A place for friends to meet... with reflections on politics, history, art, music, books, morals, manners, and matters of faith.
A blog by Elena Maria Vidal.
Most people ate three meals a day: breakfast between 6 and 7am, a midday meal, and an evening meal served between 5 and 8pm. Hands were generally washed before eating, either before sitting down, or, if at a fancy dinner, in water brought to the table by servants.
Each person had a plate or trencher, a spoon, and a knife. Trendy people might use forks, which were introduced to England from Italy, but forks were not common. Cups and goblets were shared. For this reason, it was important to swallow your food before taking a drink!
It was bad manners to lick your hands, so polite people either wiped them on the tablecloth, or used a cloth napkin if one was provided.
Thank you for sharing this, Mary-Eileen. It's commonly thought that there were no table manners "back in the day", so it's encouraging to see stories such as this.
Manners are just common courtesy and (quite frankly) charity to those around us...especially chewing with your mouth closed! ;-)
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Very cool info! My kids thought it was "So weird" that people shared cups and wiped their hands on tablecloths. LOL
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting, Amanda. It's quite interesting, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this, Mary-Eileen. It's commonly thought that there were no table manners "back in the day", so it's encouraging to see stories such as this.
ReplyDeleteManners are just common courtesy and (quite frankly) charity to those around us...especially chewing with your mouth closed! ;-)
I agree, Colleen!
ReplyDelete