CONCERNING DINNER GIVING
The formal dinner is the most dignified function in the social calendar. Even a big luncheon is less stately, and, by comparison, breakfasts, afternoon teas and evening parties are mere child’s play.
A dinner is the one meal with which liberties can not be taken. Yet there are rash souls who have attempted it and have even introduced at a dinner a course cooked in a chafing-dish. Such efforts may meet with the approval of a few youthful and frivolous souls, but they can only shock those who have a proper appreciation of the esthetics and ethics of gastronomy.
All this applies to the formal dinner, to which guests are invited long in advance and where the staid succession of courses can be compared only to the progress of the units of the solar system. One can understand the dismay of these when a comet darts across their established orbits. Such is the effect produced upon the graduate diner-out when variations are attempted in the solemn dinner of state.
But there is another sort of a dinner—The Little Dinner. It would never claim capitals on its own account, but they are bestowed willingly by those who have fallen victims to its charms. At the little dinner the bill of company is considered as well as the bill of fare, and neither is chosen without deep thought. No chances are taken when there can be but four or six or eight to sit down to the table and where the courses are few enough to demand perfection in each.
As a matter of course, this can not be managed without labor. The hostess must give close attention to every item on the menu. She must see that her table is all it should be in appearance and that there is no chance for any hitch in the proceedings. For while not so tremendous an affair as the many-coursed dinner, the little dinner still has a dignity all its own and with this one may not trifle.
The table should be spread with the finest and whitest of damask over the “silence cloth” that is now indispensable in every well-regulated household. More and more the fancy is growing to have the center-pieces at a dinner, of pure white, with no touch of color. That may be supplied by the flowers, the china, the candle shades. The center-piece may be of linen, rich in embroidery or heavy with lace, but all must be colorless.
The flowers that are in the center of the table may be in a rather low receptacle, so as not to interfere with the conversation or glances of the guests seated opposite one another. The candelabra, or dinner lamps, may stand at the corners of the table. Here and there may be little dishes in silver, cut glass or rare china, holding such hors d’oeuvres as salted nuts, radishes, olives and the like, and bonbons. Except for carafes of water there should be nothing else on the table besides the furniture of the individual covers.
This is substantially the same as at a luncheon. The service plate, the knives on the right, the forks on the left,—one for each course,—the soup spoon laid with the knives, the water glass and wine glasses to the right, the napkin, a piece of bread folded in it, to the left. There is no butter used at a dinner and the bread and butter plate is therefore not needed. Always space enough should be allowed between the places to prevent crowding.
Of the menus that follow two are for the little dinner. The third is for a rather more elaborate function, and the fourth may serve as an outline for one of the big dinners that every one has occasion to give once in a while.
DINNER MENU. I (For Very Little Dinner)
Anchovy Toast
Cream of Asparagus Soup
Roast of Lamb
Green Peas Browned New Potatoes
Lettuce Salad
Crackers Brie Cheese Olives
Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream
Coffee
DINNER MENU. II
Little Neck Clams
Consommé à la Royale
Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce
Roast Capon
Rice and Green Peppers Creamed Spinach
Shrimp Salad
Crackers Roquefort Cheese Stuffed Olives
Pistachio Ice Cream
Coffee
DINNER MENU. III
Raw Oysters
Cream of Celery Soup
Baked Shad
French Fried Potatoes Sliced Cucumbers
Broiled Sweetbreads
Fillet of Beef, Mushroom Sauce
Tomato Farcies Rice Croquettes
Asparagus Salad
Olives Radishes
Strawberry Mousse
Crackers Camembert Cheese
Coffee
DINNER MENU. IV
Caviar on Toast
Raw Oysters or Clams
Consommé
Baked Halibut
Stuffed Tomatoes Parisienne Potatoes
Mushrooms on Toast
Spring Lamb, Mint Sauce
Green Peas Sweetbread Croquettes
Sherbet
Roast Duck, with Olive Sauce
Crab Salad
Nesselrode Pudding
Fancy Cakes
Coffee
Celery Crackers Gorgonzola and Roquefort Cheese
For the little dinner as for the big the service is essentially the same. The appetizer, or the oysters with which the meal begins, should be on the table when the guests come into the room, the host leading the way with the guest of honor, the other guests following the couple, and the hostess bringing up the rear with the man to whom she wishes to show especial attention.
The service plate, which is on the table under that containing the appetizer, is left there until after the soup has been eaten. In fact the guest should never be left without a plate in front of him. As soon as one that has been used is taken away the service plate should be restored, to be in turn taken away when the next plate from which he is to eat is put before him.
The serving should all be done from the right, as has been directed in the chapter on luncheons, and the dishes passed on the left side. The soup may be served by the hostess at a little dinner, but always at the large dinner and often, too, at the smaller function the plates are filled by the servant in the pantry and placed before the guests. The entrées are passed. The roast is rarely carved on the table, even at a small dinner. The carving is done outside and the dish passed that each guest may serve himself. The day when the portion of each guest was put on his plate in the pantry and then put before him has unhappily passed. Unhappily, because it simplified matters for both the guest and the waitress.
In changing the plates, more than one plate should never be taken at a time. It is a favorite trick with lazy or unskilled waitresses to take off as much as can be carried. Sometimes they even go to the point of piling up all the various pieces that belong to one cover. This should not be permitted. Let there be an assumption of abundant service, even when this is lacking.
The salad may be dressed on the table if preferred, and this is often done at the little dinner. In that case the small basin in which the dressing is to be mixed is put before the hostess, together with the flasks of oil and vinegar, the salt and pepper and the fork with which the stirring is to be done. If chives or garlic is to be used, it should be in the bowl when this is brought in. The dressing may either be passed to each guest, or, better still, poured upon the salad in the dish, and this then passed.
When it comes to the ices the method of procedure is changed a little. The individual ices may be placed on the plates from which they are to be eaten and these then put in front of the guests.
The coffee may be served either at the table or in the drawing-room. The latter is always done, when the men are to be left behind to smoke. Under these circumstances there is usually cognac provided for them, while a liqueur of a milder type is offered to the women in the drawing-room. When all go out together they may either have the cordial—maraschino, chartreuse, benedictine, or whatever it may be, before leaving the table or in the drawing-room.
The service of wines is, in a way, a question by itself. It is not necessary to have more than one wine at a little dinner—a good claret, or sauterne, or Rhine wine. Poor champagne is one of the most wretched of beverages, and it takes a rich man to supply a really good article. If champagne is served, however, it should be ice cold, and may be poured after the fish. With the soup, sherry may be served, and claret with the entrées. If one has a number of wines, the white should be offered with the fish.
But, as I have said, a number of wines is not necessary except for a very large or formal affair. In fact, the use of wines is entirely optional. If they are to be used at all, however, it should be in the correct fashion, white wines chilled, claret the temperature of the room. The waitress should have a napkin pinned around the neck of the bottle and should stand on the right when she fills the glasses. She should watch these to see that they are not allowed to become empty.
One caution to the hostess, a caution which may perhaps be unnecessary. Never attempt a dinner unless you are sure of your waitress. An inexperienced maid or man has it in her power to ruin the best cooked dinner. No dinner, no matter what its perfections in other respects, can be satisfactory to the guests when the hostess is uneasy or annoyed about the conduct of the courses, the serving of the food.
Temperatures at which wines should be served
Claret should be served warm—not warmer than eighty nor colder than sixty-five degrees.
Bordeaux and burgundy should be served at a temperature of about seventy degrees.
Chablis and other white wines should be served at forty-five degrees.
Port at fifty-five degrees.
Sauterne and other white claret, fifty degrees.
Sherry is best at forty degrees.
Madeira should be at sixty-five degrees.
Champagne should have a temperature of thirty-four. To cool this it should be laid on the ice—the dry, for a half or three-quarters of an hour; the sweet, several hours before using. Great care should be taken when putting the bottles on the ice not to shake them.
SOME STUDIES OF COLOR IN FAMILY DINNERS
A green and white dinner
In the springtime you will have no difficulty in finding pale green leaves or delicate ferns with which to grace your table. Blossoms, such as the snow-drop, or the white wood-anemone, may be surrounded by fragile ferns and serve as a dainty floral piece for the middle of the table. Pear blossoms, with their bright green leaves, will form an attractive mass of flowers and foliage. If you have a center-piece and doilies embroidered with green silk, make use of them for this family dinner. If you do not possess such, your plain damask will be entirely in keeping. Your menu may be as follows:
Cream of Spinach Soup
Lamb Chops
Mashed Potatoes, Green Peas
Lettuce Salad
Cocoanut and Citron Layer Cake
Crackers and Sage Cheese
Coffee
A pink dinner
(For Friday.)
The month of June is the time of all the year for a pink dinner, for then the table may be decked with a profusion of pink roses that will delight the heart of the flower-lover. Set a huge bowl of these upon a white, or pink-and-white center-piece, dropping a bud or half-blown rose here and there upon the table-cloth. Have your lights softened by pink shades, and use as much white, or pink-and-white china as you have at your command.
Have the following menu:
Cream of Beet Soup
Boiled Salmon
Potatoes Fried Whole, Tomato Soufflé
Beet and Celery Salad
Strawberry Sponge
Pink-and-White Cake
Crackers and Cheese
Coffee
A brown dinner
Need not be a somber array if you will give it in autumn, and study the countless shades of golden-brown, olive-brown, redbrown, greenish-brown, and even the purple-brown of the oak—exquisite and indescribable—which field, forest and fen offer to one who has the true artist’s love for color. Decorate your table and the room with autumn leaves, keeping the color scheme in mind all the time. Have brown nuts, and chocolate, and coffee bonbons, and if there be no brown china upon your shelves, see to it that there are no discordant hues.
MENU
Bean Soup
Braised Beef
Boiled Potatoes—browned
Baked Onions Scalloped Tomatoes
Salad of “Mignonette” Lettuce
Chocolate Pudding
Coffee Graham Crackers Camembert Cheese
A yellow dinner
Cream of Cheese Soup
Boiled Fowls with Egg Sauce
Stewed Carrots Yellow Turnips
Buttered Rice
Macedoine Salad
French Tapioca Custard
American Cheese Egg Crackers
Café au Lait
Goldenrod, if in the autumn; daffodils in the early spring; coreopsis in summer, for decorations.