Beautiful table setting not only gives you a great mood while eating, but also stimulates your appetite. Unusual decor, high-quality dishes, nice little things, flowers - all this will help to attract the attention of those sitting at the table and leave only pleasant impressions about the meal.
Serving rules
First of all, the table setting should correspond to the event, be it lunch, breakfast, dinner, tea, banquet, etc. It is also equally important that it is combined with the menu of dishes served, snacks and drinks. It's not bad if the setting reflects the thematic focus of the feast, for example, the New Year's Eve or the anniversary celebration.
Flowers are a great addition to the table. Especially, they are appropriate in the morning, charging the family with a good mood for the whole day. Low vases with flowers are often placed in the center of the table. It is not recommended to use large vases with large flowers. they will obscure the dishes and people sitting at the table. Floating flowers are perfect for decorating the table; for this, only inflorescences without stems are immersed in shallow vessels filled with water. Moreover, not only traditional roses are suitable for table setting, but also any field roses, in autumn it can be multi-colored leaves, in winter beautiful branches with fruits or branches of spruce, pine.
The tablecloth that will cover the table should be in harmony with all the other elements of the table setting. The cleanliness of the instruments is very important - they must be perfectly clean. this applies both to plates, glasses, forks, spoons and knives, and to salt shakers, napkin holders, candlesticks, vases and other items.
According to the rules, a clean, well-ironed tablecloth is laid in such a way that the point of intersection of the folds formed in the middle of the tablecloth coincides with the center of the table. Under it, you can put another, made of softer material, to muffle the sound of instruments on the table surface. Napkins should be an extension of the tablecloth, which means that they should not only be of the same color, but also of the same material. Beautifully folded, they sit on deep bowls or directly on the table to the left of them.
A vase with all kinds of fruits and various spices is placed in the center of the table. There should be drinks and salads next to them. The bread should be placed on both ends of the dining table. Cutlery is placed strictly symmetrically, and an equal distance must be observed between adjacent places.
Place cutlery starting with a large flat plate for each guest. As a rule, it plays the role of a kind of stand for other cymbals. Directly behind it is a small dessert spoon, on the right side of which is a glass for water. There should be a small flat bread plate on the left side of the rack. At the end of the meal, it is allowed to put fruit peels on it.
Table setting with appliances depends on the intended dishes to be served. On the edge there is a snack fork, in the center - for fish, next to the plate - for meat. On the opposite side of the plate, knives are laid out in the same way. The tablespoon is to the right of the knives. Dessert cutlery is laid out, starting from the plate and moving gradually towards the middle of the table. The first is the knife, then the fork and then the spoon.
Next to the glass for water, to the right of it, there should be a glass for red wine, a little more to the right - for white. On the opposite side is a champagne glass, next to it they put a small plate for butter with a specially designed knife.
Rules for choosing glasses for drinks
Wine glasses on the dining table are set depending on what drinks are implied in the lunch menu. Table setting involves arranging glasses that correspond to a particular type of alcohol. There is a rule: the stronger the drink, the smaller the volume of the container should be. So, for white wine, large glasses with a high stem are used, and dry red wine is poured into low pot-bellied glasses. Cocktails and vermouths suggest medium-sized glasses. There are also special containers for cognacs - they have a low leg, with a wide round bottom, narrowing strongly upward. It is customary to drink whiskey from tall straight glasses. Champagne also involves the use of special glasses - the bottom of them smoothly passes into the leg. This is explained by the fact that it is in the lower part that bubbles form.
