Dear Marguerite:

I am a 24-year-old woman from a very low socio-economic background, yet I’ve worked very arduously amidst severe challenges in many forms to earn myself a degree in chemical engineering, and I intend to continue pursuing tertiary studies until I’ve earned my PhD. While at university, I had fallen in love with someone who belongs to a much higher social bracket compared to mine. These factors, therefore, have now pushed me into a new world that I know nothing about. My dilemma, which takes its root in my background, is how to handle or behave appropriately in the new class in which I have found myself.

The first time (which was quite recently), I visited a really high-end restaurant with him to meet a party of his friends, I read and memorised from an etiquette textbook that I had found on what to do with regard to table setting and so on, yet when I arrived at this new social setting I froze, not knowing how to behave; and so not to embarrass myself, I tried to keep to myself, but found myself uneasy at the table and thoroughly disliked the experience.

Can I ever cross this boundary, if so, what do you advise?

ST

Dear ST:

I want you to take a deep breath, look at yourself in the mirror and say, ’there is no so-called boundary that I cannot cross.’ You are a well-educated woman and a scientist to boot. Boundaries that you see before you exist in your mind, and all you need is knowledge and more self-confidence to put ’Theory into Practice’ (this is actually part of the name of many of my courses). I hope the etiquette book you said you read was not mine and then found you forgot everything! If it was not mine, then please get yourself a copy of Manners and Entertaining with Marguerite Gordon: A guide to Caribbean Life and Style. If it was my book, then please call me so that I can go over some points with you.

Apart from not liking how you have confined yourself in these ’boundaries,’ I also find that you are being mesmerised by the word ’class’. Please understand that some people who are from a ’high socio-economic background’ have absolutely no manners at all and the reverse is also applicable.

There are some basics that you should know namely, speak properly and try your best to pronounce the ’th’ where it should be pronounced. Dress appropriately and conservatively, check out your grooming and make-up, be very, very careful of your table manners, be able to converse (leaving out graphic language), and have an informed knowledge (and opinion) about world affairs. Be warm, thoughtful and kind, show spirit and wit and you will be fine.

Do not worry about the ’high-end’ restaurants, there are some where the staff unfortunately may not have been trained well (not their fault), and there are some staff who may try to intimidate you, so I found a column that I wrote over ten years ago and thought it might make you smile. So this is for you to muse over.

Excerpt from one of my columns:

I received a telephone call the other day from a lady who spoke in a patient but rather pained voice. ’You are always writing about napkins and silver and so forth’ she said slowly, ’I have religiously used your ideas for table settings. But certain restaurants seem to do many things the opposite way. Especially the confounded napkins, what should I do - follow you or follow the restaurant?’

Well, I explained just as patiently to this nameless lady (hopefully not in a pained voice), that there is nothing I can do about ’maverick’ restaurant owners who advertise fine dining and then present strange table settings.

Though no names of restaurants were called, I wonder if she went to a restaurant I heard of recently where the ’confounded’ napkins were set in the water glass (why oh why, dear Lord!), on the right side. The supposed fish knife looked (the blade was narrow, positively thin and pointed) and cut (fiercely sharp) like a steak knife. It can be therefore assumed that if it looked like one and cut like one - it was one - a steak knife pretending to be a fish knife.

After the first course, I was told that suddenly a sherbet or ’sorbet’ appeared to surprised (this I was told could be seen by their facial expressions) guests. There was no spoon to eat this with, so guests after surreptitiously looking around to see what the other was doing (some no doubt wondering why unordered dessert appeared so soon), were forced to pick up their dessert spoons (in this case, coffee spoons masquerading as dessert spoons) at the top of each table setting.

Let’s talk about the sherbet or ’sorbet’. Many moons ago, (probably in Victorian times), the sherbet was used for cleansing the palate (so that you were encouraged to continue eating) and either followed the roast or, came between the entrée. The entrée is the main course of a meal in the United States and Canada, though in most European countries this word is used for dishes served between the main courses as in a side dish. Now I am all for tradition and I delight in viewing a well-set table, but leave the sherbet for six, seven, up to in fact ten or fourteen course formal meals from a set menu. The sherbet is not necessary for meals where everyone is ordering something different and - as I am told happened - some people who ordered neither soup nor fish were suddenly faced with sherbet. Please! And could the guests also at least have a spoon in the serving plate of Madame Sherbet (if you must), please.

But the most awkward moments were apparently with the waiters - who though really trying were obviously taught to approach the guests from the right side - the right side? To order and place the dishes in front of the guests? - No, no, please allow the waiters and waitresses to serve from the left - always with food. The only time they approach the guests on the right is when they are pouring water or wine or putting down drinks. This is not a roundabout where those on the right are right. (This is, of course, bad or no training by those who should train!)

I understand recently that an anxious waiter was asked by a guest who spoke extremely well and clearly if she could have a demitasse coffee. The waiter replied that ’ah only have Hong Wing or Maxwell House’. When another lady kindly explained that what was wanted were small cups he stated he only had regular and black.

In countries all over the world waiters can make mistakes or on the other hand try to make you look foolish. I distinctly remember a waiter in a restaurant in London raising his eyebrows at my request for a glass of water and superciliously asking if I wished to have this water ’hot or cold’. I then replied just as superciliously that I wished ice in the glass. His supercilious look turned to alarm and then to pity.

But perhaps the most memorable was the following exchange in Jamaica between my (at times quick-tempered) brother-in-law and a new untrained, unintelligent, young waiter (who said there were no menus available).

Brother-in-law: ’What do you recommend?’

Waiter: ’Stir lion suh.’

Brother-in-law: ’ Stir lion? Damn it! Are you mad? What kind of meat is that?’

Waiter: ’Is lion meat suh.’

Brother-in-law: ’ What is lion meat?’

Waiter: ’His from de lion hanimal suh.’

Well, it turned out of course, that what the poor waiter was trying to say was SIRLOIN. Management please train your staff!

So dear lady, I would be very grateful if you continue to set your table the way this column suggests. But in restaurants - what can I say - you will just have to go with the flow.

So ST, you just read the book I recommended and go to that restaurant with your head held high. Please call me any time you wish to, I really would like to talk to you!