it is spread on a
morsel of bread and conveyed to the mouth with the fingers.

A soft cake is eaten with a fork. The rule is that whatever can be eaten
with a fork shall be so eaten.

Roman punch and sherbets require a spoon. Berries, peaches and cream,
custards, preserves, jellies, call for the spoon. Strawberries are often
served as a first course in their season. They are then arranged with
their hulls and a portion of stem left on, dipped in powdered sugar and
eaten from the fingers. A little mound of the sugar is pressed into shape
in the center of the small plate and the berries laid around it.

Peaches, pears, and apples are peeled with the fruit knife, cut in
quarters or eighths, and eaten from the fingers. Bananas are stripped of
the skin, cut in pieces with a fork and eaten from it. Oranges are cut in
two across the sections and eaten with an orange spoon. Plums, like
olives, are eaten by biting off the pulp without taking the stone in the
mouth. Pineapple, unless shredded or cut up, requires both knife and fork;
it is usually prepared for more convenient eating. Grapes, which should be
washed by letting water from the faucet run over them and laid on a folded
towel until the moisture drips off, are eaten from behind the half-closed
hand, which receives the skins and seeds, then to be deposited on the
plate.

If the small cup of coffee--the demi-tasse--is served, the small
after-dinner coffee spoon is necessary. Cream is seldom served with the
black coffee--cafe noir--with which a meal concludes, cut loaf sugar is
passed.

The Spoon.--The spoon must never be left in the cup, no matter what
beverage is served. Most of us have seen some absent-minded individual (we
will charitably suppose him absent-minded instead of ignorant), stir his
coffee round and round and round, creating a miniature whirlpool and very
likely slopping it over into the saucer; then, prisoning the spoon with a
finger, drink half the cup's contents at a gulp. To do this is positively
vulgar. Stir the coffee or tea very slightly, just enough to stir the
cream and sugar with it, then drink in sips. To take either from the
teaspoon is bad form. Bread is broken, not cut, and only a small portion
buttered at a time. Do not play with bread crumbs or spoon, etc., during
the progress of a meal. Leave knife and fork on the plate, handles side by
side, when it is passed for a second helping, and at a conclusion of a
course, or the meal, lay them