Page:Book of Etiquette, Volume 2, by Lilian Eichler.djvu/52

32 against the edge. They are never placed back again on the table.

The foods eaten with the fork are meats, vegetables, fish, salads, oysters and clams, lobster, ices, frozen puddings and melons. Hearts of lettuce and lettuce leaves are folded up with the fork and conveyed uncut to the mouth. If the leaves are too large to be folded conveniently, they may be cut with the blunt edge of the fork never with a knife.

Various foods are eaten with the fingers instead of fork or spoon. Bread, for instance, is never cut but always broken into small pieces and lifted to the mouth with the fingers. Butter is seldom provided at the formal dinner, but if it is, each little piece of bread is buttered individually just before it is eaten. Crackers and cake are eaten in the same way; although some cakes and pastries are eaten with the fork. Those that can be eaten daintily with the fingers such as macaroons, lady-fingers, cookies, etc., should be eaten so while layer cake and elaborate pastries should be eaten with the fork.

Corn on the cob is without a doubt one of the most difficult foods to eat gracefully. And yet it is too delicious to forego the pleasure of eating it at all. It is entirely permissible to use the fingers in eating corn, holding it lightly at each end; sometimes a napkin is used in holding it. Many a foresighted hostess, when serving corn on the cob, provides each guest with a short, keen, steel bladed knife with which the kernels may be cut from the cob easily. This is by far the most satisfactory method.

French artichokes are also difficult to eat. The proper