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Diner Avec Elegance
by: Laura S. Andal
W e should eat as if the Working and being exposed to different
cultures at meetings and conferences were, in
whole world is watching.
itself, terrifying. More so, when I was seated at
a long table with the top honchos of my
That was what my siblings and I heard from
Mom as we were growing up. My Mom would department having dinner with ambassadors
and foreign ministers while the conversations
stare me down across the table when I picked
up the wrong utensils or when she heard even shifted from official to casual pleasantries. I
the slightest slurping sound as I had my soup. To had to follow and listen to the exchanges while
at the same time mindful of my table etiquette.
my Dad, who was a stickler for punctuality, it
was sacrilege to let food wait. It was a cardinal I remembered Mom’s words, “There is
nowhere better to impress your friends and
rule in our household that we should be
promptly seated when summoned for dinner. I colleagues than at the dinner table.” So it was a
vividly remember my Mom chastising my challenge.
brother for rushing to dinner in his undershirt. “YOU CANNOT HAVE TWO SETS
That too was a big NO, NO! Whenever she saw OF MANNERS – ONE FOR HOME
my elbow rested at the table, she nudged my AND THE OTHER FOR SHOW.”
arm or pinched my thigh if she was seated next
to me. She went bonkers when she saw crumbs Realizing that my work entailed frequent
around the plate or on the floor. I cannot count assignments away, I thought it better to enroll
how many times I heard her say, “Watch your in a “Dining Like a Diplomat” workshop. The
table manners.” Trainer, a Frenchman, opened the workshop
with a quote from the great nineteenth-century
As I grew older, Mom was not alone teaching French gastronome and philosopher, Antheme
me the basics of dinner etiquette. I learned it in Brillat-Savarin, who stated quite bluntly,
school too. Growing up with nuns from knee- “Animals feed themselves; men eat, but only
high to college, believe me, there was no wise men know the art of eating.” And, indeed,
escaping from it. It even got more complicated. art it was. I must say that the participants
Not only do I have to watch my elbows or use learned so much, although a few I already knew
the proper utensils, I also had to learn which from Mom and the nuns. Table manners are
fork to use for each course, where to place the about more than using the correct cutlery and
dinner knife after it has been used, how to hold napkin protocols. Table manners are also about
a stemmed glass, how to eat a roll, how to subtle behaviors. Echoing my Mom, the trainer
squeeze a slice of lemon so it does not squirt on said, “It is not mannerly to place your elbow on
a tablemate, and on and on. I thought that I had the table while eating.” He added, “Just your
learned enough at home and in school about wrists. And the appropriate way of seating is to
dining etiquette and how to comport myself at not lean back, but to sit up straight on a high-
the dinner table until work brought me in the backed chair.” Demonstrating, he sat upright
company of foreign ambassadors and state almost as the end of the chair, his back never
officials at diplomatic dinners. Then I realized touching the back of the chair. I said to myself,
what Mom’s admonitions meant. Good “Yeah, what’s with those high-backed dining
manners matter in every setting. The lack of it chairs which were ubiquitous in those formal
can quickly derail a fast-track career. dinners?”
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