Mastering the Art of Soup Etiquette: A Comprehensive Guide
Whether you’re at a cozy dinner party, a client lunch, or a formal event, knowing how to eat soup correctly signals refinement and confidence at the table. As the weather cools and “soup season” officially begins, it’s the perfect time to brush up on an often-overlooked dining detail: soup etiquette. No matter what the season, as you’re enjoying a warm, hearty bowl of corn chowder, split pea, minestrone, consommé, lobster bisque, vichyssoise, or traditional chicken noodle soup, exhibit proper soup decorum.
The Golden Rule: Spooning Away
The golden rule of soup etiquette is simple: spoon away from yourself, not toward you. Gently dip your spoon into the bowl, scoop the soup away, and bring the spoon gracefully to your mouth. This prevents spills and keeps you stain free. Enter from the front and move to the back of the bowl, allowing the spoon to wipe the back rim of the dish. To watch how to do this click here !
Posture and Presentation
Don’t bend your head toward the soup bowl; rather slightly bend inward from the base of your spine without slumping.
The Art of Sipping
Take small sips from the side of the spoon - avoid slurping in Western etiquette. While it may be a cultural norm in some countries, in Western dining, slurping is considered impolite. Noise, or the lack thereof, is a big deal in the realm of soup supping. Comedian Bennett Cerf, the only guy I found who had anything to say about soup manners, got off a pretty good line on the subject. "Good manners," Cerf said, is "the noise you don't make when you're eating soup."
Handling the Soup Bowl
If the soup is served in a wide, shallow bowl, leave it on the table while eating. Avoid tilting the bowl or scraping the bottom of the bowl to gather the last spoonfuls. There is universal agreement among the doyennes of decorum that a well-mannered eater tips the bowl away from himself when pursuing the last drop. Outward is also the direction the spoon is supposed to travel when it moves through the broth, I learned. Authors Marjabelle Young Stewart and Elizabeth Lawrence said it best in their 1999 book "Commonsense Etiquette: A Guide to Gracious, Simple Manner for the Twenty-First Century," comparing the spoon movement to that of a ship leaving a harbor. "We skim our spoon delicately across its surface, as if we were sending a ship out to sea."
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Spoon Placement: Pauses and Completion
When you pause during the meal, rest your spoon in the soup plate or bowl, not on the tablecloth. Once finished, place the spoon on the underplate (the small dish beneath the soup bowl), signaling to servers that you’re done. John's, Newfoundland, newspaper, The Telegram, said some might think you place the spoon on the plate underneath the soup plate. But those who park their soup spoon on a plate at formal gatherings are ill-informed, she said. However, she added, in less-formal settings, when soup is served in either bowls or cups with plates underneath them, the correct resting spot for the spoon is on the plate. Summing up, if you are sipping at a formal dinner party from soup plates, your spoon parks in the soup. If not, your spoon goes on the plate. Whew!
Bread and Soup: To Dunk or Not to Dunk?
It’s tempting to dunk bread directly into your soup, but in formal dining, this is one thing we want to avoid as it can cause drips and spills. Instead, tear off a small piece of bread, butter it if provided, and eat it separately. If you’re served a consommé or broth with no bread plate, avoid dipping altogether.
Crackers and Soup: A Crumbling Matter
For example, take the question of crackers. Is it permissible to smash them and drop them in the broth? The answer, I read on the Web site, is mostly no. But there are exceptions. It depends on the character of the crackers, and whether the soup is a chowder. I have a habit of putting saltines in my soup. It is a behavior scoffed at by Amy Vanderbilt. It is permissible to nibble on the crackers as you sip soup, she wrote. But crumbling and dunking crackers is a crudity. "Larger soda crackers should not be crumbled into the soup" she said in the 1972 edition of her "Complete Book of Etiquette," according to the Soupsong site. Such crackers, she said, "are best kept on the plate and eaten with the soup. The exception to this would be when eating chowder. In this case, the water biscuits served with it are meant to be crumbled into the soup." Other exceptions to the no-dunk rule are oyster crackers and croutons. When served with a soup, oyster crackers and croutons are "put in the soup whole," Charlotte Ford wrote in her "Etiquette: Charlotte Ford's Guide to Modern Manners," according to the site. But, she noted, there are two different ways to properly deposit the additions in the soup. Because oyster crackers are dry, they are put in the soup using the fingers, according to Ford. With croutons, she advises using a spoon, "as they might be buttery."
Additional Considerations
Soups are not to be blown. Clear soups, broths and heartier soups are eaten by placing the spoon point first in the mouth. Crackers are not to be crumbled into soups. Soups should be served with the soup bowl on a service plate underneath.
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tags: #etiquette #eating #soup
