Kitchen Essential

Leave yourself plenty of time as there are always little jobs to do to ensure that everything looks perfect. First decide which accessories you are going to use. Sometimes a cloth or napkins need ironing, using a little spray starch to give a fresh, crisp look. Silver and glasses may need polishing, mats may need a wipe over, flowers may have to be picked and so on.

Lay the table with the cloth or mats first. Count out the cutlery you need and set this next. Then come the glasses, well polished and sparkling. Count out the pieces of china you need for all the courses and stack ready in the kitchen, other than those you need for the first course and any side plates, which will go directly on the table.

Cutlery

The most important aspect of table setting is the positioning of the cutlery. The general rules are not as rigid as they used to be, but it is very important that forks go on the left and knives and spoons on the right, and that guests should be able to tell, by working from the outside inwards, which implements to use for which course.

The setting for a meal consisting of soup, meat, pudding and cheese. On the right, working inwards, are the bread knife, soup spoon, knife for the main meat course and spoon for the pudding. On the left are the forks for the main course and the pudding. If the first course is to be eaten with a fork, the soup spoon is left out and replaced by a small fork on the left of the main meat fork. The forks should be positioned with their prongs pointing upwards and the knives with their blades inwards.

It is quite correct, but less formal, to position the pudding spoon and fork, or teaspoon for ice-cream, above the setting, as in fig. 20. This positioning has the advantage of saving space.

At a formal dinner, if there is a dessert, such as fresh fruit, a dessert knife and fork are brought in on the dessert plate with a finger-bowl.

To soften a very formal setting the bread knife can be positioned on top of the folded napkin on the side plate, as in fig. 23. Likewise, the cutlery needed for an hors d’oeuvre other than soup, may be laid on the plate ready for eating — for example, a grapefruit spoon on a small plate next to the grapefruit half in a sundae dish; or a small fork or spoon next to a prawn cocktail in a wine glass on a small plate. This course is placed on top of the plate which will be used for the second course.

Plates

If there is no course between the hors d’oeuvre and the main one, the largest rather than the medium-sized plate should be set under it, unless you intend to bring in the main course ready served, or to set warmed plates for it. It is much better to serve hot food on warmed plates.

Glasses

At most dinner parties only one wine is served and the glass should be positioned just above the blade of the large knife. If more than one wine is to be served the glasses should be positioned in the order they will be used, working from right to left, the furthest away being used first, or in a triangular pattern. It is a good idea to have a jug of iced water or a carafe of iced mineral water on the table and to give water goblets as required.

The finishing touches

Once all the necessary items are laid out on the table, stand back and decide where to position salt and pepper pots, bread baskets, place cards (if being used), mats for serving dishes (unless you plan to serve from the sideboard or trolley), butter dishes and flowers. If the central flower, or flower and candle, decoration is already in position, look at the height of the glasses. Is the balance right? Tall slender candles look better with long-stemmed fine glasses than with squat chunky ones. Are the flowers too tall? Is the table too cramped? If the space on the table is limited you could dispense with a bread basket and place rolls and pats of butter ready on each side plate. The napkins can be folded into a mitre shape and placed in the glasses.

Instead of a central flower arrangement that may take up too much room, place single flowers floating in finger bowls or glasses at each place setting, or use small sprays of flowers to decorate each rolled napkin.

Finally, check that salt and pepper pots are filled, that chairs are in position, lighting is organized — and to avoid the risk of fire, that candles forming part of the central arrangement are stable, and are not touching leaves, ribbons or flowers.

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