Twentieth Century Culture and Deportment / Or the Lady and Gentleman at Home and Abroad; Containing Rules of Etiquette for All Occasions, Including Calls; Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions; Dinners and Teas; Etiquette of the Street; Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete Guide to Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well; Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and Interior Decorations, Etc.

by Maud C. Cooke

Fruits.

Apples are pared with a silver knife at table, and eaten in small sections from the fingers. There is often much time devoted to paring fruit by holding it on a fork, not touching it with the fingers. This is unnecessary, unless when a gentleman is preparing the fruit for a lady, or where the peach or pear is too juicy to do otherwise.

Grapes are plucked from their stems and the pulp squeezed into the mouth, while the fingers hold the skin which is then laid on one side the plate. This is far daintier than to put the fruit in the mouth and then eject the skin into the hand or upon the plate. Bananas are peeled and eaten from the plate with a fork. Oranges are skinned, divided into sections, and eaten from the fingers, rejecting the seeds into the hand. Some prefer, however, to cut the end of the orange and eat the pulp with a spoon. Pineapple is the only fruit that must be eaten with a knife and fork.

Silver knives and forks must always be used with fruits, as steel becomes colored by contact with the fruit juices and imparts a disagreeable flavor.

Green corn, in ear, is a stumbling-block, and perhaps one’s best plan would be to conform to the custom of the table where you may be. In eating it directly from the ear hold it in one hand only. Some hostesses provide small doilies with which to hold the ear.

If a guest is pleased with any particular dish on the table, a delicate compliment upon its unusual excellence is always pleasing to the hostess.

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[Evening Parties, Receptions and Suppers.]

The evening party may be as elaborate or as simple an affair as the hostess may desire. In its elaborate form it only differs from the ball in the one respect that dancing may, or may not, be introduced as a feature of the entertainment, while a ball is given for the express purpose of dancing, and is always so understood.