Condiments on your table?

It's meal dependent and also whether or not we have visitors, but generally just salt and pepper grinders and that very hot M&S mustard for DH.

We always eat at the table, with mats, serviettes, salt and pepper mills and although I plate up fish/meat/pie/etc the veggies/salad/sides are always in serving dishes.
If anyone wants sauce, they get it for themselves from the kitchen, and after use take it straight back.
I usually spend a lot of time preparing meals, so like people to sit down and appreciate the food.
I loathe seeing children being fed in front of the TV, they'll never learn table manners if they never see them being used.
Friday evenings however, are slob out in front of the TV with bowl food. It's already planned for this coming Friday, Chicken and Chorizo Risotto

Rather Non u to have sauce bottles on the table, what??

I am not suggesting eating in front of the tv is slobbing it. For almost any sitting activity; reading papers, a book, sewing etc etc, I prefer a table and chair to an armchair. I spend most of the day sitting at my desk, no matter what I am doing.

We often remain at the table long after the meal is over and table cleared, just chatting. Even DD who has taken making herself comfortable in front of the tv with her sewing, to a high level, still sits at the kitchen table to eat.

wot
Sauce bottles on a dining table are a personal dislike of mine, even when I'm having tomato sauce on toast for breakfast, or a fish finger butty!

kitty, I'm astounded "serviettes"

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served

Are the requisites all in the toilet
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate

It's ever so close in the lounge dear
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet
I know that I wanted to ask you
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.
John Betjeman

A piece of kitchen roll unless we have guests

Here's how to do it properly:-
www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Dinner+for+one+Youtube+in+english&view=detail&mid=0C03E3C06E4D649B05970C03E3C06E4D649B0597&FORM=VIRE

Nay, wot, lass! Tha’ ‘as to ‘ave t’bottle ont’ table! An’ yesterday’s newspaper forr a cloth, tha’ knows! Dun’t tha’ know nowt abaht ettikit??

My DGM, a widow for many years, always served her meals for herself as if she was attending a dinner party. She saw it as a form of self-respect. To her it meant that she was still part of more civilised world where there were standards and where she played a part.

She didn't want to be dismissed and ignored as just another dotty old lady with food down her clothes, a faint malodorous odour and an air of disorganisation. In the 1950s, sadly that was the fate of many older women living alone.

Greyduster, that's made I larf!! Monica, my reality is akin to your second paragraph!!

How things stick with you. I was brought up by older very 'proper' parents and to this day I can't put milk or sauce bottles on the table.

No sauce bottles on the table for me! Black pepper griner only. If a meal needs an accompaniment e. g. apple sauce for pork then it goes in a ramekin- and only a small amount.

We did have the same mother, Teetime!

I reckon that if I bother to cook a nice meal then it (and I) should be treated with respect. And, yes, Monica, there is less likely to be spillage if we eat at the table.

During the week for dh and myself, we vary between eating at the table or on a tray dependant on what the food is.

Always the table for Sunday roast and we have 9 at the table. Usually a little jug of garden flowers, pansies or a rose on the table.

Sunday table has a heat protector plus tablecloth. Dinner is served plated up and on the table will be pink salt, table salt and black pepper, jug of gravy. Possibly apple butter, horseradish etc which I put into a small dishes. Extra potatoes, sliced roast, veg will be on the table, if not a lot they will all be on the one dish.

DH and I plate up and bring to the table. DGD aged 10 and I serve up pudding. DGD has fun dishing up and will add any extras required for the pudding.... custard, cream, strawberries.

Eldest dss will make the tea/coffee and bring it to the table.

By this time the table will look like a bomb has hit it. Someone will have dribbled gravy from the gravy jug. Dgs will probably have had dinner up his arm as well as in his hair and splattered on the table. Our paper napkins sit unused as someone has gone for the kitchen roll to mop up a spill, and baby wipes will also be probably sitting on the table at this stage.

DH will bring in biscuits to serve with the tea/coffee. All decorum thrown to the side the packet is likely to be set directly onto the table. Youngest dgs 7 by now is likely to be either under the table swopping folk's shoes, or waving in at us from up in the apple tree.

The adults sit around the table chatting with usually much banter between the younger adults all in their 30s. While eventually DH will get the first load up and running in the dishwasher and then turn on the tv for the football or rugby.

I'd just like to add that when we eat out the dgc are perfectly behaved and a credit to us.

Blimey NfkDumpling ,46 SATCHELS of sauce, I knew Americans had big appetites but still! ??

Tall black pepper grinder and smaller salt grinder. Oiland vinegar if there is salad.

Mum and Dad kept a tray on the table with every possible type of sauce on it. In those days we didn't think about keeping them in the fridge.
Now I keep condiments in the kitchen and add them before taking meals to the table in the sitting room.

No added extras on the table by I do have a reasonable selection in the cupboard in case anyone has a desire to indulge.

I think it was Escoffier who came out of the kitchen and shouted at customers who had asked for condiments, “ We do not cook at the table here!”

Like white, pepper, brown sauce especially on baked beans. A little salt, not keen on ketchup but dh likes it with his chips I like mayonnaise olive oil on salad.
Don’t put everything on the table, pickle with cold meat surely. Mustard with roast chops or bangers and mash.

Cherry the salt on the side of the plate has brought back memories. When I was little salt was always in a little blue bowl with a tiny spoon which you used to put on the side of your plate. You were not supposed to dip your food in it but put a little on your food with your knife (mother was very particular on manners) also mustard had a little pot with a spoon. Sauces always came in small bowls with spoons, milk and cream in little jugs. No bottles on my mums table!!!!

Slightly off subject but what is this yorkshire puddings with everything nowadays? To me yorkshires go with beef, not lamb pork and chicken as well!

Salt on pepper on table for soup, also out if we have visitors as some people will always add these, even before tasting food. DH and DS like ketchup on many things. The bottle comes out when food goes on the table and they add it, then bottle goes back in fridge. I wouldn't use condiments from a bottle if eating out. They wouldn't be on the table in good restaurants anyway, but after an experience in a fish and chip restaurant in Covent Garden, which was recommended, I would be wary of my family using them. In view of diners, a waiter was laboriously squeezing the remnants from the bottom of all the table ketchup containers. When he finished, he began to fill up 'fresh' containers with these leftovers! I wondered how long it might take for the original contents to finally be used.