course, as today’s restaurants believe, but rather the “entry” to the main meal. An entree was typically asparagus, artichokes or corn.
6. Sorbet
7. Hot roast
8. Cold roast
9. Entremets, meaning “on the way to more” — sort of the hallway of the meal, which could be vegetables or such sweets as mousses or flans.
10. Game
11. Salad
12. Pudding
13. Ice cream
14. Fruit
15. Cheese
And in case you were still hungry, bonbons were served with coffee, although away from the table.
Later, courses were combined and otherwise shifted: hors d’oeuvres served before the seated meal; the vegetables with the roast; the cheese with the salad or the fruit; no more than one sweet, and served only at the end.
As you will surmise, these were times when thinness was considered not chic, but pitiful. Portly gentlemen and Rubenesque ladies were much admired. Nowadays, they would be shamed, and formal meals are four courses at most.
Even then, guests were not supposed to eat everything. It was like having an entire restaurant menu before you from which to pick and choose — and there were handwritten menus on private dinner tables, so guests could pace themselves.
Turning the table means turning first to talk to the person on your right, and then, when the hostess switches, to the person on your left. If that sounds silly to you, you have never been stranded while the people on both sides turn to their other seat mates, leaving you to maintain a smile while staring at your peas. Or your entremet, as the case may be.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: A co-worker brought in a homemade lunch for a few of us in reusable containers. She left us the leftovers for the next day.
This sparked a debate amongst my co-workers: Should we clean the containers before returning them? What is the proper etiquette?
GENTLE READER: And what, pray, would be a reason not to do this?
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.