How to Prepare and Serve a Meal; and Interior Decoration Part 2

The setting of the table for the home dinner follows the general rules already given. As it is a quite informal affair, however, the side dish (never seen at a formal dinner) is permissible. Dessert, too, may be served in a small dish set in a plate. A carving cloth (for _paterfamilias_ usually carves at the home dinner) protects the tablecloth from spatters and bits of crisp fat which the most skillful carver cannot always avoid sending over the dish.

If a maid serves, she should always have an extra plate, one more than the number of individuals to be served. She will need it.

A salad served with meat, at an informal dinner, is placed on the right side, _from the right_, the exception to the rule of serving from the left.

Vegetables, once served, are taken back to the kitchen, to keep them warm. If a second serving is desired, the mistress rings. Suit yourself about having the serving silver placed on the table _before_ the dish to be served is carried in. The latest wrinkle--and it is a time and step-saving one--dictates that the silver be brought in on a platter. The soup, to be served hot (it should always be served in soup plates at dinner and never in bouillon cups) must be brought in after the family have taken their places.

A family dinner may be served quite comfortably even without a maid.

The table set and the service laid, the younger members of the family should attend to her duties. One may bring in the soup, hot, in individually heated plates. Another may fill the water gla.s.ses, pa.s.s b.u.t.ter or sauces and remove dishes between courses. The most convenient way of serving vegetables, under these circ.u.mstances, is for some member of the family next the carver to attend to it, as soon as meat has been laid on the plate. It saves extra pa.s.sing. See to it that too many things--b.u.t.ter, salt, pepper, cream, sauces, etc.--are not traveling about the table at once. All the formal features of the more formal meals may be dropped or modified to suit individual needs or circ.u.mstances in the informal home dinner.

TWELVE MENUS FOR GOOD FAMILY DINNERS

1. Corn Mock Bisque. Roast Chicken with Bread Stuffing, Giblet Gravy.

Boiled Rice. Saute Egg Plant. Stuffed Green Peppers. Prune Pudding.

Black Coffee.

2. Onion Soup. Fried Smelts, Sauce Tartare. Broiled Porterhouse Beefsteak. Maitre d'Hotel b.u.t.ter (1/4 cup b.u.t.ter, 1/2 teaspoonful salt, 1/8 teaspoonful pepper, tablespoonful lemon juice, 1 ditto parsley, fine chopped; work b.u.t.ter in bowl with wooden spoon till creamy, then add other ingredients slowly). Potato Strips. Creamed Turnips. Steamed Chocolate Pudding, Sterling Sauce.

3. Carrot Soup. Braised Beef. Boiled Potatoes with b.u.t.ter and Parsley.

Fried Parsnips. Onion Souffle. Spiced Apples a la Lyman (6 large apples, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoonful cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoonful salt, 1/4 cup water: arrange cored and pared apples in baking dish, mix sugar, salt and cinnamon and fill cavities. Add water, bake till apples are soft, basting repeatedly with syrup in dish. Remove, cool, pile meringue on top of each apple. Back to oven and bake for eight minutes.

Chill and serve with sugar and cream). Black coffee.

4. Huntington Soup and Celery. Braised Leg of Mutton. Mashed Sweet Potatoes. Beets, Sauce Piquant. Stuffed Tomato Salad, Boiled Dressing.

Cream Jelly.

5. Onion Soup. Beefsteak a la Henrietta Saute Potato b.a.l.l.s, Mashed Turnips. Cheese Salad. Coffee Sponge.

6. Corn and Chicken Soup. Braised Fowl, Chestnut Stuffing. d.u.c.h.ess Potatoes, Fried Tomatoes (Parmesan). Honeycomb Pudding, Creamy Sauce.

Coffee.

7. Brown Soup with Macaroni Rings. Creamed Mushrooms. Roast Leg of Veal. Mashed Potatoes. Brussels Sprouts with Celery. Asparagus Salad.

Fruit Tapioca. Coffee.

8. Clam Bouillon. Boiled Leg of Mutton, Caper Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, Fried Cuc.u.mbers. Peach Cabinet Pudding. Crackers and Cheese. Black Coffee.

9. Broiled Fish, Cold Slaw in Cabbage Sh.e.l.l. Stuffed Hearts with Vegetables. Potatoes Goldenrod, Almond Pudding, Whipped Cream.

a.s.sorted Fruit. Coffee.

These are samples of what is possible in the way of tasty combinations for the informal family dinner.

CHAPTER VI

THE FORMAL DINNER

From the informal dinner in which the family waits on itself, to the formal dinner, at which two waitresses attend to the comfort of the diners, is but a step. Yet it is a serious one for the hostess who gives the latter form of dinner. The cook often requires extra help (dishwashing, etc.); and where a chambermaid is available, she has to be drafted as a second waitress or an extra waitress engaged. There must be a helper on duty in the pantry, for there must be no hitch in any detail of the formal dinner service. So the extra pantry-hand must serve soup and pour coffee, see that there is crushed ice always ready, stack up soiled dishes, open wine bottles (yes, this is still done!) and be prepared to do anything else which will help make the dinner a success.

THE WHAT'S WHAT OF A FORMAL DINNER

The fine damask tablecloth is a feature--though the table is set practically as though for a formal luncheon--and large-size dinner napkins are the rule. The parsnips of circ.u.mstance are not b.u.t.tered at the formal dinner, though the bread and b.u.t.ter plate sometimes shows its face as a serving convenience for bread, celery, olives and radishes. Winegla.s.ses still appear in formal dinners given _in private_. This provides for quite an array of gla.s.sware. At the point of the knives, in the following order stand the water goblet and the iced tea gla.s.s or appolinaris gla.s.s. The winegla.s.ses (usually no more than three wines are served) are grouped to the right of the water goblet. Their order is that of use. (There are separate gla.s.ses for high and low c.o.c.ktail, sherry, sauterne, claret, champagne, cordials and whiskey.) Each guest has his own nut dish, placed directly before him. Candles are lit and water gla.s.ses half-filled a few minutes in advance of the dinner announcement, and the hostess already having arranged place cards before this is done.

THE COURSES

The "initial" course may be placed on the table before dinner is announced or may be served after. If, however, you serve c.o.c.ktails in the drawing room with the accompanying caviar or lettuce sandwiches, or if you serve a canape, do not repeat the latter as the opening of the dinner. For instance, you should not serve a Lobster Canape in the drawing room and a Finnan Haddie Canape at the dinner table. Fruit c.o.c.ktails of every kind, and canapes are in order for this commencement of the meal.

A GOOD FRUIT c.o.c.kTAIL RECIPE

Mix shredded pineapple, halved strawberries, (fresh, not preserved), with grapefruit pulp, the pulp in a two to one proportion to the pineapple, chill and cover with wine dressing. To be served in champagne gla.s.s, with top garnish of a large strawberry for each gla.s.s.

The soup course may be preceded by one of fruit, where the c.o.c.ktail or canape has been served in the drawing room. Supposing it to be strawberries, the berries will already be waiting in a small plate when the guests take their seats upon entering the dining room. They should be unhulled, large, selected berries, and may be eaten either by hand (dipped in the sugar mound into which they are thrust on the plate) or with the strawberry fork. The serving of a finger bowl with this course is a matter of taste.

When this course has been removed, the soup is served, and the head waitress pours the sherry, while cakes and olives are pa.s.sed by a second waitress.

If fish comes next--we will presume the fish to be Shad a la Delmonico, Halibut a la Meniere or Turbans of Flounder--it is pa.s.sed in the platter, followed by rolls and Cuc.u.mber Ribbons, Dressed Cuc.u.mbers or Sliced Cuc.u.mbers, as the case may be. Then the fish course is taken from the table and we come to the entree.

If one entree is the limit it precedes the roast. Where you have two entrees the heavy (meat) entree comes first, then the lighter (vegetable) one. Let us say we have only Delmonico Tomatoes or Mushroom Croquettes. We would carry on next with our roast fowl or flesh. But if we have Oyster and Mushroom Patties _and_ Roast Ham with Cider Sauce as entrees, the Roast Ham, being the heavier, should be served first.

Our roast--the champagne was poured from the _right_ side with the _right_ hand _after_ the removal of the fish plates--is now due. The entree plates in turn have been taken away and the warm dinner plates subst.i.tuted for them. Ah, the roast! What shall it be? There is so much from which to choose. It cannot be too epicurean for a formal dinner. Fillet of Beef Larded with Truffles, with a Brown Mushroom Sauce; Crown of Lamb (crowned with Green Peas and surrounded by Fried Potato b.a.l.l.s); Roast Turkey with Truffle Gravy; Venison Saddle, Chateaubriand of Beef, Sirloin Steak, there is no lack of choice.

When both roast and game are served, a frozen punch is supposed to draw the line of demarcation between them, and the salad enters _with_ the game instead of being counted as an individual course.

While one waitress pa.s.ses the roast, another follows with the potatoes. Other vegetables and rolls then come in order and, if the nut dishes of any of the guests are empty, they are refilled.

When more than a single meat course is served at a formal dinner, the sorbets and frozen punches should be dropped. In such a case they are only permissible at an especially large official dinner, a banquet or a large hotel spread.

After dinner plates have been taken away the salad (already arranged on the plate, the fork on the right hand side) is served from the right, and sandwiches are pa.s.sed. The variety of possible salads has already been alluded to in the consideration of the formal luncheon, hence nothing need be added here on that head.

With the emptied salad plate are removed peppers and salts (on tray) and the table crumbed, the ice cream plate (as at the formal luncheon) is placed. The ice cream mold is pa.s.sed with _the mold already cut, but retaining its shape_, to facilitate the guest's helping himself.

Together with the ice cream, the accompanying small cakes are pa.s.sed.

The appearance of the finger bowl service follows the removal of the dessert plates. The finger bowl should be approximately one-fourth full of luke-warm water (never cold) and garnished. The dessert plate is removed with the left hand, the plate, finger bowl, and doily served with the left. The pa.s.sing of the bonbons concludes the actual service at the table.

Coffee, as already mentioned, is poured by the hostess in the drawing room and, after the waitress has collected and removed the coffee service (and cups and saucers) she may, in the event that cordials are served, return with the cordial service, which the hostess pours and the waitress serves as in the case of the coffee.

If the ladies _only_ retire to the drawing room, one waitress serves them there with coffee, while another remains in the dining room. Here she pa.s.ses cigars and cigarettes on a tray, together with a lighted candle or matches, and then serves coffee and cordials or brandy and soda.

It is good form for the waitress to serve carbonated water in apollinaris gla.s.ses in the drawing room about an hour after the conclusion of the dinner.

THREE FORMAL DINNER MENUS

1. Grapefruit. Chicken Consomme with Oysters. Bread Sticks (served like roll in napkin). Deviled Crabs. Chicken Mousse with Sauterne Jelly.