When I was eight, my parents sent me to manners class. I should explain that I have the type of parents who would see an eight-year-old “incorrectly” use a fork, think, My god, what a monster we have raised, and send me off to an afterschool Emily Post boot camp. We learned how to send a thank you letter and how to speak on the telephone, and, over the course of one interminable day, how to set a table for a dinner party. I learned that the napkin was to go on the left of the plate, or on top for dramatic effect. Drinking glasses went to the right, above the knife and spoon.

These skills are a dying art. It’s not that nobody knows how to set a table anymore—most of us just don’t care. In an age where more people know how to take a beautiful food photo than cook a gourmet meal, it’s surprising that the table—the literal thing food rests on—has been left by the wayside. That is, except for one place: the ever magical, über-American, county fair.

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