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Fine Dining »All For Starters |
| For Starters |
| Artichokes: |
This "edible thistle" is served stuffed or plain, usually with hot drawn lemon butter, hollandaise, mayonnaise or vinaigrette.
Tear a leaf from the cooked, presented artichoke with your fingertips and pull it through your teeth to remove the edible pulp. (Hold the pointed tip and put the fleshy wider end into your mouth.) If your artichoke is accompanied by lemon butter or vinaigrette, dip the edible end and quickly bring it to your mouth. With a thicker sauce, handle the edible end like a corn chip. If the artichoke is stuffed, peel off a leaf and spread the stuffing onto it with a knife.
When you reach the thin inner leaves, discard them. You may hold the bottom of the artichoke steady on your plate with a fork and use your fingers to pull them off. Doing so reveals the artichoke's hairy center, which you do not eat. Remove it instead, and you are left with the vegetable's favored "heart." This can be cut into pieces and eaten plain, or else dipped in whatever accompanies your artichoke. |
| Caviar: |
If caviar is passed to you in a bowl or crock with its own spoon, serve a teaspoonful onto your plate. As the following accompaniments are offered, use the individual serving spoons in each to take small amounts of minced onion and sieved egg whites and yolks, as well as a few lemon slices and a couple of toast points. Assemble a canapé to your taste with a knife, then use your fingers to lift it to your mouth.
If you're at a cocktail party or reception where prepared caviar canapés are being passed on trays, simply lift one off the plate and pop it into your mouth. |
| Cheese: |
As an hors d'oeuvre, cheese is spread on a cracker with the knife that accompanies each kind.
When cheese is served with a salad, you can spread it on a cracker or a small bit of bread with either a fork or knife, or else a piece of cheese may be broken off on your plate with a fork and eaten with lettuce. Soft, runny cheeses, such as Brie and Camembert, are always spread with a salad knife or butter knife.
Dessert cheeses served with fruit are easily handled: Just quarter, core and/or pare the apples or ripe pears, and then eat the cheese with a fork and the fruit with either a fork or your fingers. Alternate bites of fruit and cheese. |
| Pate: |
| Pâté may appear either before dinner or with the salad during a meal. If it is served to you with cocktails, spread it thickly on crackers or small pieces of toast, and eat with your hands. If it accompanies the salad course, it may be passed in a crock or in a ring mold. In that case, lift off a slice or serve a spoonful onto your plate along with a cracker or toast. Prepare a small open sandwich with a knife, then lift it with your hand to your mouth. Cornichon pickles (small gherkins) are often served with pâté and should be eaten with a fork. |
| Shrimp Cocktail: |
| If oversize shrimp are served in a stemmed glass, pick them up with an oyster fork and bite off a mouthful at a time, dipping into the sauce before each bite. It is too precarious to cut shrimp in this kind of dish. If large shrimp are served on a flat dinner plate, they can be cut with a knife and fork. |
| Soups: |
Soup may be served either in a soup plate or in a cup, depending on the type of soup and the formality of the meal.
Clear soups are often served in small, doubled-handled consommé cups. You can test the heat of the soup with a spoon, then lift the cup to drink it. Any vegetables or noodles left at the bottom can be eaten with a spoon. A two-handled cream-soup bowl is larger than a consommé cup. You can drink the soup or use a spoon. In both cases, when you are finished, place the spoon on the plate underneath and to the right of the cup. Never leave it standing in the cup.
When a soup plate is used, always spoon away from the table's edge. When you reach the bottom, you can tilt the plate slightly away from you. When using a soup spoon, always sip from the side and never put the entire bowl of the spoon into your mouth.
Tiny crackers or croutons can be added to soup, whole, a few at a time. Larger crackers should be eaten separately - except with such hearty soups as chowders at informal meals, when you can add a few pieces at a time.
At all times, drink soups quietly. |
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