Table manners

Table manners
First posted 11:32pm (Mla time) Mar 15, 2006
By Ambeth Ocampo
Inquirer

AS I mentioned in my last column, I have yet to verify if there is an extant copy of "Lagda" available in nearby libraries, and I am hoping it is not another hoax like the Code of Kalantiaw. Gregorio Zaide listed down a number of years when the book saw print and the only reference I found was this: "Lagda sa pagca maligdon sa tauong Bisaya, sa nagacalain lain nga mga cahimtang ug pagcabutang sa iang quinabuhi. Hinusay sa usa ca Pareng Agustino Calzado sa provincia sa Sugbu. Guilaqip-an sa mga pagtolonan sa pagcompisal ug pagcomulga, ingon man sa mga pagpahimatngon ni Sta.Teresa de Jesus. Segunda edicion. Binondo 1865. Imprenta de M. Sanchez y Cia. Anloague 6."

The book is in Visayan, but the author is not the Jesuit Pedro de Estrada, but an Augustinian who was so modest he didn't even sign his name. When you go on a bibliographical search, you discover that you find more questions than answers.

Readers who want to read the text as translated from the original Visayan can check out Volume 5 of Zaide's 12-volume "Documentary Sources of Philippine History." Those who want to compare "Lagda" with the more famous Tagalog book of manners "Urbana at Felisa" will have to visit the National Library, the Lopez Museum or a university library because this once-popular book is currently out of print. From the epistolary form of the book, we note that Urbana lives in the city and she writes letters to Felisa who lives in the country giving advice on good manners particularly for a boy named Modesto. One of my favorite parts of "Urbana and Felisa" concerns conduct during meals, thus I looked up the separate section on meals in "Lagda" and was not disappointed. While many of these rules are still practiced today and many are common sense norms, it is funny when spelled out in black and white like:

"If something is to be served which needs to be peeled, peel it before the meal begins.

"Wash your hands well before you go to the table because it is unpleasant and loathsome to see dirty hands handling food.

"Do not leave on the table or give to others what you have already touched.

"Do not gargle when others are still eating.

"Do not stick out your tongue to take food into your mouth.

"Do not keep your mouth full like a hungry wave, or swallow the food like a sawa. Do not feed yourself too fast like a monkey that knows it is to be trapped or driven away."

What I find fascinating here is the change from our "kamayan" [eating with the fingers] culture to that which requires a table, spoon, fork, knife and napkin. We are not even talking here of the elaborate Victorian times when various implements were made to be used for specific foods and purposes: fish knives, tongs to hold escargot, strawberry spoon with strainer, watermelon spoons, long drink spoons for stirring liquid in a glass that also doubles as a straw. For many Filipinos then as now, the "basic" things require more than a banana leaf on a low table and your hands:

"It is a proper thing for the well-educated man to prepare clean cloth for wiping the hands because it is shameful to remove dirt from one's hands on his dress.

"The plates to be used should have been washed well, both inside and outside so that they may not repel those who will see and hold them and expose their owner to embarrassment and shame.

"Do not stir the food with your fingers but cut it out with the knife or with the spoon.

"Do not bite into any bone as if you were a dog and do not suck at it because this is a sign of greed.

"Do not use your bare hands for transferring food from one place to another, but use the fork or spoon, or else jerk it off from your plate to the other one.

"Do not gather the food with both hands but take it bit by bit with your left hand.

"Do not lick the fingers with your lips, do not smell the food before putting it in your mouth and do not blow it to cool it off."

The last needs some comment because Kentucky Fried Chicken encourages us to do otherwise since the colonel's chicken is "finger-lickin' good." Then look around you at table and you will notice people blowing into their soup to cool it before ingesting.

There are social norms that are more complicated:

"Do not be asking for food like a hungry dog barking for its food and shouting so that you should be served. If you are told to eat with your parents at a table, eat standing, but if you are asked to sit down, choose the lowest seat.

"Do not eat ahead of the others, and not be the last one to finish.

"If you are eating with other people, serve them first.

"Do not look around to see how people are eating or what food is being served to them.

"If many kinds of food are served, it is a sign of courtesy to take a little of everything, but do not eat them too hurriedly because it is a sign of greediness to finish them right away.

"Do not empty your plate completely but leave a little on it so that it will not look as if a hermit crab has been eating from it."

I don't know how a hermit crab eats, but we often see people leaving one morsel on the plate, the so-called 'pedazo de verguenza' [literally, piece of shame], because to consume everything was a sign of greed. Times have changed because parents today order their children to finish everything on their plates.

Why do the rules change? That is a question better posed to an anthropologist than a historian.

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