With moderns the dessert is not so profuse, nor does it hold the
same relationship to the dinner that it held with the ancients,—the
Romans more especially. On ivory tables they would spread hundreds
of different kinds of raw, cooked, and preserved fruits, tarts, and
cakes, as substitutes for the more substantial comestibles with which
the guests were satiated. However, as late as the reigns of our two
last Georges, fabulous sums were often expended upon fanciful desserts.
The dessert certainly repays, in its general effect, the expenditure
upon it of much pains; and it may be said, that if there be any
poetry at all in meals, or the process of feeding, there is poetry in
the dessert, the materials for which should be selected with taste,
and, of course, must depend, in a great measure, upon the season.
Pines, melons, grapes, peaches, nectarines, plums, strawberries,
apples, pears, oranges, almonds, raisins, figs, walnuts, filberts,
medlars, cherries, &c. &c., all kinds of dried fruits, and choice
and delicately-flavoured cakes and biscuits, make up the dessert,
together with the most costly and _recherché_ wines. The shape of the
dishes varies at different periods, the prevailing fashion at present
being oval and circular dishes on stems. The patterns and colours are
also subject to changes of fashion; some persons selecting china,
chaste in pattern and colour; others, elegantly-shaped glass dishes
on stems, with gilt edges. The beauty of the dessert services at the
tables of the wealthy tends to enhance the splendour of the plate. The
general mode of putting a dessert on table, now the elegant tazzas are
fashionable, is, to place them down the middle of the table, a tall
and short dish alternately; the fresh fruits being arranged on the
tall dishes, and dried fruits, bon-bons, &c., on small round or oval
glass plates. The garnishing needs especial attention, as the contrast
of the brilliant-coloured fruits with nicely-arranged foliage is very
charming. The garnish _par excellence_ for dessert is the ice-plant;
its crystallized dewdrops producing a marvellous effect in the height
of summer, giving a most inviting sense of coolness to the fruit it
encircles. The double-edged mallow, strawberry, and vine leaves have
a pleasing effect; and for winter desserts, the bay, cuba, and laurel
are sometimes used. In town, the expense and difficulty of obtaining
natural foliage is great, but paper and composite leaves are to be
purchased at an almost nominal price. Mixed fruits of the larger sort
are now frequently served on one dish. This mode admits of the display
of much taste in the arrangement of the fruit: for instance, a pine in
the centre of the dish, surrounded with large plums of various sorts
and colours, mixed with pears, rosy-cheeked apples, all arranged with a
due regard to colour, have a very good effect. Again, apples and pears
look well mingled with plums and grapes, hanging from the border of the
dish in a négligé sort of manner, with a large bunch of the same fruit
lying on the top of the apples. A dessert would not now be considered
complete without candied and preserved fruits and confections. The
candied fruits may be purchased at a less cost than they can be
manufactured at home. They are preserved abroad in most ornamental and
elegant forms. And since, from the facilities of travel, we have become
so familiar with the tables of the French, chocolate in different forms
is indispensable to our desserts. Olives, too, should not be omitted;
these should be served in a small, deep glass dish, with a little of
the liquor, or brine, poured over.