Table decorations

Learning how to eat is pre-eminentely a question of skills: to handle correctly various kitchenware, to lay on a first-rate meal, to sort out the sheep from the goats, and to adopt specific postures that fit with the manipulation of food as well as the conversation with other table-companions. In short, it is to stand up straight, while keeping an eye on each thing to be in its right place. The gastronomic order is not only a matter of people, the running of a meal also goes with the sequential and spatial ordering of artifacts. Such an apprenticeship usually comes from our parents who tirelessly repeat instructions day after day. These oral guidelines sometimes add to astute advices as they appear in handbooks devoted to the arts of the table. Because, this apprenticeship is not only put to the test in the familial living room. For a family party, with friends or colleagues, good manners are generally experienced during receptions or dinners in restaurants. Fortunately in such places, novices may focus on their sole acts. Waiters and sommeliers scrupulously take care of the right arrangement of artifacts. And sometimes, they get some help from small mediators that invite themselves as interlocutors that directly take place on the table. They remind guests that if the order is imposed, flavors and mood would get better. Both a container placed on a table and a device that displays an instruction, this small mediator is also a taste enhancer.