#9 | every dinner is a political situation
on protocols, social behavior, and re-signification of symbols
clique aqui para ler em português
There are gestures I have automatized in my brief adult life. Put the linen napkin on my lap while I eat. Use the knife with my right hand. Place the cutlery inside the plate, from the center to the right side, when I finish eating. To behave at the table under these rules is to signal the mastery of a code and also an affirmation of social distinction.
I came across this subject after discussing with my friend Ana Spengler, a 20-years-experienced cook and an example of a hostess, about etiquette and what are the guest's duties. I wrote a draft in December about reception, service, dining, and table behaviour; in an attempt to apprehend what the petty-bourgeois ethics for lunch and dinner might indicate a pact of similar behavior to the group. I couldn't move on. In the afternoon before sending this piece in Portuguese (March 30th), I deleted everything and started from scratch. That's why this essay is shorter than the others.
What draws me into the subject of "how to behave at the table" is less the nature and reasons these rules have to exist and more the possibilities we have to re-signify while following or breaking them. I remember saying something like that back in September when I gave an interview for the digital newspaper Plural ("In a polarised country, going to a restaurant has become a political act", only in Portuguese). I affirmed the table is not a forgiving space, but a sharing one. When you are at the table, you have to respect the intrinsic rules the group has.
At Christmas dinners, no one ate before my grandma said a prayer; at the end of the dinner, every one of us took our dishes off the table to put them in the kitchen sink. When dining at a restaurant, the cutlery's position signs the waiter if you are satisfied or not; at a friend's house, you can help prepare the meal or clean the dishes.
[In the last case, I learned that there are many possible etiquettes: depending on the occasion and with whom you are, taking off your plate after eating may sound rushed or a rude interruption of the good moment the group is having. I hope Ana will explain this publicly someday]
Most of the time, we know how to adapt our behavior or, at least, to mime discreetly the gestures of those who are more comfortable than us. There is a non-verbal pact that makes us sit at the table willing to be in consensus, but alert. The table is where you can let your guard down, negotiate, and build new relationships – it's not always a peaceful space, but it is always a stage.
"The one that doesn't know how to receive shall not invite". The sentence is declared in a disapproving tone in one scene of the French movie Delicious (Éric Besnard, 2021), while the Duke of Chamfort is having dinner with part of the nobility as guests. An entourage of waiters waits in the antechamber, dinner plates in one hand, hearing the guests give other dukes and duchesses a bad press. The Duke de Chamfort had set the evening's menu, and his cook, Pierre Manceron, had coordinated dozens of people to prepare and serve dinner to perfection. As soon as the dining room's doors are opened, Manceron serves a little pie stuffed with potatoes and black truffle, nicknamed "delicious", a dish that was not requested by the duke. An inexcusable faux pas.
To make it worse, the stuffing was made of ingredients little valued by the nobility – "the only connoisseurs of the haute cuisine" – and the little pies and the china they were into were thrown on the floor. The humiliation felt by the duke made him dismiss Manceron.
The cook moves to a baiting place a few miles from the Chamfort Palace. After a few weeks of melancholy, his son stimulates him to cook for the travelers that stop by, who complain about the boy's vegetable soup. I am not going to detail the plot, but I can say the film is a narrative exercise of what could have been the founding myth of the origin of restaurants, given that it takes place in the mid-18th century, in rural France.
Little by little, Manceron inserts technique and service that was exclusive from an economic-superior stratum in the popular baiting place's hall. He begins to serve a sequence of dishes in the same meal, having à la carte service and giving attention to each one of the messmates. And little by little, we see Manceron turn the salon into a social homogenization space. The restaurant is the big table that brings together the different ones.
To know and to practice as the protocol says is also a requirement to deny it – otherwise, the rupture is seen only as a gaffe. To show care for the importance of the ceremonial and even though to opt to leave the script also has value, as well as to make use of conventions to insert yourself in a context that is not yours. The states we give subverting the protocol hold power when there is a message to the status quo. That was my line of reasoning when I saw Will Smith slapping Chris Rock during Oscar's ceremony, and this is how I see the breaks that the newly-elected president of Chile Gabriel Boric made in protocols in his sworn-in, greeting personally service providers and workers.
The lawbook of good manners is constantly rewritten and justified by cultural hegemony. Nothing remains standing forever in what is considered the proper behavior. My poor but instrumental sense of etiquette was what made me adapt myself smoothly to the world of expensive restaurants and events when I needed to cover them as a reporter or when I wanted to get to know starred establishments on my own. Collecting information, contacts, and opportunities in a foreign universe requires the use of these codes. There are latent possibilities when entering power environments – and I know that. The norm is what makes us go unnoticed. Invisible. Belonging.
Every dinner is a political situation. Even if it is informal, there will always be some kind of power exercise made by one party and adequacy by the others. It begins with all the decisions the host has the prerogative to make – who the guests will be, the menu, the occasion, the time – and goes through creating a circumstance for the meeting. In some cases, the etiquette will fit like a camouflage. In others, we might perform a behavior so naturally that we don't even notice it. One thing never changes: the etiquettes only exist to mediate our social contact and guarantee that, if everyone is playing the role that is expected by the group, everything will go smoothly and all parts will enjoy the power of the encounters.
By appropriating part of the codes of nobility to serve food in his baiting place, Manceron weakens the hegemony of dukes and their symbols. These symbols receive new meanings when re-signified by different groups. This displacement is continuous and less noticeable in our daily lives than it is portrayed in the movie. Just think about the status of beef stroganoff1, which has gone from fancy to everyday food in just a few decades without a sudden drop. Every symbol is playable and can have its sign inverted. Everything on the table is up for grabs, not just the salt shaker.
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NA: Beef stroganoff was once a dish served in weddings and high society dinners in Brazil, made with tomatoes, heavy cream, and Worcestershire sauce. Today, you can find chicken, shrimp, or beef stroganoff in all kinds of restaurants in Brazil served with white rice and crispy shoestring potato.