This is more especially a ladies’ meal. If one gives a lunch party,
ladies alone are generally invited. It is an informal meal on ordinary
occasions, when every thing is placed upon the table at once. A servant
remains in the room only long enough to serve the first round of dishes,
then leaves, supposing that confidential conversation may be desired.
Familiar friends often “happen in” to lunch, and are always to be
expected.
Some fashionable ladies have the reputation of having very fine
lunches--chops, chickens, oysters, salads, chocolate, and many other
good things being provided; and others, just as fashionable, have
nothing but a cup of tea or chocolate, some thin slices of bread and
butter, and cold meat; or, if of Teutonic taste, nothing but cheese,
crackers, and ale, thus reserving the appetite for dinner.
In entertaining at lunch, the dishes are served in the same manner as
for dinner. Each dish is served as a separate course. It may be placed
on the table before the hostess, if the lunch party is not very large;
but it is generally served from the side. The table is also decorated in
the same manner as for dinner, with a centre-piece of flowers or of
fruit, and with various _compotiers_ around the centre, containing
fruits, _bonbons_, little fancy cakes, Indian or other preserves, etc.
Other ornaments, in Dresden china, majolica ware, Venetian or French
glass, etc., filled with flowers, are often seen. Little dishes of
common glass in different shapes, as crosses, quarter-moons, etc., about
an inch high (see cuts, page 58), are also filled with flowers, and
placed at symmetrical distances. As the last-mentioned decorations are
very cheap, every one may indulge in them, and consider that there are
no more beautiful ornaments, after all.
The lunch-table is generally covered with a colored table-cloth.
The principal dishes served are _patés_, croquettes, shell-fish, game,
salads--in fact, all kinds of _entrées_ and cold desserts, or I may say
dishes are preferred which do not require carving. _Bouillon_ is
generally served as a first course in _bouillon_ cups, which are quite
like large coffee-cups, or coffee or tea cups may be used, although any
dinner soup served in soup-plates is _en regle_. A cup of chocolate,
with whipped cream on the top, is often served as another course.
I will give five bills of fare, reserved from five very nice little
lunch parties:
_Mrs. Collier’s Lunch_ (February 2d).
Bouillon; sherry.
Roast oysters on half-shell; Sauterne.
Little vols-au-vent of oysters.
Thin scollops, or cuts of fillet of beef, braised; French pease; Champagne.
Chicken croquettes, garnished with fried parsley; potato croquettes.
Cups of chocolate, with whipped cream.
Salad--lettuce dressed with tarragon.
Biscuits glacés; fruit-ices.
Fruit.
Bonbons.
_Mrs. Sprague’s Lunch_ (March 10th).
Raw oysters on half-shell.
Bouillon; sherry.
Little vols-au-vent of sweet-breads.
Lamb-chops; tomato sauce; Champagne.
Chicken croquettes; French pease.
Snipe; potatoes à la Parisienne.
Salad of lettuce.
Neuchâtel cheese; milk wafers, toasted.
Chocolate Bavarian cream, molded in little
cups, with a spoonful of peach marmalade on each plate.
Vanilla ice-cream; fancy cakes.
Fruit.
_Mrs. Miller’s Lunch_ (January 6th).
Bouillon.
Deviled crabs; olives; claret punch.
Sweet-breads à la Milanaise.
Fillets of grouse, currant jelly; Saratoga potatoes.
Roman punch.
Fried oysters, garnished with chow-chow.
Chicken salad, or, rather, Mayonnaise of chicken.
Ramikins.
Wine jelly, and whipped cream.
Napolitaine ice-cream.
Fruit.
Bonbons.
_Mrs. Wells’s Lunch._
Bouillon; sherry.
Fried frogs’ legs; French pease.
Smelts, sauce Tartare; potatoes à la Parisienne.
Chicken in scallop-shells; Champagne.
Sweet-bread croquettes; tomato sauce.
Fried cream.
Salad; Romaine.
Welsh rare-bit.
Peaches and cream, frozen; fancy cakes.
Fruits.
_Mrs. Filley’s Lunch._
Mock-turtle soup; English milk-punch.
Lobster-chops; claret.
Mushrooms in crust.
Lamb-chops, en papillote.
Chetney of slices of baked fillet of beef.
Chocolate, with whipped cream.
Spinach on tongue slices (page 145), sauce Tartare.
Roast quail, bread sauce (page 185).
Cheese; lettuce, garnished with slices of
radishes and nasturtium blossoms, French dressing.
Mince-meat patties; Champagne.
Ices and fancy cakes.
Fruit.