When eating cheese, small morsels of the cheese should be placed with the knife on small morsels of bread, and the two conveyed to the mouth with the thumb and finger, the piece of bread being the morsel to hold, as cheese should not be taken up in the fingers, and should not be eaten off the point of the knife.[3]
The finger-glass should be removed from the ice-plate and placed on the left-hand side of the dessert-plate. When ices are not given, the d'oyley should be removed with the finger-glass and placed beneath it.
When eating grapes, the half-closed hand should be placed to the mouth, and the stones and skins allowed to fall into the fingers, and placed on the side of the plate. Some persons bend the head so as to allow of the stones and skins of the grapes falling on the side of the plate; but this latter way is old-fashioned, and seldom followed. Cherries and other small stone-fruit should be eaten in the way grapes are eaten, also gooseberries.
When strawberries and raspberries, etc., are not eaten with cream, they should be eaten from the stalks; when eaten with cream, a dessert-spoon should be used to remove them from the stalks. When served in the American fashion without stalks, both fork and spoon should be used.
Pears and apples should be peeled and cut into halves and quarters with a fruit-knife and fork, as should peaches, nectarines, and apricots.
Melons should be eaten with a spoon and fork.
Pines with knife and fork.
The dessert is handed to the guests in the order in which the dinner has been served.[4]
When the guests have been helped to wine, and the servants have left the dining-room, the host should pass the decanters to his guests, commencing with the gentleman nearest to him.
It is not the fashion for gentlemen to drink wine with each other either at dinner or dessert, and the guest fills his glass or not, according to inclination.