We eat every day, three or more times, yet the skill of taking nourishment properly has all but disappeared from our society. We are afflicted with fear of forks and baffled by the sight of more than one plate before us on the table. Blame it on the demise of the family dinner or the advent of "do your own thing, many of us have never learned, or have simply forgotten, the rules for eating in civilized company. In her fabulously witty style, Miss Manners reacquaints us with the proper use of implements for navigating nourishment from plate to mouth and gives specific, practical advice on all manner of mealtime issues: Serving takeout food How to fillet a fish, pound (pop open) a crab, and cope with the mysteries of the mango, the artichoke, a thick, juicy steak, and that long stringy glop of cheese atop French onion soup Safely feeding children in restaurants Place cards and seating plans for dinner parties Rules for vegetarians and other special cases The spinach-in-teeth maneuver How to signal with your napkin whether you've left the table for good or will soon be back. Give this essential volume to your children, your husband, your coworkers, your mother-in-law, and never be grossed out at the table again. Miss Manners instructs us in a forgotten art: table manners, from which fork to use to the correct way of ingesting all the cheese that floats atop French onion soup. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. ... Martin dishes up some notable surprises in Eating (munching asparagus with your fingers is acceptable; twirling spaghetti on a spoon is not)... -- Entertainment Weekly day, three or more times, yet the skill of taking nourishment properly has all but disappeared from our society. We are afflicted with fear of forks and baffled by the sight of more than one plate before us on the table. Blame it on the demise of the family dinner or the advent of "do your own thing, many of us have never learned, or have simply forgotten, the rules for eating in civilized company. In her fabulously witty style, Miss Manners reacquaints us with the proper use of implements for navigating nourishment from plate to mouth and gives specific, practical advice on all manner of mealtime issues: Serving takeout food How to fillet a fish, pound (pop open) a crab, and cope with the mysteries of the mango, the artichoke, a thick, juicy steak, and that long stringy glop of cheese atop French onion soup Safely feeding children in restaurants Place cards and seating plans for dinner parties Rules for vegetarians and other special cases Judith Martin is the author of Miss Manners' Basic Training: Communication and the best-selling Miss Manners Rescues Civilization, among six other best-selling etiquette books, and the internationally syndicated Miss Manners newspaper column. She and her husband, a scientist and playwright, live in Washington, D.C.