The Better World
The ABCs of D(ining)
By JOHN and LYNNE DIAMND-NIGH

Q: What do I do, as a guest, if I prefer not to eat the food set before me, or on principle, or for reasons of health or religion, simply can’t?

A:  Always tricky. There is something particularly intimate about proffering food—it’s a deep and earnest way of giving of yourself. To refuse, on just about any grounds, may slight your host—a bit like refusing to shake someone’s hand.

Years ago, when I was a boy, my father took a sabbatical from teaching and we traveled as a family through Europe and the Middle East in a cramped, cantankerous Volkswagen van—the everyman conveyance in those days—along the well-traveled route from Turkey to Afghanistan. I met some meals that year that I had never met before. But the strangest of all was in the desert in Jordan. Beckoned onward by the grandeur of the Lawrence of Arabia scenery, we found that our road had petered out to a trail that, in turn, petered out to nothing. Just sand.

Ahead, however, was a simple concrete tower and, beside it, a scattering of Bedouin tents. The building was a fort of sorts, and a policeman there, as luck would have it, spoke French. We were invited to spend the night on the top floor of the tower, accessible only by a teetery ladder (halfway to the stars), and to join the tribesmen for supper. Arriving at the largest tent, we were ushered in and joined the tribesmen sitting in concentric circles around an inner circle of old, old men drinking tea. In time, women arrived with brass pitchers of water that they poured over our hands, and we then arose and walked out into the shadowy sands of the desert.

After a hundred yards or so, we stopped, arranged ourselves into several groups, and squatted in the sand, once again in circles, and waited until the women brought a large tray of food for each group and set them among us. We started to eat by reaching our hands into the steamy mound of rice and lamb. From time to time a piece of meat would be nudged into my fingers by one of my fellow diners. I was the guest, and Arabs are as impeccably, magnificently hospitable as the Japanese. Then I felt something horrid being socketed into the palm of my hand—round, rubbery, a little cold. Not a piece of meat, that much I knew. It was an eye.

Even if my fate wasn’t in the hands of wild strangers in this deep, desolate desert where giving offense would be high folly, my mother had taught me that you take a bit of everything, and you eat it all before you leave the table. In hindsight, a most excellent rule. I won’t speak of the beety tribulations it brought me in childhood, but there is nothing now that I don’t eat with relish except tofu. I’m lucky. I like meat and have no allergies—I’m doubly lucky. I have no religion—food-wise—so I’m triply lucky. If anything, it’s the general voracity of my appetite that wins an admonitory nudge from my wife. No, I positively can’t ask my neighbor for his untouched crème brûlée.

Remember the eye: eat what you can, then what you must. If you are a vegetarian, or have food allergies, or for religious reasons must abstain, notify your host of that fact when you accept your invitation. Failing that, quietly ask your server early in the course of the meal if there is an optional dish that would suit your needs, or if they could just subtract the meat. Otherwise, graciously let your host know why you can’t eat your food, take a third roll and leave it at that. Don’t make a fuss.

There are books, heavens above, that actually tell you to slip the offending food into your purse or pocket or imperceptibly divert it onto your spouse’s plate. Let me state it as discreetly as I can—savagery and hogwash! Who wants to move to the dance floor or conference room with a pork chop in your pocket?

Lynne is an etiquette and protocol consultant and a Humanities professor at Elmira College. John is an artist and designer. Please send etiquette and protocol questions and comments to thebetterworld@mountainhomemag.com