Whither Which Fork?

We've recently been watching the very excellent and entertaining show, The Gilded Age on HBOMax lately. And there was an episode that detailed the important differences between English and American table settings and culinary choices and all that entailed as far as differentiating between the social classes. So as a result of this classy demonstration of cutlery options, this was the table my DH set for our luncheon the other day. He was so very very pleased with himself. And the lunch was excellent, but there was a lot of excess cutlery to put in the dishwasher.

It is quite funny to think of how the things we put on our table are determined by these rules made up so many years ago, and how they've changed (or not) over your own lifetime. All of these things are such statements of class and privilege aren't they? Which of course is one of the main topics of The Gilded Age. Just over my lifetime I've experienced napkin rings or fancy folded cloth napkins to disposable paper ones out of a dispenser in the center of the table and then back to cloth napkins, but this time not the fancy folded kind but the informal homemade ones I have. Starched white linen tablecloths with delicately embroidered hems to mass produced printed tablecloths to *gasp* no tablecloth at all, instead an easily wiped clean melamine or sealed wood surface.

One of my grandmothers had individual place setting salt and pepper shakers, adorable sized cut crystal on  perfect little silver trays, one would be set at each person's place at the table. No reaching or asking for the salt to be passed. I'm happy to have inherited the one above. My other grandmother used her actual silverware every single day, she didn't save it for special occasions, those silver utensils got used up over her lifetime.