Wipe off your mouth — with a cloth napkin

Dear Miss Manners:
Why can’t I use paper napkins — the heavy kind — at a dinner party? They look alright, do the job, and it’s more practical to be able to throw them away instead of cleaning them, but some people are fussy about them.

Gentle Reader:
The identical claims were made, a few years ago, for paper underpants. How come you don’t wear them?

– Judith Martin,  from “Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior”

For those who still sit down at a table to eat a meal at home — whether with your mate, children, family, friends, or just by yourself — a napkin is an integral part of the place setting.

Its role is not just for decorative purposes. You use it to wipe your mouth and fingers throughout the meal. You have the choice of using cloth or paper napkins, though the obvious “eco-friendly” and economic choice would be cloth. For daily use at home, a cloth napkin for each family member can be re-used after each meal and changed weekly or bi-weekly, depending on the level of slovenliness.

Placing the napkin. The folded napkin can go directly on the dinner plate or on the right next to the dinner knife (not like in the picture).

Teaching children to use napkins. The sooner you start teaching young children to wipe their hands and mouths on a napkin instead of their clothes or the tablecloth, the better. Place the napkin on their plates to force them to unfold it and spread it across their laps before they are served any food. Once you’ve inculcated this habit, it will become second nature to them, like fastening their seat belts in the car.

Size and fabric. There is no hard and fast rule, but a napkin should be wide enough to cover a normal person’s lap and heavy enough so it won’t slide off to the floor during the meal. Cotton and cotton blends are nice to the touch and easy to care for.

Colors and patterns. This is where the fun starts. On formal occasions, your napkins ideally match your tablecloth. But for everyday use or if you use place mats, there’s a plethora of choices. Your napkins could even match your curtains if you wish. Dark, solid colors mask stains well, but florals are also good camouflage for any ketchup, mustard, or gravy spots. Just launder them when the pattern motifs no longer resemble what the designer intended. You can also use solid colors to mix and match; this takes the pressure off from always having four or six of the same napkins at any given time.

Napkin rings. Each household member has a napkin ring to identify their napkin at the dinner table. There are myriad choices. Napkin rings can be wood, silver, metal, plastic, or monogrammed, with plain or elaborate designs. Loulou de la Falaise, who was Yves Saint Laurent’s muse, even wore hers as bracelets. It goes without saying that you never use napkin rings for entertaining, because in principle guest napkins must not have been previously used.

Making your own napkins. If you’ve got time and creativity, you can make beautiful and cheap napkins from remainder fabrics. Just cut out a square of fabric, iron a hem, and stitch it.

Caring for napkins. Use pre-wash on any visible stains. Wash normally with other household linen. Fold them straight out of the dryer to limit ironing.

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Now don’t you find cloth napkins to be much more elegant than paper towels, and less complicated to use than say, a finger bowl?

Tagged as: napkins, table manners