May I take your fork?

Having sufficiently recovered from our recent anniversary dinner, we now feel able to resume our earlier discussion of anniversaries, French food, the joys of gluttony, etc. 


We do not often visit fancy eating establishments, mainly because when we do the proprietors look at us and declare imperiously, "Pardon me, but I believe you want the establishment down the street -- big yellow M on the sign, mmmm?"


When they do let us in, as was fortunately the case at the French restaurant we went to for our anniversary, we feel a bit ill at ease. We know that at some point someone who works there is going to realize that we are but simple folk: people who can, and usually do, go through an entire meal with only a single fork.


In contrast, at self-respecting establishments you do not eat your entire meal with a single fork. Or a single spoon, or knife, or plate, or anything else. All of your tableware items are constantly being whisked away the moment you are finished with them. Further, this moment is determined not by you, the user, but by the waiter or the bus person, who may, in their infinite wisdom, determine that you are finished with an item before you realize you are finished with it. "Please, let me get this out of your way," the waiter says apologetically, and as you watch your soup bowl making its way back to the kitchen, borne deftly aloft by the waitperson, you think, I didn't think I was done with it, but what do I know, after all?


In a similar manner, various clean tableware items make a sudden and mysterious appearance before you even know you will be in need of them. To accomplish these feats of appearance and disappearance requires superb communication between the waiter and the bus person. You order the soup du jour, for instance, and on his way to the kitchen to place the order the waiter passes by the bus person, and in that nanosecond transmits to the bus person the fact that you will require a soup spoon. And suddenly there is a soup spoon in front of you.


Who knows how this is accomplished? Perhaps a lift of one eyebrow on the part of the waiter means "the patron requires a fresh soup spoon." A twist of the nose to the right may indicate "the patron is finished with his salad plate." A look of abject horror might convey "the patron has mistakenly laid down her butter knife facing outward; this must be corrected!"


At our anniversary dinner the tableware came and went with alarming stealth, and I grew increasingly wary of the waiter and the bus person. I began to watch them to see if I could determine their next move. Was my salad fork the next to disappear? Would the Hero be allowed to have both a butter knife and a steak knife during the same course, or would they remove one (politely, of course)? I was at a loss to explain why, when I had started the meal with two forks, one was removed during the first course and then promptly returned during the second. I could only figure that there was some etiquette book they were all following, which was not available to patrons.


I do remember reading about butter knives in an etiquette book, and as I recall, the advice was, "Under no circumstances should you place one end of the knife on the table and balance the other against your plate, so making a gangplank. A gangplank has NO place on a proper table." 


I confess that I often make a gangplank with my knife. No doubt this is proof that I do not belong in a fine dining establishment. I do, however, draw the line at marching a little army of peas down the gangplank.


Maybe there is hope for me yet.