Etiquette dinner at the Memorial Union

"no you may not blow on your soup while on an interview dinner (or other formal dinning event)"

Possibly the most useful dinner I have been to. This event was meant to inform college students of the various etiquette rules of dinning, specifically while on a job interview or other formal dinner. I went with two good friends so it made the 3 hour dinner go a little faster. From the questions that were brought up throughout dinner it seemed like most people been living in a swamp for most of their lives. Almost all of the instructors comments were common sense type things, other than some of the knife and fork placements (see list below). Then their were the decidedly specific and completely useless (to everyone else) questions like "what if I am in Morocco next month and the custom is to use your hands while eating and I am given a fork at the same time that someone gets up to great me with their left hand?"

I had the fortune of being able to practice (everything at once) while attending a formal-ish dinner at the Fluno center the following Friday (see above post) and this class was quite helpful with putting all of the rules in place for proper etiquette. At this dinner I noticed that the three oldest members of our 7 person table were practicing all of the mentioned rules for dinning and everyone (except for me) else had made some type of small mistake during the dinner. Not that this is a big deal or even a deal at all, but at least I am confident in how the bread should be passed, broken, buttered, and consumed!

Tips that were useful to me, some obvious, some not:
1) When arriving at a dinner always introduce yourself around the table while standing and shaking everyone’s hand.
2) Do not shake hands while seated
3) Firm shake, do not grab for half of the hand, and hold for 2-3 sec with eye contact
4) place name badge (if worn) on right side so that people can read it quickly when they shake your hand
5) Do not get up and do the Southernly thing if a business woman leaves the table (possibly ok if in the southern states?..any comments?)
6) fold napkin rectangularly with an overlap (shorter side up) so that quick and easy wipes can be made
7) Its ok to not eat something you do not like, leave it on your plate
8) Take small bites throughout the meal so you are able to talk quickly after someone asks you a question
9) White wines are served chilled, hold the stem so as not to heat up the wine with your hand
10) Reds can be held at the base of the glass, or at the stem
11) Always thank or acknowledge servers (don’t be a dick in general). This is interpreted as how you will treat ‘real’ people and not just the ones that you want a job from
12) Put purses/briefcases on the right side of chair, meals are served from the left, taken from the right
13) Suit coats can go around the chair. Can be placed inside out if you think something may spill on it, although I have never seen this
14) Do not blow on soups or soup while on a soup spoon. Just don’t blow in general while at the table.
15) Soup is eaten with an outward stroke. This prevents drips from being thrown into your lap. It can be ok to whip off the bottom drip on the edge of the soup bowls
16) Cherry tomatoes must first be stabbed by one tong of a fork to relief the fluid pressure and then may be cut with a knife
17) Knife can be used with left (American style) or right hand (the rest of the world’s style). I find it much easier to just keep my knife in my right hand instead of endlessly switching hands. Either style is appropriate for business meals in the US.
18) When finished with a knife it may be placed on the top lip of the dinner plate (or bread plate)
19) Forks should be placed on the lip of the right plate.
20) In general utensils never teeter on the edges of plates or bowls and are not placed back on the table (dirtiness issues).
21) Bread is passed to the right (unless someone asks for it close on the left side)
22) Take butter for bread and place onto bread plate (take out of foil wrapper and discard)
23) Break bread into small one-bite pieces and butter while holding everything over the bread plate (crumb issues)
24) Do not use fingers to touch food during main course, unless eating finger foods (fries, etc)