Being Conversent In Other Tablesetting Languages

One way to bring some variety to your table on special occasions is to adopt the tablesetting customs one of another country.  Mr. Bowen is not suggesting that you fore go the flatware entirely and replace them with chopsticks.  But there are subtle ways of rearranging your tablesetting to give it a traditional American,  European or French flair.  For a point of reference, we will discuss the traditional American placesetting.  Subsequent posts will cover the European and French settings.

The traditional American place setting has the water goblet and wine glasses forming a diamond above the knives with the bottom glass of the diamond placed directly above the main course dinner knife.  The dessert fork and spoon are placed directly above the top of the plate.  It is important to note that the dessert fork tines face to the right while the spoon above it faces in the opposite direction.  This arrangement makes it possible for the waiter or butler to slide the fork and spoon to the left and right respectively after the other flatware has been removed.  The dessert is then served.

The American style place setting has the bread plate placed to the upper left with the butter knife placed on the right side parallel to the forks below it.  The individual salt and pepper shakers are placed to the upper left of the plate, in the middle area between the plate, forks, butter plate and dessert fork and spoon.  Place cards go above the dessert fork and spoon.  In days gone by, the individual ashtray would have been between the dessert spoon and the place card.  If you are using individual butter pats, they would be placed to the right of the bread plate.  As the flatware gets used up with each course, the place setting gets less crowded.

The flatware on the table reflects the various courses to be served.  To the left of the plate, the forks are placed in order of the courses served, starting from the left to the right.  That usually means the salad fork, then the fish fork and finally the main course fork.  Typically, the right side starts with a soup spoon, then salad knife, fish knife and then the main course knife.  There are no unnecessary flatware on the table-all flatware must have an actual purpose.  That means no teaspoons unless you are actually going to be serving coffee or tea during the course of the meal.