The informal dinner resembles the formal, save that fewer courses are
served, the menu is simpler, and the decorations less elaborate. The
serving is on the same order--a la Russe. If one is fortunate enough to
have a maid who combines the experience of a waitress with the qualities
of a good cook, by ingenious planning it is possible to serve six persons
acceptably in the approved fashion.
But there are thousands of households in which but one maid is kept, and
in this case what may be termed "the family dinner" will be found better,
because there will be no endeavor to do more than one can accomplish with
the means at her command. Better by far serve well and simply than attempt
something more elaborate and fall short in it.
Family Dinners.--At the family dinner, the grape fruit or oyster cocktail,
or the raw oysters which form the first course, is on the table when the
guests are seated. The grape fruit may be served in glasses, like the
cocktail. If oysters are served, the maid passes the condiments. She then
removes these plates, replacing them with service plates as she does so,
and brings in the soup. This the hostess serves and the maid carries
about. While this is being eaten--celery or olives being passed after the
guests are helped--the maid slips out in the kitchen to dish up the
vegetables unless these are already in the warmer. Returning, she removes
the soup-plates, never taking more than two at a time. She then brings on
the joint or roast, placing it before the host, who proceeds to serve it.
(If oysters are served first, a fish course is generally omitted; indeed,
so many courses tax one's resources too severely.) The maid carries about
the dinner plates, removing the service plate with the right hand and
placing the other with the left. She then passes the vegetables. The
serving begins with the lady at the host's right hand. If the piece de
resistance is a turkey, white and dark meat and a portion of dressing are
placed on each plate; gravy and the vegetables, then cranberry or currant
jelly, are passed. Here the waitress should refill water glasses.
The plates are then removed for the salad course, and the table cleared.
This should be ready on the plates, and kept where it will be perfectly
cold. While this is being brought on, the hostess will start dishes of
salted nuts and bonbons down the table, the guests passing them. After the
salad the plates are removed and the dessert brought in. This may be a
mould of ice cream or a pudding; pie is seldom or never served. This the
host or hostess serves. The coffee service may be brought in, and the
hostess pours it; little cakes or wafers, or mints, are usually passed
with it; then the maid is excused from further service. The hostess always
gives the signal for leaving the table by a slight nod toward the lady on
her husband's right, and rising.
[702 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]
Requirements.--A dinner of this kind requires a serving-table or sideboard
where china and silver may be in readiness. Such an aid is even more
indispensable where the hostess serves the meal herself. Many very
enjoyable "company dinners" are served where the hostess is also the cook,
and she and her husband serve. If one has daughters they should be taught
how to serve, and may rise from the table to change plates and bring in
courses with perfect propriety. In such case, the soup is served at the
table and, as it is awkward to pass without spilling, some one should
carry it about if more than two or three guests are present. The roast or
fowl is carved by the host; vegetables are on the table and are passed
from hand to hand. After this course the hostess, or the daughter
delegated to do this, clears the table and brings in the salad. The
dessert follows. Coffee is occasionally served with the meat course, but
it is better to bring it on with the dessert. Cups, etc., should be in
readiness on the side table, to be transferred to the table. There should
be an apparent absence of formality at such a meal, though everything
should progress in regular order, systematically, quietly, without orders
or clash. Above all things, see that everything likely to be wanted is at
hand; nothing looks worse than someone jumping up to get some article that
has been forgotten. If dishes, spoons or forks must be washed during the
progress of the meal, have warm water ready in the kitchen, wash them
quickly, and wipe them out of cold water; then their heat will not betray
your limited resources.
Setting the Table.--The "best cloth" and napkins are brought out for the
dinner party. The cloth must be laid with mathematical exactness, its
center exactly on the center of the table. The centerpiece, almost
invariably of flowers, only occasionally of fruit, is also exactly placed.
This should be low; it is awkward not to be able to see one's vis-a-vis,
and the hostess should be able to command an uninterrupted view of her
table, so that if the waitress omits any service she may by a glance
direct her to supply it. The arrangement should be graceful and pretty,
and, in summer, garden flowers may be used with propriety. The flowers
give the keynote of the color scheme; dinner cards, bonbons, ices and
creams and the decorations of the small cakes usually served with the
dessert, conform to it. Candelabra are less used than at one time, but are
by no means "out." A handsome silver candelabra may be used as a
centerpiece, its base banked in flowers. On a square or oblong table,
candlesticks with shades give a touch of color that relieves the whiteness
of napery and glass.
There is a plate--your handsomest--at each place; a napkin squarely folded
and lying flat; a row of forks at the left, oyster fork outside, then fish
fork, dinner and salad fork, four in all, laid in the order in which they
will be used. Knives are at the right of the napkin, always two, a large
and a small one. Fashion has re-introduced the steel-bladed knife for the
meat course; it is surprising to notice how much more tender meat is than
it used to be when we tried to cut it with the silver knives. The
soup-spoon is laid at the top of the plate. The salad fork may be brought
in with the salad if preferred, spoons with the dessert and coffee. Grape
fruit is eaten with an orange spoon, laid at the right. No "fancy folding"
of napkins is permissible. The glasses stand at the top of the plate, a
little to the right. Small cut glass or fancy dishes containing the
relishes are placed near the corners of the table within the circle of
plates if the table is square; if it is round they are so arranged so as
to balance each other in the form of a square. There may be two of nuts
and two of stuffed olives or of bonbons. Individual salt cellars are at
the top of the plate; a roll is folded in the napkin, sometimes laid on
the bread-and-butter plate, which is placed at the left. Such rolls should
be small and well-baked. At formal dinners no butter is served, and the
plates are omitted. Finger bowls are brought in after the ices or the
pudding. They are on a small plate on which is a doily, and the fruit
knife, if to be used, is on the plate. The guest lays bowl and doily at
his right, lifting the two together, the plate being for fruit, if any is
served. If no fruit, the bowl is left on the plate.
[MANNERS AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS 703]