Original White House Cookbook

your neck, like a child’s bib. For an old person, however, it is well to attach the napkin to a napkin hook and slip it into the vest or dress buttonholes, to protect their garments, or sew a broad tape at two places on the napkin, and pass it over the head. When the soup is eaten, wipe the mouth carefully with the napkin, and use it to wipe the hands after meals. Finger bowls are not a general institution, and yet they seem to be quite as needful as the napkin, for the fingers are also liable to become a little soiled in eating. They can be had quite cheaply, and should be half-filled with water, and placed upon the side table or butler’s tray, with the dessert, bread and cheese,- etc. They are passed to each person half filled with water, placed on a parti-colored napkin with a dessert plate underneath, when the dessert is placed upon the table. A leaf or two of sweet verbena, an orange fiower, or a small slice of lemon, is usually put into each bowl to rub upon the fingers. The slice of lemon is most- commonly used. The finger tips are slightly dipped into the bowl, the lemon juice is squeezed upon them, and then they are dried softly upon the napkin. At dinner parties and luncheons they are indispensable. Spoons are sometimes used with firm puddings, but forks are the better style. A spoon should never be turned over in the mouth. Ladies have frequently an affected way of holding the knife half-way down its length, as if it were to big for their little hands; but this is as awkward a way as it is weak; the knife should be grasped freely by the handle only, the fore-finger being the only one to touch the blade, and that only along the back of the blade at its root, and no further down. At the conclusion of a course, where they have been used, knife and fork should be laid side by side across the middle of the plate — never crossed ; the old custom of crossing them was in obedience to an ancient religious formula. The servant should offer everything at the left of the guest, that the guest may be at liberty to use the right hand. If one has been given a napkin ring, it is necessary to fold one’s napkin and use the ring; otherwise the napkin should be left unfolded. One’s teeth are not to be picked at table; but if it is impossible to hinder it, it should be done behind the napkin. One may pick a bone at the table, but, as with corn, only one hand is allowed to touch it; yet one can usually get enough from it with knife and fork, which is certainly the more elegant way of doing; and to take her teeth to it gives a lady the look of caring a little too much for the pleasures of the table; one is, however, on no account to suck one’s finger after it.