WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2004
SELF-IMPROVEMENT
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
4
27
Setting places will keep the dish from running away
Before you invite friends and family over for dinner, do you have to count your paper plates to make sure you have enough for everyone? Are your dinner parties always a free-for-all scramble for pizza or Chinese food? Or do you not even have dinner parties because you're intimidated by salad forks, fish knives and soup spoons?
Worry no more, throwing a classy dinner party with an elegant place setting isn't as hard as it sounds.
The basic set up
Marge Simpson may have learned how to use all 37 forks at Camp Land-A-Man, but don't let that get to you. Mainly because there aren't 37 forks to use, and there probably aren't many meals that would require them all even if there were.
For a proper formal place setting:
1) Place the service plate directly in front of where the guest would be sitting. At a truly formal dinner, this plate would not be eaten from. It would be either removed or the dish for the course
would be placed on top of it.
2) Think of the service plate as the center of a clock, and place the bread plate in the 10 o'clock position, or the upper left-hand corner of the setting. The butter knife is placed horizontally across the bread plate.
3) Place the water glass in the upper right-hand corner, or 1 o'clock, with the red wine glass below and to the right. The white wine glass should be below and to the right of the red wine glass.
4) Horizontally place the dessert spoon above the service plate with the bowl of the spoon pointing left. Place the dessert fork above the dessert spoon with the tines, or prongs, pointing right.
5) Working outward from the left side of the service plate, place the dinner fork next to the service plate, then the fish fork and then the salad fork.
6) Working outward from the right side of the service plate, place the dinner knife next to the service plate, then the fish knife and then the soup spoon.
7) Place the folded napkin to the left of the salad fork. The napkin can also be placed on top of the service plate.
During a formal dinner, courses are brought out on individual plates and either take the place of the service plate or are set on top of the service plate. If you can't remember the proper order of utensils, don't worry. You can always bring out the required fork or spoon on the dish when you serve your guests.
A few tips
If you ever find yourself at a formal dinner that you didn't set places for, and you can't remember what fork to use, just remember to work your way in with utensils. The utensils on the outside are the first ones used. Always assume that your host has set the table properly.
When sitting down to a formal dinner, always place the napkin in your lap. Never tie a napkin around your neck
Courtney Kuhlen/Kanser or leave a used napkin on the table.
After you have used a utensil do not place it back on the table. Lay it across the edge of your plate.
— Compiled by Donovan Atkinson,
edited by Joe Burke
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