DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270106

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E7   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: BOOK REVIEW 

SOURCE: BY BARBARA SPIGEL 

                                            LENGTH:   70 lines

MISS MANNERS' EATING GUIDE IS FUN, USEFUL

KNOWING JUDITH MARTIN (the other divine Miss M.) to be a witty lady who tempers her counsel with a great sense of humor, I was eager to get my teeth into ``Miss Manners' Basic Training: Eating.''

I returned home with the book to find the man in my life eating an extremely ripe mango, and immediately sought Miss Manners' advice: ``Mangoes not eaten in the bathtub should not be attempted with the fingers. Juice running off the nose is not a pretty sight.''

Thanks, Miss M., I've been telling him that for years.

Cantaloupe, she says, can be eaten with a spoon at breakfast, but with a fruit knife and fork when served for dessert at dinner. (In my neighborhood, the rule is, ``When in doubt, use the melon baller.'')

She reveals an uncharacteristic insouciance as she describes French onion soup: It's ``like some romances - you know you're going to make a fool of yourself, but it's so good, you don't care.''

Miss Manners acknowledges that ``how a society chooses to eat - keeping forks in the left hand or switching them to the right - is arbitrary.'' This is good news to those of us who were taught that the left hand is for the fork, as the left-hand side of the road is for the car; that the preferred time for dinner is 8 p.m., and that only uncouth barbarians eat asparagus with a knife and fork. Miss Manners agrees with the latter belief, but suggests that an asparagus holder can be used in certain circumstances.

When was the last time anyone saw an asparagus holder? Come to think of it, when was the first time anyone saw an asparagus holder?

An essential point of ``Basic Training: Eating'' is that today's lack of table manners is a direct result of the demise of the family dinner, so that some people now panic when faced with a power breakfast, an interview lunch, or a business dinner. This book is a godsend for those who rely on their thumbs to hold the fast food together as they eat on the run, at their desks, or standing over the sink.

Miss Manners deals with such questions as how to handle restaurant service, how to set a table so that the diners don't see it as a multiple-choice test and when to use which utensil. She also points out that soup should be seen and not heard.

Sensibly, Miss Manners avoids pretentious establishments, as they are ``rife with etiquette errors, from rude attitudes to mis-set tables.'' One wishes that she had given a few pointers on how to cope with these tidbits of waitstaff conversation: ``Enjoy your dinner.'' Is this an order? Can I say, ``I will, if it's any good?'' And ``Is everything OK?'' If everything isn't OK, you'd have heard.

Miss Manners asserts that there is no excuse for bad table manners, even in extreme circumstances. She would have approved of the lady who, during the Second World War, was pouring tea for a young girl. Suddenly there was a loud explosion.

``Oh,'' said the startled youngster, ``what was that?''

``Bombs, dear,'' replied the lady, ``elbows off the table.''

``Basic Training: Eating'' is a fun book and a most useful reference. It takes good manners, Miss Manners says, to put up with bad ones, and she notes that ``Criticizing others is in itself a rudeness.'' MEMO: Barbara Spigel is a writer who lives in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: MARGARET THOMAS

Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, offers dining tips in her new

book.

BOOK REVIEW

``Miss Manners' Basic Training: Eating''

Author: Judith Martin

Publisher: Crown Publishers. 176 pp.

Price: $15

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