EMBARRASSING DIFFICULTIES
If food is too hot, quickly take a swallow of water. On no account spit it out! If food has been taken into your mouth, no matter how you hate it, you must swallow it. It is offensive to take anything out of your mouth that hs been put in it, except dry fish bones and fruits pits (think Heathcliff). If you choke on a fish bone, leave the table quickly (sooo…you’re saying risk health for etiquette? I like!). To spit anything whatever into the corner of your napkin is too nauseating to comment on. It is horrid to see anyone spit skins on a fork or into the plate, and is excusable only if you get a bad clam or something similar into your mouth. Even then the best – because least noticeable – method is to take it from your mouth in your fingers – thumb underneath and four other fingers forming a screen over whatever it is, from lips to plate.
Peaches of other very juicy fruits are peeled and then eaten with knife and fork, but dry fruits, such as apples, may be cut and then eaten in the fingers. NEVER wipe hands that have fruit juice on them on a napkin without first using a finger bowl, because fruit juices make injurious stains (This is true, my dry cleaner just told me about “invisible” stains, or what one might call an oxymoron. Unless Emily is in on the dry cleaning prices racket).
I chose this entry because I was reminded of the time that I was dining at Korean restaurant with about 15 friends. I was sitting across the table from a friend who reached into my plate to grab a piece of shrimp (which I knew she didn’t like from the get go) and stuffed it in her mouth. A second later she spit the half chewed crustacean onto her plate and proclaimed “YUCK that was DISGUSTING”. She was, in fact, raised by wolves…but this entry reminds us that, when dining with friends, one should to keep their food opinions to themselves (and also their spit) because I have to say, there is NOTHING ruder than sharing your opinion about a meal a friend is also enjoying.
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