Napkin Rings and Other Horrors

Napkins are useful and versatile objects – as class indicators, that is. We have already seen that to call them �serviettes’ is a grave social solecism – one of the �seven deadly sins’ unmistakably signalling lower-class origins. But there are many other ways in which napkins can set off English class-radar bleepers, including, in chronological order from the beginning to the end of a meal:

setting the table with napkins folded into over-elaborate, origami-like shapes (�smart’ people just fold them simply);

standing folded napkins upright in glasses (they should be placed either on or next to the plates);

tucking one’s napkin into waistband or collar (it should be left loose on the lap);

using one’s napkin to scrub or wipe vigorously at one’s mouth (gentle dabbing is correct);

folding one’s napkin up carefully at the end of the meal (it should be left carelessly crumpled on the table);

or, even worse, putting rolled-up napkins into napkin rings (only people who say �serviette’ use napkin rings).

The first two of these napkin-sins are based on the principle that over-fussy, �genteel’ daintiness is a lower-middle-class trait. Inelegant use of the napkin – tucking and scrubbing – is working class. The last two napkin-sins are abhorrent because they indicate that the napkins will be used again without being washed. Smart people would rather be given a paper napkin than a used cotton or linen one. The upper-middle classes joke about �the sort of people who use napkin rings’ – meaning lower/middle-middles who think they are being elegant and dainty, but are in fact being rather grubby.

While there is some point to these napkin rules (at least, the objection to re-using napkins strikes me as perfectly reasonable), the prejudice against fish knives is harder to justify. At one time, quite a number of middle-class and even upper-class English people used special knives (and forks) for eating fish. Some may have regarded this practice as a bit over-dainty and pretentious, but the outright taboo seems to date from the publication of John Betjeman’s �How to Get On in Society’, in which he lampoons the affectations and pretensions of a lower-middle-class housewife preparing for a dinner party. The poem begins:

Phone for the fish knives, Norman

For cook is a little unnerved

You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes

And I must have things daintily served

Fish knives, possibly always a bit suspect, were from that moment irrevocably associated with people who say �pardon’ and �serviette’ and �toilet’ – and use napkin rings. Now, fish knives are also seen as hopelessly old-fashioned, and are probably only used by lower/middle-middle people of older generations. Steak knives are regarded as equally suburban, as are doilies, pastry-forks, anything gold, salt-and-pepper �cruets’, coasters and hostess trolleys (hotplates on a sort of wheeled table, used for keeping food warm in the dining room).

You would have thought that finger bowls – little bowls of tepid water for washing your fingers when eating food by hand – would come into the same category of precious, twee, affected, suburban daintiness, but for some reason they are acceptable, and are still seen at upper-middle and upper-class dinners. There is very little logic to any of this. Tales are often told of ignorant lower-class guests drinking from finger bowls – and of ultra-polite hosts then drinking from the bowls themselves, so as not to embarrass the guests by drawing attention to their error. You are supposed to dip your fingers briefly in the finger bowl, then pat them gently dry with your napkin – not wash and scrub and rub as though it were a bathroom sink, unless you want to activate your hosts’ class-radar systems.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-06