Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Your Friend the Bread Thief

Yvette was having dinner with a friend recently and he kept eating her bread. She's not a big bread eater but would have liked the option to tear off a piece (more on how to eat bread later).
Apparently, he didn't know that Yvette's bread plate wasn't his bread plate. I asked her if she pointed this out to him and she said,"No, you should never point something like that out. It could be embarassing, so I acted like nothing." She's right.
Bread plates are to the the left, not to the right. One way you can remember this is by asking yourself, "Any bread left?"
Once you've figured that out, you're on your way to the bread experience - step one, at least.
What will you do if there's a basket of bread and no bread plate?
Select the roll or slice of bread you want without touching or searching the basket as if you're looking for treasure. Take the whole slice or roll out of the basket. Tear off a piece, butter it and eat it. The piece should be bite size. The remainder of the roll or piece of bread can be placed on the table next to your plate or if that makes you feel barbaric, put it on the edge of your plate.

Try not to slather the whole piece of bread all at once with butter as if you're on a sandwich production line. Relax, you're dining, the bread won't run away from you.

Since we're on the subject, I might as well add this - try not to get upset when the bread basket isn't stuffed with warm bread. It shouldn't be cold but room temperature is fine. Don't write off a restaurant just because the bread isn't warm. Funny, we expect things from restaurants that we don't do at home. Do you warm your bread at your house at dinnertime? If a restaurant serves warm bread, that means they have a bread warmer (they just don't throw into the oven). If it they don't serve warm bread, they didn't invest in a warmer. Do say something If the butter arrives in frozen pats.  Frozen butter gives new meaning to breaking bread.

Enjoy the rest of the meal!

1 comment:

miss m said...

My mother expected her children to exhibit good table manners. When we remembered, we did. And when it came to bread and butter, one rule was immutable: please serve yourself a polite helping of butter. Place it on your bread plate. Do not, repeat Do Not, continuously help yourself from the communal butter dish. And if there's a butter knife making the rounds with the butter, it's purpose is to transport butter to your bread plate. It is not to be used for your personal slathering. That's what your own butter knife is for.