Featured Silver folks,what am I for?

Welcome, Chandler. Interesting info on English table setting practices.

Sure, but please select the choice to make any photos full size.

 

From what I have heard of Queen Victoria's appetite, she ate everything with a bread pusher.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

 

It is. But a lot of the fun of it for Americans is how it portrays the running of a great house and works in tidbits about life attended to by an army of servants. Without it, we Yanks would never know that an Englishman is never waited on at breakfast. Or so the butler tells the American movie producer who is preparing to make a Charlie Chan film.

 

Oh how lovely !

 

I would know how to use the salt & pepper shakers.

 

That's a start.
For the rest, work from the outside in. The extra spoon and fork on the right probably means there is something finnicky at the start of the meal that is slightly more than an amuse. The top things are for dessert(s).

 

It is a cocktail fork and that finicky thing called a soup spoon. Courses 1&2.

 

I do vaguely know that much, but would really have to be surreptitiously looking at others to be sure of getting it right. It's a similar experience going to a restaurant offering a cuisine that uses different utensils from the ones I'm accustomed to. First time friend & I went to a Korean restaurant, like the barbarians we are, we used the big shallow spoons for the soup. Next time we went I looked around enough to know that we were to drink the soup straight from the bowl & use the spoon to stir the ingredients of the big hot pots we had ordered.

 

I have never even heard of these. What sort of thing might one be using it to pick up?

As for the original post, were you suggesting that these pieces were in the big category & meant for serving rather than eating?

 

Ah, probably an American thing. I am European, we wouldn't put a fork (that was the finnicky thing ) on a soup spoon, but next to it. Different courses. And to us roundish spoons are for certain desserts where small dessert spoons wouldn't work.

In Europe cocktail forks are for small pre-dinner snacks, not taken at the table. Amuses are taken at the table. That is another difference with the US I guess.

 

In my mental image of people enjoying a pre-dinner cocktail, they are not doing so at the table. But it would be awkward to be milling around with a glass in one hand & a fork in the other, spearing appealing appetizers when they come by.

 

They appear to be serving pieces. The fork is a borderline sardine serving fork as well.

 

Think shrimp or crab cocktail. Sometimes I use my berry fork and serve berries in cream in tiny stemmed glasses. My table my rules. Just like I never have a fork without a knife (except the cocktail/berry fork placed on the right). A salad fork needs a knife for me to be happy and anytime I can place more silver on the table the better. The dessert set up is for Poire belle Hélène which I serve in a cake lined coupe necessitating the use of the knife, fork and spoon.

 

Yes! I wish this were standard practice. Have never wanted to visit LV, but think an invitation to dinner at your house would get me on a plane.

 

I started school in England at the of the age of 4yrs old, these were the days of "school dinners" which were served at noon in the large canteen ... girls on one side and boys on the other. Our table setting consisted of dinner plate, knife on right side, fork on the left, and the spoon placed across the top of the plate .. a paper napkin neatly folded on the plate. We would then line up to be served by about 4 women who would then serve the food, we were allowed to ask for "large or small" according to out appetites. A male teacher would then walk up and down the aisle between girls and boys with a ruler in his hands, observing ANY sign of bad manners like chewing and talking with ones mouth full, not having both knife and fork in ones hands, speaking loudly, not using your napkin to dab your mouth, stuffing ones mouth with food etc etc. Manners were of the utmost importance back then. Please and Thank You were always expected .. it was normal for us children at home and at school... Joy.

 

Hi,
Egads reminds me of me and my formal tables. Mine looked like yours only I had tiny Wedgwood cigarette urns at each place setting. Speaking of which I still am looking for the black and white one. I have them in eleven colors but still missing my black one.
greg

 

Interesting in that I have repurposed my cigarette urns into place card holders. (I have one extra with the lighter installed for nostalgia purposes) A little baby's breath, a rose bud and the cards slip in perfectly. Funny but I bought my nut cups when they were advert on eBay as ashtrays. It appeared that nobody wanted to buy ashtrays. They were a steal.