CHAPTER XXXVIII
SUITABLE COMBINATIONS FOR SERVING
Breakfast Menus
Table laid for Breakfast.—Page 592.
Luncheon table laid for Fish Course, Soup Course presumably having been removed.—Page 594.
Luncheon Menus
Table laid for Formal Luncheon.—Page 596.
Centrepiece for Luncheon or Dinner Table.—Page 598.
Centrepiece for Thanksgiving Dinner Table.—Page 598.
Dinner Menus
Menu for Thanksgiving Dinner
Menu for Christmas Dinner
A Full Course Dinner
First Course
Little Neck Clams or Bluepoints, with brown-bread sandwiches. Sometimes canapés are used in place of either. For a gentleman’s dinner, canapés accompanied with Sherry wine are frequently served before guests enter the dining-room.
Second Course
Clear soup, with bread sticks, small rolls, or crisp crackers. Where two soups are served, one may be a cream soup. Cream soups are served with croûtons. Radishes, celery, or olives are passed after the soup. Salted almonds may be passed between any of the courses.
Christmas Dinner Table.—Page 600.
Table laid for Reception.—Page 602.
Third Course
Bouchées or rissoles. The filling to be of light meat.
Fourth Course
Fish, baked, boiled, or fried. Cole-slaw, dressed cucumbers, or tomatoes accompany this course; with fried fish potatoes are often served.
Fifth Course
Roast saddle of venison or mutton, spring lamb, or fillet of beef; potatoes and one other vegetable.
Sixth Course
Entrée, made of light meat or fish.
Seventh Course
A vegetable. Mushrooms, cauliflower, asparagus, or artichokes are served.
Eighth Course
Punch or cheese course. Punch, when served, always precedes the game course.
Ninth Course
Game, with vegetable salad, usually lettuce or celery; or cheese sticks may be served with the salad, and game omitted.
Tenth Course
Dessert, usually cold.
Eleventh Course
Frozen dessert and fancy cakes. Bonbons are passed after this course.
Twelfth Course
Cracker, cheese, and café noir. Café noir is frequently served in the drawing and smoking rooms after the dinner.
Where wines and liquors are served, the first course is not usually accompanied by either; but if desired, Sauterne or other white wine may be used.
With soup, serve Sherry; with fish, white wine; with game, Claret; with roast and other courses, Champagne.
After serving café noir in drawing-room, pass pony of brandy for men, sweet liqueur (Chartreuse, Benedictine, or Parfait d’Amour) for women; then Crême de Menthe for all.
After a short time Apollinaris should be passed. White wines should be served cool; Sherry should be as near the temperature of the room in which it is served as possible. Champagne should be served very cold by allowing it to remain in salt and ice at least one-half hour before dinner time. Claret, served without cooling, and as it contains so small amount of alcohol, is not good the day after opening.
For a simpler dinner, the third, seventh, eighth, and tenth courses, and the game in the ninth course, may be omitted.
For a home dinner, it is always desirable to serve for first course a soup; second course, meat or fish, with potatoes and two other vegetables; third course, a vegetable salad, with French dressing; fourth course, dessert; fifth course, crackers, cheese, and café noir.
At a ladies’ luncheon the courses are as many as at a small dinner. In winter, grape fruit is sometimes served in place of oysters; in summer, selected strawberries in small Swedish Timbale cases.