The Art of Entertaining Part 3

To make a good cup of coffee is a rare accomplishment. Perhaps the old method is as good as any: a small cupful of roasted and ground coffee, one third Mocha and two thirds Java, a small egg, sh.e.l.l and all, broken into the pot with the dry coffee. Stir well with a spoon and then pour on three pints of boiling water; let it boil from five to ten minutes, counting from the time it begins to boil. Then pour in a cupful of cold water, and turn a little of the coffee into a cup to see that the nozzle of the pot is not filled with grounds. Turn this back, and let the coffee stand a few minutes to settle, taking care that it does not boil again. The advantages of boiled egg with coffee is, that the yolk gives a rich flavour and good colour; also the sh.e.l.ls and the white keep the grounds in order, settling them at the bottom of the pot.

But the most economical and the easiest way of making coffee is by filtering. The French coffee biggin should be used. It consists of two cylindrical tin vessels, one fitting into the other, the bottom of the upper being a fine strainer. Another coa.r.s.er strainer, with a rod coming from the centre, is placed on this. Then the coffee, which must be finely ground, is put in, and another strainer is placed on the top of the rod. The boiling water is poured on, and the pot set where it will keep hot, but not boil, until the water has gone through. This will make a clear, strong coffee with a rich, smooth flavour.

The advantage of the two strainers is, that the one coming next to the fine strainer prevents the grounds from filling up the fine holes, and so the coffee is clear,--a grand desideratum. Boiled milk should be served with coffee for an early breakfast. Clear coffee, _cafe noir_, is served after dinner, and in France, always after the twelve o'clock breakfast.

For a nine o'clock breakfast the hostess should also serve tea, and perhaps chocolate, if she has a large family of guests, as all cannot drink coffee for breakfast.

Pigs' feet _a la poulette_ find favour in Paris, and are delicious as prepared there; also calf's liver _a l'Alsacienne_. Chicken livers are very nice, and cod's tongues with black b.u.t.ter cannot be surpa.s.sed.

Mutton kidneys with bacon are desirable, and all the livers and kidneys _en brochette_ with bacon, empaled on a spit, are excellent.

Hashed lamb _a la Zingara_ is highly peppered and very good.

Broiled fish, broiled chicken, broiled ham, broiled steak and chops are always good for breakfast. The gridiron made Saint Lawrence fit for heaven, and its qualities have been elevating and refining ever since.

The summer breakfast can be very nice. Crab, clam, lobster,--all are admirable. Fresh fish should be served whenever one can get it.

Devilled kidneys and broiled bones do for supper, but fresh fish and easily digested food should replace these heavier dainties for breakfast.

Stewed fruit is much used on the Continent at an early breakfast. It is thought to avert dyspepsia. Americans prefer to eat fruit fresh, and therefore have not learned to stew it. Stewing is, however, a branch of cookery well worth the attention of a first-cla.s.s housekeeper. It makes canned fruit much better to stew it with sugar.

Stewed cherries are delicious and very healthy; and all the berries, even if a little stale, can be stewed into a good dish, as can the dried fruits, like prunes, etc.

Stewed pears make an elegant dessert served with whipped cream; but this is too rich for breakfast. Baked pears with cream are sometimes offered, and eggs in every form,--scrambled, dropped, boiled, stuffed, and even boiled hard, sliced and dressed as a salad. "What is so good as an egg salad for a hungry person?" asked a hostess in the Adirondacks who had nothing else to offer! Eggs are the staple for breakfast.

Ham omelet with a little parsley, lamb chops with green peas, tripe _a la Bourdelaise_, hashed turkey, hashed chicken with cream, and breaded veal with tomato sauce, calf's brains with a black b.u.t.ter, stewed veal _a la Cha.s.seur_, broiled shad's roe, broiled soft-sh.e.l.l clams, minced tenderloin with Lyonnaise potatoes, blue-fish _au gratin_, broiled steak with water-cress, picked-up codfish, and smoked beef in cream are of the thousand and one delicacies for the early breakfast,--if one can eat them.

It is better to eat a saucer of oatmeal and cream at nine o'clock, take a cup of tea, and do one's work; then at twelve to sit down to as good a breakfast as possible,--a regular _dejeuner a la fourchette_.

The digestion is then active; the brain after several hours work needs repose, and at one or two o'clock can go to work again like a giant refreshed.

An early breakfast with meat is thought by foreign doctors not to be good for children. But in France they give children wine at a very early age, which is rarely done in this country. At all boarding-schools and hospitals wine is given to young children.

Certainly there are fewer drunkards and fewer dyspeptics in France than in America.

Brillat Savarin says of coffee, "It is beyond doubt that coffee acts upon the functions of the brain as an excitant." Voltaire and Buffon drank a great deal of coffee. If it deprives persons of sleep it should never be taken. It is to many a poison; and hospitals are full of men made cripples by the immoderate stimulus of coffee. The Spanish people live and flourish on chocolate; introduced into Spain during the seventeenth century, it crossed the Pyrenees with Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip II. and wife of Louis XIII., and at the commencement of the Regency was more in vogue than coffee.

Many modern writers advise a good cup of chocolate at breakfast as wholesome and easily digested, and it is good for clergymen, lawyers, and travellers. In America it is considered heavy and headachy; and doubtless the climate has something to do with this. Cocoa and the lighter preparations of chocolate are good at sea, and very comforting to those who find their nerves too much on the alert to stand coffee or tea. Every one must consult his own health and taste in this as in all matters.

The boldest attempts to increase the enjoyments of the palate, or to tell people what they shall eat or drink, are constantly overthrown by some subtile enemy in the stomach; and breakfasts should especially be so light that they can tickle the palate without disturbing the brain.

A red herring is a good appetizer.

"Meet me at breakfast alone, And then I will give you a dish Which really deserves to be known, Though 'tis not the genteelest of fish.

You must promise to come, for I said A splendid red herring I'd buy.

Nay, turn not aside your proud head; You'll like it, I know, when you try.

"If moisture the herring betray, Drain till from the moisture 'tis free.

Warm it through in the usual way, Then serve it for you and for me.

A piece of cold b.u.t.ter prepare, To rub it when ready it lies; Egg sauce and potatoes don't spare, And the flavour will cause you surprise."

It is not only the man who has eaten a heavy supper the night before; it is not only the heavy drinker, although brandy and soda are not the best of appet.i.te provokers, so they say; but it is also the brainworker who finds it impossible to eat in the morning. For sleep has the effect of eating. Who sleeps, eats, says the French proverb; and we often find healthy children unwilling to eat an early breakfast. Appet.i.tes vary both in individuals and at various seasons of the year. Nothing can be more unwise than to make children eat when they do not wish to do so. During the summer months we are all of us less inclined for food than when sharp set by hard exercise in the frosty air; and we loathe in July what we like in winter.

The heavy domestic breakfast of steak and mutton-chops in summer is often repellent to a delicate child. The perfection of good living is to have what you want exactly when you want it. A slice of fresh melon, a plate of strawberries, a thin slice of bread and b.u.t.ter may be much better for breakfast in summer than the baked beans and stewed codfish of a later season. Do not force a child to eat even a baked potato if he does not like it.

It is maintained by some that a strong will can keep off sea-sickness or any other malady. This is a fallacy. No strong will can make a delicate stomach digest a heavy breakfast at nine o'clock. Therefore we begin and end with the same idea,--breakfast is a hard thing to manage in America.

In England, however, it is a very happy-go-lucky meal; and although the essentials are on the table, people are privileged to rise and help themselves from the sideboard. I may say that I have never seen a fashionable English hostess at a nine o'clock breakfast, although the meal is always ready for those who wish it.

For sending breakfasts to rooms, trays are prepared with teapot, sugar, and cream, a plate of toast, eggs boiled, with cup, spoon, salt and pepper, a little pat of b.u.t.ter, and if desired a plate of chops or chicken, plates, knives, forks, and napkins. For an English country-house the supply of breakfast trays is like that of a hotel.

The pretty little Satsuma sets of small teapot, cream jug, and sugar-bowl, are favourites.

When breakfast is served in the dining-room, a white cloth is generally laid, although some ladies prefer variously coloured linen, with napkins to match. A vase of flowers or a dish of fruit should be placed in the centre. The table is then set as for dinner, with smaller plates and all sorts of pretty china, like an egg dish with a hen sitting contentedly, a b.u.t.ter plate with a rec.u.mbent cow, a sardine dish with fishes in Majolica,--in fact, any suggestive fancy.

Hot plates for a winter breakfast in a plate-warmer near the table add much to the comfort.

Finger bowls with napkins under them should be placed on the sideboard and handed to the guest with the fruit. It is a matter of taste as to whether fruit precedes or finishes the breakfast; and the servant must watch the decision of the guest.

A grand breakfast to a distinguished foreigner, or some great home celebrity at Delmonico's for instance, would be,--

A table loaded with flowers.

Oysters on the half-sh.e.l.l. Chablis.

Eggs stuffed. Eggs in black b.u.t.ter, (_au beurre noir_).

Chops and green peas. Champagne.

Lyonnaise potatoes.

Sweetbreads. Spinach.

Woodc.o.c.k. Partridges.

Salad of lettuce. Claret.

Cheese _fondu_.

DESSERT: Charlotte Russe. Fruit Jelly. Ices.

Liqueurs.

Grapes. Peaches. Pears.

Coffee.

A breakfast even at twelve o'clock is thus made noticeably lighter than the meal called lunch. It may be introduced by clam juice in cups, or bouillon, but is often served without either. These breakfasts are generally prefaced by a short reception, where all the guests are presented to the foreigner of distinction. There is no formality about leaving. Indeed, these breakfasts are given in order to avoid that.

For an ordinary breakfast at nine o'clock in a family of ten, we should say that the _menu_ should be something as follows: The host and hostess being present, the lady makes the tea. Oatmeal and cream would then be offered; after that a broiled chicken would be placed before the host, which he carves if he can. An omelet is placed before the lady or pa.s.sed; stewed potatoes are pa.s.sed, and toast or m.u.f.fins.

Hot cakes finish this breakfast, unless fruit is also added. It is considered a very healthful thing to eat an orange before breakfast.

But who can eat an orange well? One must go to Spain to see that done. The senorita cuts off the rind with her silver knife. Then putting her fork into the peeled fruit, she gently detaches small slices from the pulp, leaving the core and seeds untouched; pa.s.sing the fork upward, she detaches every morsel with her pearly teeth, looking very pretty the while, and contrives to eat the whole orange without losing a drop of the juice, and lays down the core with the fork still in it.

It seems hardly necessary to say to an American lady that she should be neatly dressed at breakfast. The pretty white morning dresses which are worn in America are rarely seen in Europe, perhaps because of the difference of climate. In England elderly ladies and young married women sometimes appear in very smart tea gowns of dark silk over a colour; but almost always the young ladies come in the yachting or tennis dresses which they will wear until dinner-time, and almost always in summer, in hats. In America the variety of morning dresses is endless, of which the dark jacket over a white vest, the serviceable merino, the flannel, the dark foulards, are favourites.

In summer, thin lawns, percales, Ma.r.s.eilles suits, calicos, and ginghams can be so prettily made as to rival all the other costumes for coquetry and grace.

"Still to be neat, still to be drest As she were going to a feast,"

such should be the breakfast dress of the young matron. It need not be fine; it need not be expensive; but it should be neat and becoming.

The hair should be carefully arranged, and the feet either in good, stout shoes for the subsequent walk, or in the natty stocking and well fitting slipper, which has moved the poet to such feeling verses.

THE LUNCH.

"A Gothic window, where a damask curtain Made the blank daylight shadowy and uncertain; A slab of agate on four eagle-talons Held trimly up and neatly taught to balance; A porcelain dish, o'er which in many a cl.u.s.ter Plump grapes hung down, dead ripe, and without l.u.s.tre; A melon cut in thin, delicious slices, A cake, that seemed mosaic-work in spices; Two china cups, with golden tulips sunny, And rich inside, with chocolate like honey; And she and I the banquet scene completing With dreamy words, and very pleasant eating."