YORK HARBOR, _August 28_.
_Dear Penelope_:
After I sent off my letter to you, I turned over your last page and
found a scrawl that I didn’t notice at first,—a polite little request
for the details of serving one’s every day meals. Why, of course, I will
give it to you, and shall take it for granted that your maid’s mind is a
perfect blank on the subject. So much the better, for now you can put
into it just what you want her to have there.
I would begin by impressing on her how important it is to have the
tablecloth smooth with the creases running straight down the middle and
everything set evenly on the table. Show her yourself how neat it looks
when done in this way and how badly when the things are crooked. If she
hasn’t a straight eye, the only way to do is to give her a foot-rule and
have her measure distances at first until her eye is trained. Don’t
attempt anything elaborate and be content to use your simple china which
can be easily replaced, so that when, in her awkwardness, she breaks it,
your heart won’t be broken too. Perhaps you can find some old
china-cabinet with glass doors in which you can keep those beautiful
plates that were among your wedding presents, and be able to have them
to look at without their being any care. If the maid hasn’t too much to
attend to, she will be able to do what she does do, well, and if you
have your meals served nicely every day, then, when you have guests, she
will not be confused by some new order of things, but will be perfectly
natural and serve them well as a matter of course. Your own meals, too,
will go more quickly and easily and be more appetizing if always served
carefully and regularly.
Let us take a perfectly simple family dinner: First course, soup; second
course, roast and (two) or (three) vegetables; third course, salad or
dessert; fourth course, coffee; and begin to train her in this way:
See that the canton flannel undercloth is perfectly smooth on the table.
Over this place the tablecloth with the crease going exactly down the
middle.
Make sure that whatever glass, silver, china, knives, etc., is to be
used on the table is bright.
Put a dinner plate for each person at even distances apart from one
another.
To the right of each plate place as many knives as you need with their
sharp edges turned toward the plate, then next to them the soup spoon
with the hollow part of the bowl of the spoon turned up.
Put the napkin at the right of the soup spoon, folded over neatly once,
as it would take up too much room square, and lay on it exactly in the
middle a piece of bread cut about three inches long by one and a half
thick and two inches wide, or else a roll.
Place a tumbler at the point of the knives.
At the left of each plate lay as many forks as are needed for the meal,
with their prongs turned upward and placed in the order in which they
are to be used, the fork for the first course being on the outside and
farthest from the plate.
Exactly in the center of the table put your plant.
Place a salt cellar and a pepper pot in each corner of an imaginary
square of which the plant is the center.
Arrange the side-table—or sideboard, if you have no side-table—with
everything extra on it that will be needed during the meal, so that you
will never have to open a drawer while you are serving it.
Put on this table, in nice order, so that it will look attractive, the
dessert plates, on each of which is a finger bowl with a doily under it;
also any cold plates such as salad plates, if they are to be used, and
any extra forks, spoons, sauce ladles, etc., that will be required.
Fill the finger bowls a third full of water and place a fork and a spoon
on the doily, one on one side, the other on the other, of the finger
bowl.
Have also on the side-table a plate of bread, the pieces all cut the
same size as those already on the dining-table.
Set a pitcher of iced water in a convenient place in pantry or
dining-room.
Arrange a tray with the after-dinner coffee-cups on it and the bowl of
lump sugar and sugar tongs in the center. Put an after-dinner coffee
spoon on each saucer. Have this in pantry.
(The only spoon that is ever put with the forks and knives by the plates
on the table is the soup spoon. Teaspoons for grapefruit, for bouillon,
tea, coffee, etc., are always put on the plate or saucer on which these
foods and drinks are served.)
When the dining- and side-tables are set and the first course ready to
come into the dining-room, fill the tumblers with iced water.
Go into the pantry and pour each soup plate half full of soup.
If it is the custom of the family to use a musical Japanese gong to
announce meals, strike it two or three light taps. If they don’t use
one, then go to the mistress wherever she is and say quietly, “Dinner is
served, Mrs. ——.”
When every one is seated, take a plate of soup in each hand and place
each plate in turn in front of each person, laying it on the dinner
plate that is already there, serving the older members of the family
first, if there are children, otherwise going right around the table,
always laying it down from the right side of each person.
When the soup course is finished and the second course is in the pantry,
bring a hot plate in your left hand and, taking up the serving plate,
with the soup plate on it, in your right, replace it with the fresh hot
one, doing this from the right side of each person; going, in this way,
all around the table till all have hot, clean plates.
Then bring in the platter of meat, placing it in front of the carver
with the carving knife, which has been sharpened before the meal, at his
right and the fork at his left side. Put the gravy boat and ladle at his
right.
Stand at the left of the carver with an extra hot plate in your hand
and, taking the plate with meat on it, put the empty, hot plate in its
place. This gives the carver time to cut another slice and have it ready
when you come back with the next empty plate.
Now go right around the table putting a plate of meat before each person
and taking up the empty plate till all have been served. Put down and
take up from the right side.
If there is jelly or any small thing to pass, put it on a small tray,
having first placed a spoon in it, and, taking the tray in one hand and
a vegetable dish in the other, pass them all around the table, stooping
a little as you first offer one, and then draw back and offer the other
on the _left_ side of each person.
(It is a good rule to remember in serving a meal that everything that
admits of a choice must be _passed_ at the _left_ and that everything
that does not admit of a choice must be _placed_ from the _right_.)
Next take the remaining vegetable in one hand and a plate of bread in
the other and pass them to the left of each person all around the table.
Watch carefully to pass food again before any one has a chance to ask
for anything and see that all have water and bread throughout the
dinner.
When every one has finished this course, remove first the meat platter,
being careful that the carvers and spoon are secure so as not to drop
off. Then remove gravy boat on a small tray. Take out vegetables, bread,
etc. Remove the used plates, one in each hand, never piling them on top
of each other.
Bring a tray and quietly remove peppers and salts and any knives and
forks remaining on the table and take them into the pantry.
Bring a plate or small tray and with a napkin remove the crumbs.
From the side-table bring a dessert plate in each hand until you have
given one to each person, always going to the _right_ of the person to
set it down.
Put the dessert in front of the mistress, the spoon to left, and sauce
boat with spoon on her right side.
Stand by her with an empty dessert plate and pass the plates as in the
other courses.
After the dessert is finished remove dessert and all the plates, and,
after having filled the cups with hot coffee in the pantry, pass them
around to the family, either at the table or in the parlor, whichever
your mistress desires. If the coffee is taken in the parlor, bring an
empty tray in later and take away the coffee-cups.
Always remember that everything belonging to one course must be removed
before serving another course.
If the last course is salad instead of dessert, then, as you take off
the used plates of the meat course, replace them with cold plates, bring
the bowl of salad on and do not remove crumbs, salts, etc., until this
course is finished. If your mistress prefers to make the salad dressing
herself, put the bowl of lettuce in front of her, and at her right hand
the oil, vinegar, and condiments she desires, and a small bowl and a
tablespoon to mix the dressing in. When she has made the dressing and
mixed it with the lettuce, quickly remove, on a tray, the oil, vinegar,
etc., and pass the salad bowl around to each person, offering with your
other hand a plate of crackers. This course being finished, remove
salad, then plates, then peppers, salts, small silver, and then crumbs
as described before. After that bring on finger-bowl plates. Then coffee
as before.
If your mistress prefers not to serve a meat course, such as chops that
need no carving, or a dessert course, such as berries that are easily
served, you can pass them around without setting them on the table.
Having now explained the method of serving the family dinner the
following few suggestions will be sufficient for breakfast and lunch:
If your mistress does not use a tablecloth for breakfast, place the
centerpiece exactly in the middle of the table and in the center of this
the plate of fruit (or the plant if there is no fruit). Have the
under-plate doily at each place and on it put a fruit plate on which is
a finger bowl one third full of water, with a fruit knife at the right
of the bowl and a spoon at the left on the plate. To the left of this
put a small plate for bread and butter or muffins. Knives and forks are
placed the same as for dinner, just as many as you need for the meal.
In front of your mistress place the breakfast tray for coffee-urn,
hot-water kettle, hot-milk pitcher, and sugar-bowl, but do not bring the
hot things in till the family is ready to have breakfast.
Arrange the side-table with any extra things that will be needed.
Keep the butter cool and bring it on at the last moment and place it on
one side of the table opposite the bread, which has been freshly cut.
Leave the rest of the loaf of bread in the pantry on a bread-board with
the bread-knife ready to cut more slices if needed.
See that the newspaper is ready for the master of the house where he
likes to have it.
Look around to see if the sideboard drawers are all tightly closed so as
to look neat and trim.
Touch the gong lightly to announce breakfast.
Bring on hot coffee, hot milk, and the hot-water kettle.
When all are seated, pass around the fruit, then stand at your
mistress’s left with a small tray and taking the coffee-cups as she
fills them, place them in turn at the right of each person.
When the fruit course is finished, remove the plates, putting fresh hot
ones in their places in the same way that you do it at dinner.
Put the main dish of the breakfast in front of your master and the
others square and opposite one another on the table.
See that every one has water in his tumbler and then go to get your own
breakfast.
Family lunch is served much as dinner is served unless your mistress
prefers to have it as informal as the breakfast.
At either lunch or breakfast, when you pass hot muffins, bread, hot
cakes, or pancakes, always pass the butter on the same tray so that no
one will have the disagreeable experience of a muffin almost cold before
the butter reaches him.
I am afraid, Penelope, that you may think these directions that I give
you for your maid are very detailed, but my experience with the
untrained servant has taught me that you can never tell what unpleasant
surprises she may give you in her way of serving your meals, if you
haven’t forestalled her by telling her every minutest detail. You can
see that I think that with a maid of all work the breakfast and lunch
should be very informal meals, and that with breakfast you should wait
on yourselves after she has placed the main course on the table.
There is a very nice English contrivance for the breakfast and lunch
table that I should think you would find convenient in the case of your
maid of all work when you want to dispense with her services as much as
possible. It is a small, low, revolving table to set in the middle of
one’s dining-table on which are placed muffins, butter, etc., and which
by the slightest touch is made to move around so that anything on it
comes in reach of all at the table. I have seen only handsome ones in
mahogany, but I am sure they must come in other kinds of wood if that is
not what your table is made of.
Another piece of furniture that I should think you would find useful is
a “dinner wagon”—a tray on wheels that can be rolled from one room to
another. After the family have left the table the maid can clear it much
more quickly by using this tray to remove the things to the pantry.
I haven’t said a word about your centerpiece, but I have a suggestion
for that too! Ferns are very pretty for the center of the dinner table,
but you will find it quite expensive to keep them always fresh, whereas
if you plant some grapefruit seeds in a pot, you will have a charming
little growing plant like a miniature orange tree with pretty glossy
leaves which will last and give a very attractive air to your table.
I also think you will find candles for the dining-table cost too much
for every day, but can be an additional touch when you have guests. I
wouldn’t advise you to try to follow every fashion on a small income. It
will take away spontaneousness and give a strained feeling about what
you do. No matter how rich you may become in the future, there will
always be some one who has still more, and is able to live more
luxuriously, so cultivate independence of spirit if you want
contentment. People who are always straining to have what they cannot
afford, in order to keep up with those about them, can never be
satisfied, and have nothing in the end but disappointed hopes.
Now, Penelope, dear, I haven’t stopped to take breath since I started
this letter, and I am tired, so no more until the next snag you may
encounter. With the firm conviction that all your friends will try to
vie with you in your good housekeeping,
Very affectionately yours,
_Jane Prince_.
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