What makes a "Place Setting"?

Just a little update before I knuckle down and set up some real content updates for my "Introduction to the Kitchen" series.

I came across this on My [Confined] Space a couple weeks ago; it's essentially a full place setting for a multiple-course meal.

Now, I have a couple of disagreements with the identities, and the placement of some of the pieces.

Regarding the utensils, the way I learned was to take the utensils from the outside inwards. So, based on the identities provided here; a seafood appetizer will be served first, then soup, then fish, then meat, then salad, then dessert.

Salad after meat? Fish before meat? Fish and meat courses served in the same meal? Rather odd, when you think about our current culinary habits, however I can see the reasoning behind a couple of the choices.

The salad course in this meal would be used to cleanse the palate after the meat course in preparation for dessert. I suspect the meat would be served with a savory sauce of some sort that would interfere with the appreciation of something like sorbet, or a light cake. A fresh salad, served with a vinaigrette, would have enough acid to wash away any remnants of flavor, and chewing the fibrous greens would help to dislodge any bit of meat stuck in the grinding surfaces of the molars.

I personally feel that having both fish and meat courses to be excessive, but again, that's our differing culinary traditions.

Interesting to note, the meat fork is longer and the tines are thinner than the fish and salad forks. This is because the meat fork needs to be able to pierce a piece of meat that is on average about an inch thick far enough in to be a stable anchor point so the diner can carve away a bite. Fish, on the other hand, when cooked well, will flake apart and not need to be carved up. Salad does not need to be cut either, but the fork needs to be able to grab the leaves, so having tines that widen quickly will increase the horizontal tension in the pierced leaf, keeping it on the fork.

So, if you're looking to get a "complete" set of dishes and utensils, this is why you'll generally find two plates, one bowl, two forks, two spoons, and only one knife for each place setting.