especially affects the nervous system. It is a brain and nerve
stimulant; in very large doses, it produces tremors. It increases
the action of the skin, and it appears to have a special power
in augmenting the urinary water. It increases both the force and
frequency of the pulse. Unlike tea, it tends to increase the
action of the bowels. Coffee has been proved to be an important
article in a soldier’s dietary, as a stimulant and restorative.
Like tea, it acts as a nerve-excitant, without producing subsequent
depression. It is serviceable against excessive variations of cold
and heat, and its efficacy in these respects has been established in
Antarctic expeditions, as well as in India and other hot climates.
Dr. Parkes pointed out that coffee has a special recommendation in
its protective influence against malaria. While admitting that the
evidence on this point was not strong, he held it to be sufficient
to authorise the large use of coffee in malarious districts. Coffee
should be used as an infusion. If coffee be boiled, its delicate
aroma is dissipated. (_Brit. Med. Jour._) Coffee has a slight value
as a nutriment, and a very high value as a stimulant; when mixed with
boiling milk in the form of _café-au-lait_ it forms the ideal of
breakfast foods for body workers and brain workers, and a very small
quantity of black coffee taken after a full meal serves to stimulate
the stomach to the necessary digestive effort, and to ward off that
sleepiness which is often the attendant of satiety. Supposing all
the dissolved matter to be available for the needs of the body, the
dietetic value of a cup of coffee is more than twice that of a cup
of tea, and if we assume that the stimulating power is due to the
contained alkaloid, then _quâ stimulant_ the cup of coffee has more
than three times the value of the cup of tea. (Poore.)
Cocoa.--The theobromin of cocoa is, chemically, identical with the
thein of tea, and the caffein of coffee. While tea and coffee are
comparatively valueless as true foods, cocoa, by reason of the large
quantity of fatty and albuminoid substances it contains, is very
nourishing, and is of high dietetic value as a tissue-forming food.
Compared with tea and coffee, it is a food rather than a stimulant,
being akin to milk in its composition and place in the diet-scale. It
is useful to sustain the weakly, and to support the strong in great
exertion, as a readily assimilable and general form of nourishment.
(_Brit. Med. Jour._)
Malt Liquors.--The distinguishing characteristic of malt liquors
as articles of diet is their feeding-power, and they owe this to
the presence in the malt of diastase, by which the insoluble and
innutritious starch--the largest fat and heat-producing element
in our food--is converted into the soluble and easily assimilable
glucose sugar. The use of these beverages, then, in moderation--say
2 glasses a day, one at dinner and the other at supper--seems to be
indicated, and would probably prove advantageous, in convalescence
from wasting disease, extreme thinness, feeble digestion, or
where there is difficulty in maintaining the animal heat. The
following table, showing the composition and relative strength of
representative malt liquors, may not be uninteresting to the reader:--
-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+-------
| Malt | Alcohol. | Carbonic | Water.
| Extract. | | Acid. |
-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+-------
Burton ale | 14·5 | 5·9 | 0 | 79·6
Edinburgh ale | 10·9 | 8·5 | 0·15 | 80·45
Porter (Barclay and Perkins) | 6·0 | 5·4 | 0·16 | 88·44
Bavarian beer | 5·8 | 3·8 | 0·14 | 90·26
-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+-------
Malt extract has lately been brought into the market, and may be
used where alcohol is for any reason considered undesirable. (Philip
Foster, ‘Alcohol.’)
_Smoking._--Though hardly a branch of dietetics, the habit of smoking
is now so general (and to some people as necessary as their meals
through long habit) as to deserve a few words of notice. Concerning
its merits or demerits doctors are far from being agreed. One
fact, however, is certain. Ptyalin, the active principle of the
saliva or juice of the mouth, is identical in chemical composition
with diastase, and has been supplied to us by nature for the
purpose of effecting the necessary change of starch into sugar.
Now the expectoration which so often accompanies smoking, and is
unduly increased by it, means the loss of large quantities of this
invaluable fluid.
As to the actual effects of tobacco smoke, Dr. Zulinski has recently
published in a Warsaw medical journal the results of a long series
of experiments made by him both upon human beings and animals with a
view of verifying the physiological effects. He found in the first
place that it is a distinct poison even in small doses. Upon men
its action is very slight when not inhaled in large quantities,
but it would soon become powerful if the smoker got into the habit
of “swallowing the smoke,” and Dr. Zulinski ascertained that this
toxical property is not due exclusively to the nicotine, but that
tobacco smoke, even when disengaged of the nicotine, contains a
second toxical principle called colidine, and also carbon oxide and
hydrocyanic acid. The effects produced by tobacco depend, he says,
to a great extent upon the nature of the tobacco and the way in
which it is smoked. The cigar-smoker absorbs more poison than the
cigarette-smoker, and the latter in turn than those who smoke pipes,
while the smoker who takes the precaution of using a narghilie, or
any other apparatus which conducts the smoke through water, reduces
the deleterious effects of tobacco to a minimum. As a rule, the
light-coloured tobaccos are supposed to be the mildest, but Dr.
Zulinski says that a great many of the tobaccos are artificially
lightened by the aid of chemical agents which are not always free
from danger. He adds that several light tobaccos are also open to the
objection of emitting a burning smoke, owing to the large proportion
of wooden fibres which they contain, notably the French “caporal”
and the English “bird’s-eye,” and that the smoke from these tobaccos
is of such a high temperature as often to cause slight inflammation
of the tongue, which with people of mature age is not unlikely to
lead to cancer. The dark tobaccos are often adulterated, too, but
Dr. Zulinski thinks that upon the whole they are the less dangerous.
If tobacconists would only introduce a very cheap stem for pipes,
smokers could afford to use a new stem every time they lit up, and by
this means most of the evils of smoking pipes would disappear.
On cigarette smoking Sir Henry Thompson lately communicated the
following remarks to the _Lancet_. (_a_) The cigarette, without a
mouthpiece, is really never smoked more than half-way through in the
East, where cigarettes are very cheap. It is well understood there,
as it is by all practised cigarette smokers, that every inhalation
from a cigarette slightly deteriorates in quality from the first. A
small deposit of the very offensive oil of tobacco is deposited in
the finely cut leaf, which acts as a strainer, and intercepts the
deposit as it passes. Very little of this arrives in the smoker’s
mouth if he stops when half is consumed. Many Oriental smokers
consume no more than a third. (_b_) If a cigarette with a card
mouthpiece is employed, the noxious matter may be intercepted by
always introducing a light plug of cotton wool into the tube. If now
the cigarette is nearly consumed, a considerable quantity of brown
and very offensive matter will be found in the cotton wool, from the
evil of which the smoker is thus preserved. The wool requires renewal
after half-a-dozen cigarettes. (_c_) The maximum pernicious influence
which occurs through cigarette smoking is attained by the practice
of inhaling the smoke largely direct into the lungs, where it comes
into immediate contact with the circulation, and the toxic effect is
strongly perceptible after three or four consecutive inhalations,
and felt by a sensitive person to the very tips of the fingers. Such
smoking ought to be exceptional. All the fragrance, with a little
only of the toxic effect, is obtained by admission of the smoke into
the mouth only, still more by passing it through the passages of the
pharynx and nose; but pulmonary inhalation, often associated with
cigarette smoking, and rarely with the pipe, constitutes the great
mischief of the cigarette.
=Laying and Waiting at Table.=--The following suggestions are
condensed from a series of articles on the subject by H. Burleigh
in the indispensable _Queen_, intended for households with 2 to 7
servants. Housewives with smaller establishments may still benefit
much by the instructions given.
No table ought to be laid, no tablecloth brought into the room,
until the hearth has been thoroughly swept up, and the mantelpiece
and sideboard well dusted. The neglect of this spoils the look of a
room. Then another most important item is the proper preparation in
the pantry. Most half-taught servants, which means 19 out of 20, will
be continually running backwards and forwards between the pantry and
the dining room bringing things piecemeal, instead of first preparing
every article and bringing up everything, and then shutting the door
on themselves, and quietly laying the table, without the confusing
scramble that the former want of method produces. Servants cannot
know these things unless a mistress has it in her to teach and train
them. It behoves good women to learn each one for herself how to do
everything in her house, so that she may teach those who enter her
service.
For each meal--breakfast, luncheon, and dinner--there are different
rules for laying the table and sideboard. We may call breakfast and
luncheons movable feasts, for each day the laying of the table for
these meals varies according to the food to be sent up, as at these
meals everything is put on at once; whereas for dinner there is one
invariable rule, whether there be many or few courses.
_Breakfast._--Before you begin to lay your cloth, look to the fire,
that it is not in a half-lighted and half-dying condition. If there
is one time more than another in which we value a good clear fire, it
is in the early morning, when the members of a family come down cold
and hungry; but how miserable to descend to a hearth scattered over
with half-burned wood and paper, and a cold fire with a hollow in the
middle. A good stir, a little more coal, a good sweeping up of bars
and hearth ought to be done before the cloth is laid.
The sideboard for breakfast in a small household of 2 or 3 servants
ought to have a sideboard cloth, with a joint or a ham on it, with
a pile of plates on it according to the number of the family; 2
knife rests, a carving knife and fork, and small knives and forks
arranged in stiff rows on each side of the pile of plates, which at
breakfast ought to be in the middle of the sideboard, in front of the
joint. On the right side should stand the bread board, with white and
brown bread, and a bread knife; and on the left side a silver tray,
for handing letters when they arrive, and also if the bell has to
be rung for anything needed or forgotten, the tray is there ready.
In larger households there ought to be a side table, with different
cold comestibles, of course a much larger variety than in a smaller
establishment; but the same rule holds good, that a sideboard and a
side table ought to be straightly and stiffly laid for breakfast.
For the table it is quite absurd to put tablespoons at the corners
with saltcellars. Put any tablespoons that are needed at the right
side of the dish whose contents require one, or in front of the dish.
For each person lay 2 small silver forks, 1 small steel knife, and 1
silver knife. It is a very slovenly way to put only 1 steel knife to
each person, for after eating bacon or any meat with the steel knife,
it is very nasty to use the same knife for marmalade or butter. Small
second-hand silver knives are not expensive to buy for breakfast or
for meat teas; keep them for that purpose, and for children’s fruit
at lunch, and it saves the nicer dessert knives and forks being used.
In laying your cloth take the greatest care that your tablecloth is
exactly in the centre, if not your whole table is thrown out. The
laundress ought to be taught to fold the cloths with 2 outside seams
and 1 inside fold, not in half and in half again. The former way
makes them set so much better. Measure with your apron the distance
of the side folds from the edge of the table. The distances ought to
be exact.
Be careful before arranging your table for every and any meal to
think what will be the general effect on entering the room. Think
of what it will look like from the door, which is almost without
exception farthest from the head of the table, and therefore so
arrange the articles of china and silver that the tallest are nearest
to the hand, and thus the effect of each thing is seen as it slopes
down to the bottom of the table.
One thing has always to be taught to a new servant, and that is to
put knives, forks, and spoons an inch on the table, I. e. to leave
1 in. between the edge of the table and the handles. It is wretched
to see the handles over the edge, and the least touch in passing
swings them round, to say nothing of the untidy effect. Do not leave
a straggling space between the knives and forks for each person, only
sufficient for the width of a plate, and let the prongs and handles
be exactly and precisely together top and bottom. Care in these
details makes such a very great difference in the whole look of a
table. If there are flowers in the centre there will not be room for
large casters. It is quite the proper thing to have casters on the
table for breakfast and lunch, as at these meals every one waits on
himself, except in a few uncomfortably grand houses, and, therefore,
though it is a vulgarity to put the casters on a dinner table, it is
quite right to put them on a breakfast or luncheon table.
After you have arranged your table so far, see that marmalade or
honey, or both, rolled butter, sardines, and all cold things, are
arranged on the table before you bring up the urn, or coffee or
tea, or any hot things. Also have all your sideboard and side table
arranged before any hot things come up. Then remember that it is very
bad style to bring them in in a straggling and single way. After
the urn or kettle and the coffee and tea have been placed on the
table, wait until the cook has placed everything on your tray--eggs,
muffins, or rolls or buttered toast, bacon, fish, hot milk, &c.--and
bring it all up at once, and place them one after the other quickly
on the table. In arranging your table take this simple rule--let
nothing touch another, be able to pass your finger at least round
each article, and place the coffee-pot, teapot, milkjugs, sugar
basins, and slop basin so that each is seen, and has its clear and
distinct place. Let marmalade and butter correspond, and saltcellars
occupy a rather central position at a breakfast table. If small
casters are used, containing salt, pepper, and mustard, they can, of
course, be placed at corners.
Have perfectly clean and freshly made mustard for each meal. Nothing
is worse than to open the lid of a mustard-pot, and see the inside
and the spoon clogged with old dry mustard. Cast your salt in an old
wineglass, and turn it out in a shape. Place a toast-rack always on a
large plate, or else the crumbs make the cloth untidy.
Put a table napkin to each person, and see that your moist-sugar
spoon is not clogged with sugar, but thoroughly clean. If you place
a knife and fork in front of a breakfast dish, or a spoon and fork,
place them so that they meet top and bottom--i.e. let the bowl of the
spoon meet the end of the handle of the fork, and the prongs of the
fork meet the handle of the spoon; the same with a knife and fork. Do
not put a spoon on the preserve glass, but at the side; the same with
a butter knife.
To each person at the breakfast table there ought to be, in addition
to the usual plate, an extra one, very small, for eggs. In buying a
breakfast service, it is better to get more plates and dishes than
are usually sold with a set, otherwise the cook is fond of sending
up dinner plates and dishes, which make an ugly conglomeration. When
it is time to remove the breakfast things, whether it is done by the
cook, parlour-maid, or man-servant, it is a most painful ordeal to a
methodical mistress unless she teaches them how to do it. A tin tray,
not too clean underneath, popped down on the white damask cloth, and
everything put upon it promiscuously, plates upon plates with forks
and knives left in them, others ditto on the top of that, silver
mixed up with knives, delicate glass butter-dishes smashed in among
bacon dishes, &c.
Now for the proper method--a much easier one in the end, both as
regards the comfort of any one sitting in the room, and of the
servant when she deposits the things in the pantry. First take away
the silver; take the slop basin in your left hand, and go round
the table and put into it each dirty teaspoon, fork, eggspoon, and
tablespoon, and put the slop basin on the tray, which should be on
a table outside the door. On the same tray put every other silver
article except the urn, and carry down this tray and leave it, and
bring up another. Then remove the urn; then on the tray take down
bread, meat, and dirty dishes, and take the large plate that the
toast rack has stood on, and place on it every dirty knife, placing
the handles in the plate, which makes less rattling. Then collect
plates neatly in piles, and all the saucers in piles, the cups two
together, and you will see how much less room they occupy. When the
last tray has been removed, bring up your dust shovel and brush, your
hearth brush, crumb brush, or towel and a duster. Brush the cloth
free from crumbs, and fold it up on the table; also the sideboard
cloth, in their exact folds. Leave them on the table and brush up the
hearth, brush up the crumbs under the table, and dust the top of the
sideboard and mantelpiece, arrange the chairs, and, if allowed, open
the window to get rid of the odours of breakfast, and you thus leave
the room neat and ready for morning occupation.
A servant can be trained to do all this in ¼ hour from the time she
enters the room until the dusting is finished. When she goes into the
pantry to wash up, instead of finding everything mixed up, and thus
leading to a general washing up of greasy plates and silver spoons
in one greasy water, she ought first to wipe the knives, and put
them away ready for cleaning, and thus secure them from lying about
getting splashed over and rusted. Then all the china should be washed
up, first in warm water and soap--no soda, as soda eats away the
glaze and the pattern--and then rinsed in cold water, and put away in
their places. The eatables ought never to be taken into the pantry
at all, but placed at once in the larder--the bread in the breadpan,
and the meat on larder dishes, not dining-room dishes left in the
larder. The silver ought to be washed up in a quite separate tub,
and if servants would only wash up silver in a proper manner, very
little plate cleaning would be required. It makes one shudder to see
and hear heaps of silver being tumbled higgledy-piggledy into a tub,
and when it has been roughly banged about and gloriously scratched,
it is equally roughly tumbled out again and left to drain, the very
thing that ought not to be done. In washing up silver, take each
article singly, wash it well in hot water and plenty of soap; when
it is washed leave it in the water, and go on in this way until all
is washed. A very good mixture for washing silver in is a lump of
soft soap and a lump of whiting put into hot water, and beaten up to
a lather with an egg whisk. The great secret in making silver look
well is the way in which you dry it. Take each thing out separately,
leaving the others in the water; dry it as dry as a bone; dry it as
if your glass cloth or plate cloth were a polishing leather, and do
not put it down as finished until it is quite hot with friction. This
simple rule is sufficient to make silver always ready for table.
You require two cloths, one for the first wet, the other to finish
with; but remember to finish off each thing thoroughly at once. If
you leave silver to drain, or half finished, there is always a film
and a stickiness about it. Before the servant commences any washing
up, she ought to put the tablecloth and sideboard cloth in the screw
press. If you leave any crumbs in a cloth, they stain it, and 2 or
3 washings will sometimes not remove the stain. In addition to your
screw press, have 2 deal boards with spliced ends, and beautifully
smooth, and a shade smaller than your press. Lay your cloths between
these boards, and it keeps them clean. Take the boards out each time,
and after breakfast put the breakfast cloth at the bottom, and the
luncheon cloth at the top. Once a week have these boards scrubbed,
and your cloths will always be clean.
A great addition to a breakfast table is stewed fruit; it not only
looks pretty, and gives an air of refinement to the table, but it is
really necessary for health. As the old Spanish proverb says: “Fruit
is medicine in the morning, food at noon, and poison at night”; and
another version says: “It is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and
lead at night.” We do not eat half enough fruit in England, and fruit
is much dearer than it ought to be. With proper management a lady
can lay in every Saturday a week’s store of fruit--not, of course,
the small summer fruits, which must be bought daily. But apples and
pears for stewing will keep both before and after cooking, and there
are prunes, oranges, melons, all of which are most excellent and
wholesome if eaten early in the morning.
_Luncheon._--The luncheon table is never 2 days alike, and it is a
meal that perhaps is the prettiest of the 3, and certainly calls for
taste and management. The proper way to lay the different places for
people and the way to arrange the silver and knives on the sideboard
is always the same, but the disposition of dishes is almost each
day different. For the sideboard, let it be stiffly laid, but of
a different stiffness from a sideboard for breakfast. Instead of
arranging small knives and forks tightly on each side of the plates
as for breakfast, they must be spread out, but straight and stiff.
Place in even rows a few tablespoons, dessert spoons and forks, also
small knives. Knives ought never to appear on the sideboard for a
late dinner, but for breakfast and lunch, because the family wait on
themselves at these meals.
Some large and some small plates ought to be put in piles, the former
separate from the latter. Sufficient small plates ought to be put
for the different sweets and for cheese. The fashion that has of
late prevailed of having only large plates, is better omitted than
observed, like many other fashions; taste and suitability ought to
be the guides and the reasons for fashions. Unfortunately, the only
reasons for adopting many fashions is merely because some one with a
title has done it.
On the sideboard at luncheon there ought to be the bread trencher,
but it is quite wrong to put it for dinner. On the sideboard ought
also to be any cold meat, for which there may not be room on the
table. A butler’s tray and stand are not necessary or suitable for
breakfast or luncheon, especially where there is a dinner waggon and
side table.
The first thing in laying your lunch table, is to make it as pretty
as you can; and sifted sugar in a coloured basket, wine, fruit,
sweets, and rather fanciful glass, all being put on from the
beginning, make a lunch table a very pretty sight. With regard to
the laying of the table; for lunch put for each person a large and
small knife, and 2 large and 1 small forks, and a dessertspoon. You
may either place the dessertspoon between the large knife and the
small knife, and the small fork between the two large ones, taking
care that the end of each handle is even, and an inch off the edge of
the table, or you may put the dessert spoon and fork in front of each
plate, making the handle of the spoon even with the prongs of the
forks. It is quite wrong to put a dessert spoon and fork on the table
for a late dinner, because at dinner we are properly waited on; and
therefore where it would be bad style to place them for dinner, it is
equally out of taste and common sense not to place them for luncheon.
It is quite correct to place casters on the table for lunch, either
in the middle, or, if small ones, at the corners, or on each side of
the centre of the table. Flowers being generally in the middle, the
table must be arranged accordingly.