Fear of large white cotton table napkins
Some habits of old people, like large white cotton table napkins, embarrass young people. They seem so alien that the young reject them utterly. I took 25 years to notice this. Today I took action.
This was the clue I actually noticed. One day I noticed my granddaughter thrusting away the neat white table napkin by her plate. It was an automatic gesture, and obviously she wasn’t having a bar of it.
Then the penny dropped: I had seen this gesture many, many times. People 70 and over would frequently make use of my table napkins. Younger people rarely did.
What was the problem with my large white cotton table napkins?
Did they seem ultra-formal, inappropriate for lunch with Granny Rachel?
- Yes, nowadays, when paper napkins are the ultimate formality
- Yes, when sit-down-together meals are the exception.
- Yes, when most people just toss a few paper towels around.
- Yes, when young people weren’t trained in ridiculous snobby dining etiquette. (“Don’t call them serviettes.” “After use, screw them up softly, don’t fold them up.” “Put them on your lap, not round your neck.”)
Did they represent a ridiculous amount of work for me?
- For sure. One use and it was off to the washing machine, with extra attention to grease and turmeric stains.
- For sure. This is one piece of linen that must be ironed. Or in my case, rapidly squashed in a linen press.
Are cotton table napkins an environmental faux pas?
- Probably, given the disproportionate amount of laundering required.
- Probably, as I got them too long ago to research their provenance.
Get thee hence, dining nostalgia
I was born in 1940 of a Pākehā family in Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand. My mother loathed the way so many Kiwis harked back to England as the source of all knowledge and power and proper behaviour. Nevertheless we were drilled in the etiquette of sit-down meals. (Elbows off the table! for instance. And we said or sang grace before meals.)
All eight family members did use table napkins, but you can bet your bottom dollar they were only washed once a week. Personal table napkin rings identified that week’s napkins for Jill, Deirdre, Rachel, Prue, Lesley, Penny, Mother and Dad.
I have been grateful for my dining skills on many occasions. The most memorable was a dinner in Geneva where all 14 guests had a footman in scarlet standing behind our chairs, and the conversation was in French.
Look, that was 60 years ago. The world has changed.
How I modified my white cotton table napkins
Today I took all 19 napkins and dyed them in the kitchen sink. This was most satisfying.
I’m not a total fool: I don’t expect my grandchildren will ever use them. But at least I won’t have so much washing.
What’s your equivalent of white napkins?
If you are old or almost old, do you have a long-standing habit that puzzles young people so much that they reject it outright? I wonder what it is. And who needs to change: you or the young people?
Looking at people and giving them your attention when you are talking to them. As I talk, they are also checking their phone messages and God knows what else on that little device. I don’t think they get the eye contact thing or at least I’ve never seen it since they were 6 and hoping their Granny would take them to a toy store. Back then puppy dog eyes were in fashion for the young ones. They also treat meals as a functional event rather than social so it’s get out of their as soon as their plate in done rather than have a conversation! I wonder what my mom would have said about me.
You have spotted something with the eye contact. I wonder how much of that is just the restlessness of kids, at first? I undertook to teach my grandson how to have a conversation, and t his needs refreshing from time to time. It’s annoying when he does prove he has listened and understood while doing something else 🙂 But that is rare. I persist in explaining the reasons behind my expectations, the effect on me of what I see as rudeness. Keeps things interesting!
I find this funny. My friends only use cloth napkins, including the kids. My daughter and her friends have never scoffed at this. The only time we don’t use cloth napkins (mine are black though) is when we eat pizza, and then only paper towels will do…
Aha! Maybe this is a geographical difference…
I find the flapping napkins very satisfying. Perhaps if you attach them to an old bicycle wheel with dynamo attached you could start generating your own electricity?
I have, all my life carried a comb and two linen handkerchiefs in my trouser pockets. One hankie for me, the spare for a lady in distress or for stemming blood!
I loved the dyed napkins flapping on the line! My daughter has two and four-year old boys. The many large white napkins inherited from her grandmothers (along with the UNUSED matching set of 12 gold rimmed dinner, salad, dessert plates, bowls, cups and saucers and goblets and silverware) are in constant use as all-around wipe up rags . This is what the proper white cloth serviettes have become now and they are very handy indeed. When her boys are old enough to be served a formal dinner, they will at least understand those large white napkins are to be used for vigorous scrubbing of face, hands, elbows, shirts, and the floor after eating. They also wash their hands before eating so I think they’ll be alright.They are still too young for their own phones so eye contact is full on for now- they never stop talking! Ten years from now, if I’m still around- who knows?
Perfect. Nothing is wasted. Except a gold -rimmed dining set.
Born in 1942, I used my weekly napkin without giving it a thought. I quit using napkins when I married. The washing machine for the apartment was down five flights of stairs. Paper ones were fine. Some years later, everyone was afraid of germs. I doubt anyone would use a napkin now.
Aha. Five flights of stairs? No question, no napkins. I hadn’t thought of the germ thing.
I always use a napkin. When I am alone it is used for a few days, sitting snuggled in its silver ring waiting its next turn. My children no longer use theirs and their children have had them and their rings only at Granma’s. I now often use paper napkins rather than the iron needed type when entertaining, but should we be thinking of the environment and the trees cut to produce those little bits of paper?
Another comment from Anonymous! The WP pixies have been hard at work. I think I replied to you, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes I only reply in my head, which is a waste, isn’t it? I know: what say I get a large blue table napkin and use it on my brain? 🙂
Here’s to a style revival, Rachel, and HNY anyway!
Thanks, Dave. I’m not quite ready for the adult bib.
When I was ill in bed as a child, my mother would bring me a simple meal on a tray. On the tray was an embroidered tray cloth with a pocket containing a napkin with ‘Rise and Shine’ embroidered on it. This is a special memory for me.
That is such a sweet memory.
Ha, Rachel, I am fascinated as I have just, this afternoon, read ‘August blue’ by Deborah Levy and the protagonist, a very famous concert pianist died her hair blue and as the novel progressed, this blue became more symbolic with lovely underlying undertones…. I’m thinking your act of sabotage against those white napkins has some lovely undertones. I will admit I love the idea of beautiful white table napkins (yes we called them serviettes and who knows what that denoted, as I’ve read recently it meant upper class but we were very working class – was it our pretensions?)…. so many depths to explore over Rachel in the kitchen sink dyeing white serviettes blue.
This has given me quite a buzz. As you explore your tunnel, I will be skipping along another one, parallel and probably shallower.
Hello Anonymous. Sometimes I am Anonymous too. It’s the WP pixies at work. My choice of blue was consciously practical, as in: yellow stains on blue will look green. But subconsciously… Sea, sky, Virgin Mary… Who knows?
I so enjoyed this, Rachel. We were midwestern American: farmers, coal miners, teachers, and such, but we knew proper table manners. Lunch was more casual, and paper napkins would do, but at dinner it was cloth napkins and conversation. No phone calls from friends were allowed during the dinner hour, and children asked to be excused from the table. Of course, those also were the days of embroidered handkerchiefs and tea towels: not to mention real shined shoes rather than sneakers and cross-trainers. People dressed to ‘go to town’ and wore gloves to worship and when traveling by air. I’m old, I tell you!
As for my perplexing habit, it might be something I don’t do: I’m not on social media (unless you count my blogs), I text only when necessary, and I don’t use emojis. With my tongue only partly in cheek, I’ve argued that emojis are a first step back to the caves. Given a few decades, we might well be scrawling symbols on the wall with sticks again!
I recognise all the habits you describe, apart from paper napkins. I doubt they even existed when I was a kid. Conversation? Oh yes, I remember that. But emojis — bring ’em on! 🙃😗 Your caution around social media has much to be said for it. Lovely to “meet” you, by the way.
Ha I seem to be anonymous… I’m actually Maggie, Rachel. No idea why I appear as anonymous.
That’s me prattling on about upper and lower class serviettes and Deborah Levy…