How to roll napkins on a festive table? Table setting

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

There are enough family and national holidays in our life, when many guests come to the house. And not only deliciously prepared treats, but also proper serving give the festival its own unique atmosphere.

Which side to put the knife and fork on, everyone knows, but how to fold napkins on the festive table is a completely different question! Now more about him!

Ways to fold napkins

There are a lot of options on how to fold napkins beautifully. Consider the most common.

Can be issued as a standard, in the form of a fan. To do this, put the napkin "face" down and fold it in half. On the right side, you need to fold the “accordion” ¾ of the length, then turn it over and bend it from top to bottom. The left part, which is not folded, is folded from top to bottom diagonally so that it enters between the resulting folds, and now we unfold the entire structure in the form of a fan and set it in front of the plate.

Napkins for the New Year's table

For a New Year or Christmas table, you need to learn how to roll a napkinherringbone. She will need multilayer napkins. It is necessary to fold it four times and put the open corners towards you. Next, we bend the corners in layers in the center so that the distance between them is approximately 1.5 cm.

After that, the napkin is turned over, wrapped on both sides, and the fold is smoothed out. Turn over again and fold all the corners up. When finished the last corner, wrap the rest of the back. And it turns out a beautiful Christmas tree that can be decorated with a few beads.

For romantics

How to fold napkins beautifully to impress your future soulmate? Naturally, in the form of a heart! So take a square napkin, preferably red, and fold it in half to make a triangle.

Bend the right corner up to the center of the triangle, we do the same with the left. Turn over and bend the top corner to the bottom, to the center. We bend both upper corners to the sides, we also bend the sharp upper corners and turn the napkin over. A gold ring will look very beautiful on such a heart, or just a beautiful decoration that you give to your beloved girl.

Palm napkins

And how to roll napkins for the New Year, if you celebrate it in the tropics? We have already considered the Christmas tree, now we are learning to fold a palm branch. To do this, you need to fold the napkin in half and bend the corners of the top layer down, towards the middle. Then turn over and fold to the middlethe remaining part. Bend the two lower corners of the top layer obliquely upwards from the middle, and then fold the “accordion” to the left and right. After that, you just have to tie the bottom with a cord and unfold the product in the form of a palm branch.

Dressing cutlery

You can, of course, without further ado, just wrap a spoon with a fork with a napkin, cloth or newspaper, but your guests will probably be a little disappointed with this reception. Therefore, you need to learn how to fold the napkin for appliances correctly. Again, there are a lot of ways, let's analyze the most common ones.

Lay the napkin inside out, then fold the top left corner towards the center. Fold it vertically to the right, then horizontally in half so that the part with the corner is at the top. We bend the free corner to the center and tuck it into the “pocket” that we got before, and hide the sidewalls back. It turned out such an "envelope" in the form of a rhombus. It's prettier than just wrapping appliances, don't you think?

Another way to roll a serving napkin is as follows. Fold the napkin in four. We bend the upper corner by 4 cm, bend it again, and as a result we get a “pocket” with a piping on the wrong side. We also bend the second corner, tucking it into the resulting “pocket” so that it protrudes a couple of centimeters above the first. We fold the top and bottom edges back, folding the napkin in three, and lay it vertically so that the pockets for spoons, forks and knives are diagonal.

Congratulations, now you have learned how to fold a cloth napkin, because fabric is preferable for cutlery, and even starched, it holds its shape better.

Table setting: a bit of history

The very culture of eating leaves us in the mists of time. Of course, the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons who later ousted them were not up to decorum at the table, they already had enough worries. So they didn’t really think about what it looks like from the side of tearing meat with their hands, and later cutting it with a stone or bone knife. But over time, as man became more aware of himself as the dominant species, he wanted to stop being like his own prey.

Animals, as you know, do not know how to behave at the table (exception: Orwell's Animal Farm, but this is just a fairy tale), and a person already wanted more. With the advent of luxury goods, dinnerware began to appear, often made of gold or silver, which emphasized the importance of their owner.

About serving cutlery, about how to roll napkins on a festive table, we know today. But it turns out that even in ancient Egypt there were already strict rules on this subject, as the deciphered hieroglyphs told the world.

The ancient Greeks made an even greater contribution to the culture of food and drink. The rather modest, ascetic furnishings of the dwellings of the Hellenes did not extend, however, to their refectories.

Features of Greek table etiquette

The Greeks had breakfast and lunch quite modestly, but at dinner they paid tribute to all available dishes. The men lay on the refectory bed,eating mainly fish, vegetables and bread. Women, on the other hand, sat on chairs, for they were not allowed the ease that the male sex enjoyed. The Greeks drank exclusively diluted wine at dinner, and not water, which, however, did not make them bitter drunkards. The peculiarities of the Greek climate made it possible to quickly remove weak alcohol from the body, and red wine also saves from increased solar radiation by removing strontium.

After dinner, the Greeks began a symposium. This was the name of a closed men's party, where a wine cup was passed around. The word has come down to our days, however, in a completely different meaning.

Spoons at that time could only be afforded by high-ranking we althy Greek residents, so they usually ate with their hands. A piece of bread was dipped into soups and eaten, unlike the Japanese, who simply drink the liquid from a plate.

By the way, according to Herodotus, one of the signs of a barbarian is drinking undiluted wine, which is why the Greeks considered our ancestors, the Scythians, Sarmatians and Roxolans, to be barbarians, which has migrated to all of Russia today.

Roman feasts

The Romans also reclined on a bed while eating. Sitting, only ordinary people ate, not burdened with any positions and titles. Having united in groups of 9 people, they were located on three couches standing side by side, which was quite convenient.

There was a special serving table in the center, which was wiped down before serving a new course of dishes. The Romans did not adopt cutlery from Hellas, so how to rollnapkins on the festive table, they were unaware, and they ate with their hands, which is why the guests were served water for rinsing.

Due to the colder climatic conditions compared to Greece, the Romans ate meat. We althy households even had a special servant whose job it was to cut the roast and serve it to the table.

The ordinary people had clay dishes, because they could not afford silver or gold plates. However, plain glassware was in almost every home.

Under Emperor Nero, feasts turned into unbridled orgies. Although the Romans were a highly cultured civilization, over time, the desire for luxury and gluttony, which was especially clearly manifested just during meals, ruined the empire.

Middle Ages

Oddly enough, but cultural Europe, even in the VIII century. I didn’t even know about the existence of plates or tablecloths. Food was laid out in hollowed-out recesses in the tables, and even more so, they didn’t know how to fold a paper napkin, and they didn’t exist then.

The wholesale drunkenness and gluttony of European rulers was included in most of the chronicles of that time. And drunken fights with murders during a feast were generally commonplace. Only Charlemagne, Emperor of the West, was able to revive the ancient customs of the Romans and Greeks. Due to the lack of spoons, they ate with small knives, and served dishes on gilded dishes. It was with him that dancers, musicians and readers reappeared during the meal.

By the XIII century. the culture of behavior at the table began to play a large role in reputation. The heyday of chivalry did not allow those liberties that were available 500 years ago. The correct seating of guests according to their rank was observed. Well, to talk with a full mouth meant to pass for a savage who would no longer be invited to any decent house.

From the 16th c. the fork came into use with a creak. Spoons and knives were already commonplace. Napkins and tablecloths also appeared, and, apparently, it was then that they figured out how to roll napkins on the festive table so that not only the richness of the treat, but also the beauty of the serving made an impression. Various types of dishes came into use, separately for each dish. All kinds of tureens, salad bowls, ducklings were usually made of tin with an admixture of silver, but there were also items made of Chinese porcelain.

So, when setting your table, do not forget that all the rules that we follow today are many, many centuries old.

In this article, we discussed the basic ways of table setting, touched on the history and, of course, learned how to roll a Christmas tree napkin. Good luck!