Sometimes a dinner table can feel like a minefield. So many rules and regulations! In general we muddle through by remembering that napkins go in our laps and the BMW Rule*, but Etiquetteer wants to remind you about five other things it’s Helpful to Remember when you tuck in:
Elbows in. The dinner table is no place for the Chicken Dance**, especially if everyone is seated tightly. Keep your elbows close to your torso so you don’t invade anyone’s personal space.
Pass to the right. In the United States it is Perfectly Proper to pass the bread basket, the butter, and anything else that needs to be passed in the same direction, which is to your right. We have all been at dinner tables that became free-for-alls with different things passed right, left, across, any which way. Chaos! Keep everything going smoothly in one direction — just don’t let everything build up on your left.
A place for everything. Dear Mother (may she rest in peace) always said “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” Consider that when you look at the geography of your dinner plate. Things you don’t eat, like bones and shrimp tails, belong in the upper left of your plate, the eleven o’clock position. If you’re adding sauce, like ketchup, it goes in the bottom right.
Timing is everything. Gluttons (like Queen Victoria and That Mr. Dimmick Who Thinks He Knows So Much) bolt through dinner at top speed and leave everyone else hanging. Others (like Eleanor Roosevelt) get so involved in table talk that it seems they will never finish their food. Find the middle ground and enjoy your meal at a pace that will see everyone at the table taking their last bite within a minute or two of each other.
A Parting Gesture. When leaving the table at the end of the meal, there is only one proper place for your napkin: to the left of your plate. On no account should it go on top of your plate, especially if it’s a cloth napkin. Lillian Eichler said it best in Today’s Etiquette (1941): When rising from the meal, one drops the napkin carelessly on the table without folding it or smoothing it out.”
Etiquetteer wishes you carefree dining with congenial and courteous companions.
*The BMW Rule is how to read your place setting from left to right: Bread at the left, your Meal in in the middle, and Water (and Wine) at the right.
**Actually, no place is the place for the Chicken Dance. Or the Hokey Pokey.