It's the little details that matter.
How to be a perfect guest?
What are the rules of politeness to know to behave well at the table?
Our advices.
To discover
What vegetables and fruits are in season for April?
Should we offer flowers when we are invited to dinner?
Your gesture comes, of course, from a good feeling.
But do you know that flowers are a poisoned gift?
Because we want to honor this generous friend, the hostess will have to make a bouquet on the spot, a sometimes thankless and long task.
Here she is stuck in the kitchen, while her other guests are just waiting for her to open the champagne.
The best idea is to send roses the morning of dinner (5, 7 or 9, never even numbers) or to have it delivered the next day.
An elegant attention and, be sure, much more practical.
Do we have to offer something when we are invited?
There was a time when guests did not bring a present to their host or in a very exceptional way.
Today it is difficult to arrive at a friend's house empty-handed, intrepid not to offer a bottle, a bouquet or a box of chocolates to our generous hosts.
The most daring guests sometimes dare to wear only their smile, but then have to multiply their excuses and wait for their hosts to reassure them, "
No, they didn't need anything"
.
We must then accept the risk of feeling a bit stingy, even inattentive.
It's annoying but that's the way it is.
Up to you.
Should we arrive at the exact time?
Do you know the polite quarter of an hour?
Invited at 8:30 p.m., guests must arrive at 8:45 p.m.
Simply to let the masters of the house finish setting the table and put the roast beef in the oven.
But be careful, a quarter of an hour is not an hour.
You could annoy not only your hosts but anyone waiting for you to attack dinner.
Imagine: a charred roast beef and hungry friends who, intoxicated with rage, swear to each other never to receive you in their home again.
Good atmosphere.
Should we talk to the other guests?
The English have this chance: for them, no familiarity, no formal address, no discomfort, no embarrassment.
From a certain age, we, poor French people, have to be careful how we address anonymous people.
When you arrive at this dinner, where a few guests you don't know are already seated, always start with formality (we're not in a holiday club).
Gradually, and depending on your affinities, familiarity may come naturally to you.
And your interlocutor will also be familiar with you.
If he doesn't, be on your guard: the bugger is a little old fashioned. Go back to using the formal address or talk to someone else.
Who should serve the wine at the table?
If there is a very old rule of etiquette, timeless and at the same time easy to memorize, it is this: a woman should never touch a bottle of wine at the table.
Quite simply because it is the man who must serve her.
As soon as he sees his glass empty, he must refill it.
And don't wait for her neighbor to ask her, a little annoyed, that she would take more of this Mouton Rothschild, which is just to her liking.
And that, even if you feel that it is close to drunkenness: it does not concern you!
How to sit properly at the table?
Your parents undoubtedly taught you how to behave at the table.
If your memory is failing, here are two, three things to know:
We sit after, and only after, the mistress of the house.
We stand straight (no back glued to the chair).
We close our mouth while eating.
We wipe our mouths before drinking a glass of wine.
You don't put your hand on your glass to refuse to be served.
We do not put the elbows on the table but the hands must be on each side of his plate.
You don't cut your salad with your knife.
You put your cutlery on your plate between bites.
In short, there are a plethora of rules of this ilk.
If you're already following these, it won't be so bad.
Also to know:
We obviously use a spoon to eat a soup but be careful, we never lift our plate to finish it.
Too bad if there are any left.
You don't use your knife for the potatoes, manage with your fork.
Asparagus is a problem: among friends, eat it with your hands;
at a social dinner, again use a fork.
A boiled egg is broken with a spoon, never a knife.
You don't spread your cheese on a piece of bread, you put it on the bread, nuance.
Foie gras is also eaten with a fork, not a knife.
You don't use a spoon to eat your spaghetti.
And then, if you have any doubts, look at the way of making guests known for their savoir-vivre and imitate them!
When should you start dinner?
It's late and you're hungry, which is normal.
However, you will have to wait a bit and above all not rush on your plate, nor on the bread.
Whatever happens, you will have to wait until the hostess has grabbed her fork to grab yours.
If your neighbors started the tomato-mozzarella before the hostess, let them do it and don't imitate them.
Unlike you, they don't know how to stand.
How to refuse a dish?
This is called bad luck.
You like almost everything except pineapple.
It is therefore with some anguish that you watch your host generously serve you his specialty: his famous pineapple cake.
The only acceptable argument for refusing to touch it: inventing the allergy that you have been fighting for ages and which forbids you even to look at this bromeliad without having to go to the emergency room.
And if, for ethical reasons, you don't eat foie gras, don't disgust others with it.
Do not recount in detail the manner in which the geese are shamefully force-fed.
We are aware, thank you.
But there, we simply want to taste it with this Sauternes.
Keep to yourself the scabrous details recently read in the press and... leave the guests in peace with their conscience.
Can you turn your back on your neighbour?
Several testimonies overlap and are chilling: there are men who turn their backs on their right-hand neighbor to speak only to the one on the left.
What to say ?
That we all know rude characters but that this one has reached the limit of the bearable.
That by ignoring his neighbor in this way, he is showing unforgivable boorishness.
A guest should concentrate on the two people seated near him, turn to one then to the other, each in turn.
And that, even if one looks like Julia Roberts and the other… doesn't.
How to compliment the cook?
Nicole has all the qualities: faithful, funny, intelligent, exquisite, and only one fault, she is a mediocre, an execrable cook.
She is also the only one who does not know it.
If you come to his dinners, it's certainly not for his watermelon quiche or his hodgepodge of breaded fish.
Just for his good humor.
Also, because you love him and because you have no choice, you will tell him all the good things you don't think of his cooking.
All it takes is a "mmmmm" or a "delicious" and it will be fine.
Don't add more either.
What are the topics to avoid?
Your hosts have gone out of their way to ruin their dinner.
However, many evenings start well and end in fistfights.
Remember the cartoons of the end of the 19th century, in Le Figaro.
We see a family dining quietly then the same ones fighting wildly: they had talked about the Dreyfus affair!
This case, which made the French warlike, resembles others, more contemporary.
Talking about politics or religion can provoke heated debates.
They are to be avoided in relationships that we know little about.
Instead, keeping your oratorical contests for a small circle of intimate friends with whom to compete is not of consequence.
Drawing by Caran d'Ache published in "Le Figaro" of February 14, 1899. In caption: at the top "Above all, let's not talk about the Dreyfus affair";
bottom “They talked about it”.
Le Figaro
How to thank after a dinner?
It should be a reflex.
The day after a dinner, whether pleasant or boring, we thank the hosts.
We can of course make a phone call.
Possibly send an email or an SMS.
But what if you stood out, if you became elegance incarnate?
Take a piece of paper and a pen – if you don't know what it is, find out – and write a note, very simple, but warm and enthusiastic.
Send the missive the next morning and imagine how your host will be surprised and touched.
Surprised and touched that his efforts paid off, surprised and touched by the time you took to congratulate him.
So, just for that, for the pleasure you are going to give her, don't hesitate any longer.
