IX
WHEN COMPANY COMES
ELABORATE entertaining should not be undertaken by a young couple of moderate means. Hospitality should be a matter of course, but never on a scale that makes it a burden to carry out at the time or to pay for afterward.
Perhaps the best and in many respects the most agreeable form of hospitality is that which calls in the occasional guest to an informal meal—a sort of improvised party. The husband asks a crony to dine on a certain night, the wife invites a friend to meet him. Little change is made in the family meal—perhaps a salad added as well as a sweet, or more unusual items ordered, or a special dessert prepared, but nothing which would bring the repast into the line of a dinner-party. There is no state and ceremony and everything is pleasant and jolly. Such little dinners are among the most charming forms of entertainment that can be achieved by young people of moderate means. When it seems well to widen the circle of invited guests, all to be done is to increase the provision made without departing from the simplicity which is one of the features of this kind of entertaining.
In the properly regulated home, where the observances of polite society are followed as much when the family is alone as when there is company, guests have no terrors. When the unexpected visitor arrives the table is found spread for two in the same style that it would be for ten. The napery is fresh and well laundered; the silver, glass, and china are shining—clean and arranged in correct order—the knife at the right of the plate with the soup or bouillon spoon, the fork at the left with the napkin; the bread-and-butter plate, with its slice of bread or roll and the butter-ball, near the fork, to correspond with the water-glass on the other side.
In such a home the maid is taught to follow the orderly sequence of courses, changing the plates and crumbing the table with as much pains for one as for half a dozen. Little by little she becomes accustomed to the routine, so that when a more formal entertainment is planned her work seems to her merely an amplification of that to which she has grown wonted.
At the same time a warning should be uttered to the housekeeper of small ménage against attempting to ape the hospitality of those whose incomes far exceed her own. Pretense is always absurd, and the woman who undertakes to imitate the style of the wealthy and fashionable hostess only renders herself ridiculous without in the least impressing those with whom she is striving to compete. Such entertaining strains her income and is in reality far inferior to the little parties she might give that would possess a merit all their own.
The hostess who aspires to give dinners should make them small, in the first place. Six is an excellent number—four besides the man and woman of the house—and it is rarely safe for the beginner to have more than eight all told, unless she is prepared to hire extra service. Fully as much attention should be bestowed upon the selection of the guests as upon the items of the bill of fare. Friends may be unexceptionable taken alone or in their own environment who do not mix with those from another circle, and in these conditions even the most delightful develop unexpected powers of boring and being bored. To get the right persons together at a dinner and to seat them in the proper combinations requires a good deal of social skill, and for this reason it is better for the tyro in entertaining to start with small parties and only work up to the larger affairs as she becomes more accustomed to exercising general hospitality.
Experiments in food should never be tried on company. Only those articles should be served which the maid has proved her ability to prepare perfectly and to serve correctly. When innovations are to be presented it should be in the privacy of the family circle. A dinner that is confined to a few courses should be remarkable rather for their excellence than for their unusual character or for their costliness. I have known housekeepers who won themselves a reputation for their dinners when the items of these were of the simplest character, but were beautifully cooked and served with a touch of unusualness which redeemed them from the commonplace.
Again let me warn the hostess against attempting too much on such occasions. In any establishment not supplied with a corps of trained servants a great deal of the work of even the quietest dinner falls upon the hostess. To her it comes to see that the table is set, the many small and fussy details looked after; generally she must give the final touches of seasoning or blending to soup, sauces, and salad-dressing. It is no wonder if sometimes she comes to the table too tired either to enjoy the food or to lead the talk of the board and play the part so important for a hostess who desires to have her guests enjoy their evening.
Such fatigue is not necessary if the rules I have laid down are followed. If, for example, the cook can make an unapproachable tomato or oyster bisque; if she can roast a leg of lamb so that it will melt in the mouth, prepare candied sweet-potatoes to tempt an epicure, and spinach with the knack of a French chef; if there is some special sweet dish for which she has made herself famous, whether this be a prune soufflé with whipped cream, or a frozen mousse or ice—then let the hostess confine herself to these items for her company dinners until her maid has acquired further accomplishments. What difference does it make if precisely the same dinner was served to a knot of friends last week? The guests are different this time, even if the dishes are unchanged, and these are good enough to stand repetition though they appear half a dozen times in succession!
In a neighborhood where dinner is usually served in the middle of the day and the period for social festivity is in the evening, supper may take the place of dinner and be no less attractive. When this is the case, I would advise the hostess to adopt some specialty and stick to it, with only a few variations.
For instance, I know one housekeeper who was transplanted from the South to another section of the country, and who there became famous for the meals she served from her mother’s cook-book. Fried chicken with cream gravy, Southern sweet-potatoes, beaten biscuit, Sally Lunn, waffles, fried oysters, batter-bread, syllabubs, were among the dainties she offered her appreciative guests. Not that she had all these at one time, but she rang the changes on them, to the delectation of the company.
Another woman I know who was born and raised in New England made a success much farther south than this by feasting her friends on such delicacies as genuine baked beans, cooked in a bean-pot (she made the fireless cooker take the place of the ancient brick oven), Boston brown bread—she called it “rye ’n’ Injun”—fried pork with cream gravy, even creamed codfish and boiled potatoes, made to taste as no one had ever before dreamed such things could taste. Of course doughnuts and coffee were included in her menus, and pumpkin-pies and other dishes of that sort. It was amusing and, in a way, pathetic to see the joy of the exiles from New England before whom were placed the viands they had been used to in the long-ago.
The simplicity of the provision should not be made an excuse for departing from the orthodox methods of service. A supper such as I have described can be served with as much daintiness as a formal dinner, and the courses should follow one another in as orderly a style.
As strict in the lines of its etiquette as a dinner is the lunch, where usually women are the only guests. Such a meal as this may also be limited in its items. It may begin with bouillon or soup in cups and, without pausing for an entrée, may go directly on to a solid course, such as chicken in some form, chops, cutlets, and the like, with a vegetable or two; this be followed by a salad with crackers and cheese, and the meal wind up with a sweet of light character, and coffee. When one has a well-enough trained maid to introduce such an entrée as oyster pâtés, crab meat au gratin, eggs à la Bénédictine, or something of the kind, and can reconcile the extra cost to her economical conscience, the guests will probably enjoy the additional provision, but no hostess can feel she is guilty of social stinginess if she omits these features and follows the simpler lines.
The same caution may be given here as with the dinner—to introduce no novelties for the first time. Use the family as an experiment station before presenting the new dishes or the untried fashion of serving them to outsiders.
Like the luncheon is the breakfast-party, with this difference—that men are frequently invited to the latter, while they are seldom at the formal luncheon. For such a breakfast, to be served at twelve-thirty or one, the first item may be fruit; the soup may be omitted and the meat course, consisting of some such dish as broiled or fried chicken, chops or steak or fish, should be accompanied by a good hot bread as well as by potatoes daintily cooked; and coffee in large cups may be served the same time. A sweet to wind up a meal like this is rather out of place unless it takes the form of waffles or griddle-cakes of a delicate variety with maple syrup or honey. Sometimes the breakfast concludes as it began, with fruit, although of a different kind from that with which the meal opened. When oranges or grapefruit prelude the repast, grapes, etc., may end it.
All these affairs I have mentioned are for a small number. The afternoon tea is the best method of entertaining guests on a larger scale, and with a minimum of expense.
I do not need to go here into the details of sending out cards for such an affair. Whether the tea be a single one, given for the amiable purpose of wiping out social obligations, or as a means of introducing a visitor to the local friends of the hostess; or a series of three or four afternoons, the method followed is the same and the guest who comes expects nothing beyond a light refreshment. At the more elaborate affairs of this sort coffee or chocolate may be served as well as tea, or a bowl of punch offered. The edible provisions are always practically the same and cover a range of sandwiches of different kinds—piquant, solid, and sweet—varied by toast buttered plain or sprinkled with cinnamon, hot scones, small buttered biscuit and similar cates, followed by cakes of various kinds, plain or fancy, and in some cases bonbons and salted nuts. The last are not really necessary.
At such a tea as this, if it comprise more than a few intimates, the maid is usually in attendance to open the door, direct the guests to the drawing-room, bring hot tea or hot water when needed, remove soiled cups and perhaps pass the food. In the latter service the hostess may have the aid of her friends, who usually appreciate the honor of being asked to “pour” or to help act as hostesses in introducing new-comers, looking after the comfort of strangers and making sure that no one is neglected in the distribution of refreshments.
Thus far reference has been made to hospitality exercised in the home where a maid is kept. Far more numerous are those establishments in which no regular service is employed. Even in these one’s friends may be entertained as delightfully, if not as formally, as in the houses supplied with hired domestics.
The regulation dinner is practically out of the question, and it is wiser not to attempt it. But merry informal suppers, luncheons, and breakfasts can be compassed and often these are greater successes than those parties given under the supervision of a staff of trained servants. The main point to be guarded against is the attempt at anything which cannot be put through well. As soon as struggle is made to do the impossible the effort becomes not only a burden to the host and hostess, but a sort of nightmare to the guests. Better have a roast-oyster party in the kitchen, where selected members of the company do the cooking over the gas-stove, while others take upon themselves the responsibility of serving the eaters, and the whole affair is a jolly picnic, than to endeavor to manage a stately function with insufficient aid and appurtenances.
The same sort of informality may mark the afternoon-tea party in the home where no maid is kept. All the making ready can be done in advance, the sandwiches cut and piled, the cakes arranged, the china and tea equipage set out, so that nothing is needed but to start the kettle to boiling and make the tea when it is needed. A friend will preside at the tea-table, other friends will look after other details and leave the hostess free to welcome and entertain her guests. Such a party as this is one of the pleasantest, least costly, and generally satisfactory ways of gathering one’s friends about one for a social hour or two.
The hostess of small means and no maid should concentrate upon some such line of entertaining as this and stick to it. She should aspire to become known for her merry afternoon teas, her pleasant Sunday-night suppers, her gay and informal after-theater spreads, where the chafing-dish is the principal feature and where her guests are so well amused that they think far less of the simple food put before them than they do of the good-fellowship they have enjoyed. Formal entertaining may have to be foregone, but the substitutes she offers are more genuinely satisfactory both to the guests who share them and to the host and hostess who have to pay for them!