Introducínǵ Yourself
to the Waíter

(From the Introduction to the Second Edition)

“Hello, my name is Ralph, and I will be your server this evening.”

Americans were surprised when waiters began introducing themselves to their customers a few years back. While the custom has long been in practice overseas, it was late coming to our own country, and as with Pearl Harbor, we were taken by surprise.

Clearly some guidance on this New Familiarity was in order, and it was for that reason that I published my ground-breaking—indeed, seminal—book, And My Name Is: Getting Acquainted With Your Waiter (Dove Press; $22). The response was extraordinary. Since its publication five years ago it has been translated into sixteen languages, including British. The immense volume of mail, not all of it complimentary, prompted the publishers to ask me to undertake a second, revised edition, which will appear this fall.

Perhaps a bit of historical background is in order first. Waiters did not always introduce themselves, even in Europe. Hard though it may be to believe, it was virtually unheard of before the seventeenth century. Not surprisingly, the practice seems to have begun in that most civilized of countries, France.

The first recorded instance of it happening occurred in Paris in the year 1684. As soon as the Duc de Pentheville had been shown to his seat at the fashionable boite, Haricot Vert, a young man by the name of Ralphe de Villiers strode up purposefully to the nobleman and said, “Je suis Ralphe de Villiers. Je suis votre garçon ce soir.” Unfortunately, the old Duc was not progressively minded, and the wretched Ralphe was hanged in front of the Haricot Vert as the Duc and his guests were finishing their pâte de lapin a la façon Suedois.

Ralphe’s body was left hanging as a warning to other waiters. Indeed, the incident seems to have discouraged further social experiments by waiters, since the next recorded instance of the phenomenon did not take place for nearly a century, until a bold would-be sommelier from Nantes named Jean de Nantes said to the Baron de Boudin, “Moi, je m’appelle Jean. Et vous?” Jean was summarily burned at the stake with the Baron looking on and declaring to the executioner that he wanted the impetuous young man “Bien cuit” (well done). But Jean’s death was not in vain. It was his death that sparked the riots that lead to the Second Edict of Nantes, and eventually to the French Revolution.

These are, of course, only two historical instances in a long line of gastronomic martyrs. The atrocities committed by the Turks, the Arabs and—sad to say—the English against waiters who dared to introduce themselves are, alas, as numerous as they are deplorable.

As I wrote in And My Name Is, the first and most obvious dilemma is whether to shake the waiter’s hand from the left or the right.^* But of the thousands and thousands of letters I received from readers of the first edition, most concerned the question of asking the waiter to sit down and join in the dinner.

The culinary world remains sharply divided on the issue, but I remain firm, maintaining as I do that it is just plain bad manners not to invite the waiter to sit down for a brief get-acquainted chat before ordering. It is true that in certain parts of France, notably the Camargue and the Dordogne, the practice is to invite the waiter to sit down for coffee or an anis or cognac after the meal. But the fashion of following the French in waiter etiquette is, to my way of thinking, overdone, given France’s deplorable history in the matter.

In an attempt to calm the waters that I have roiled with my advice in the first edition, I have slightly amended this section of the book to say that after the preliminary round of introductions, go ahead and ask the waiter to join you—but only for a brief chat. Simply make it clear that if the service is good, he will be invited back for coffee.

Many of the letters I’ve received ask the question, “What if the service is lousy?”

This is perhaps The Problem in social relations with waiters. There is no one answer, but as a general rule: if the waiter seems to be the sort of person one wants as a lifelong friend, then does it matter if the osso bucco ever arrives? Or that when it finally does arrive, it tastes like wet cardboard?

(One solution: if rotten service makes you agitated, bring along some Valium. One person I know always eats a full meal before going to the restaurant leaving him free to concentrate on developing a personal relationship with the server.)

On the other hand, if the waiter seems not at all the sort of person we want to associate with outside the restaurant, then I recommend being absolutely forthright. I.e., “Now look here, Giancarlo, or whatever your name is”—that gets them where it hurts—“if that osso bucco isn’t on the table by the time I count to tre, I’m going to beat you to death with this [obscenity] peppermill.”

One correspondent of ours says that’s how he introduces himself to the waiters. The downside is that many of them forget to introduce themselves to him. But service, he reports, is usually quite brisk.

That said, Bon appétit, and remember: developing a relationship with the person who brings you your food lessens the chance that he or she will spit on it in the kitchen.

—Key West Restaurant, 1986