butter, half-cup sugar, two eggs, two tablespoonfuls currants, one
teaspoonful baking-powder. Cream the butter and sugar, and stir them
into the beaten eggs and milk. Add the flour and baking-powder, and
last of all the currants, washed, dried, and dredged with flour. Roll
out the dough, cut into rounds, and bake in a moderate oven. Split,
butter, and eat while hot.
8.
Broiled Sardines on Toast. Omelet.
Nursery Muffins.
Sugar Cakes. Chocolate.
_Broiled Sardines on Toast._—Broil the sardines on a fine wire broiler,
lay two on each slice of toast, and squeeze over them a few drops of
lemon juice.
_Nursery Muffins._—Two cups milk, two cups fine bread-crumbs, one cup
flour, saltspoonful salt, one egg, one tablespoonful butter, three
teaspoonfuls baking-powder. Beat the egg light, stir in the butter, the
bread soaked in the milk, and the flour and baking-powder. Bake in a
steady oven, greasing the muffin tins well, so that the batter may not
stick to them.
_Sugar Cakes._—One cup butter, one cup sugar, four cups flour, two
eggs, one teaspoonful vanilla. Cream butter and sugar, mix with the
beaten eggs, add the flour and the flavoring, roll out _very_ thin, and
bake in a moderate oven, sprinkling the cakes with granulated sugar
just before baking.
9.
Veal Hamburg Steaks. Light Rolls.
Apple-Sauce. Jumbles.
_Veal Hamburg Steaks._—One pound lean veal, chopped fine; two
teaspoonfuls onion juice; salt and pepper to taste. Mix all well, form
with the hands into flattened cakes, and broil over a clear fire. Lay
on each a half-teaspoonful of _maître d'hôtel_ butter, or a bit of
butter the size of a hickory nut, first squeezing a few drops of lemon
juice on the meat. Let them stand covered a minute before serving.
_Jumbles._—Half-cup butter, three quarters of a cup of sugar, one
heaping cup flour, two eggs (the yolks only), two tablespoonfuls
sherry, extract of rose to taste. Beat the yolks, cream the butter
and sugar; mix these, and add the flour and the flavoring. Make into
round balls with the fingers, and place them on a well-buttered tin
so far apart that when they flatten they may not run into each other.
Stick a raisin, a slip of citron, or a blanched almond on top of each.
Bake in a steady oven to a pale yellow. Do _not_ brown. While still
warm, loosen them from the pan with a sharp knife, as they become very
brittle when cold.
10.
Ham and Eggs. Baked Potatoes.
Graham Biscuit.
Stewed Prunes. Fancy Cakes.
DINNER AT NIGHT
Twenty or thirty years ago the late dinner was not nearly so popular
as it is now. The majority of the people dined in the middle of the
day, and not a few of them considered a six-o'clock dinner as an effort
after fashion that was unworthy the imitation of sensible men and
women. Even in large cities servants rebelled against an alteration of
the time-honored custom of serving the principal meal of the day at or
near noon, while in small towns the late dinner was so unusual that it
was almost impossible to persuade domestics to consent to it.
A marked change has taken place in the fashion. The evening dinner has
for years been steadily gaining in popularity, and promises to become
even more common than it is now. Thoughtful men and women recognize the
wisdom of eating lightly at midday, when they are in the full tide of
business, and reserving the heartiest repast for an hour when it can be
discussed leisurely and digested peacefully. Mistresses have learned
that there is a gain in keeping the morning free for house-work,
instead of devoting most of it to the preparation of the dinner. The
light lunch eaten in most homes demands much less time in cooking and
eating than does a dinner, and leaves those who have partaken of it
more fit for work than they would be were their stomachs burdened with
the task of digesting soup, meat, vegetables, and dessert.
The late dinner is a more dignified meal than can possibly be made of
a similar repast eaten at noon. The festal appearance imparted by the
gleam of candles, lamps, or gas upon silver, china, and glass cannot
be acquired by daylight. The pleasant reunion around the board of
the members of the family, whose positions and interests have been
divergent since morning, the happy consciousness that the work of the
day is done, the knowledge that there is no toil waiting at the door of
the dining-room, all bear their share in rendering the meal cheerful
and care-free. More ceremony can and should be preserved at the evening
dinner than is feasible at noon. The orderly sequence of courses and
careful serving have a part in adding to the dignity of the meal.
These suggestions should not frighten the housekeeper who contemplates
introducing the late dinner in her household. Very little extra work is
involved in bestowing the touch of state referred to, and, after all,
it consists chiefly in a slight additional care in waiting and serving,
and to these the mistress can readily accustom the maid.
The dinner-table should be spread with a plain white cloth, under
which the sub-cover of felt or canton flannel must never be lacking.
Any one who has observed the thin and sleazy appearance even handsome
damask presents without this felt under it, and has noticed the noise
the dishes and silver make when moved about where there is but the one
thickness between them and the board, will not voluntarily be long
without so simple and inexpensive an addition to the elegance of her
table.
It is sometimes a rather costly luxury to keep a vase of fresh flowers
always ready for the table. In summer it is comparatively easy, even in
the city, to get a few blossoms every day or two; but in winter, with
flowers at exorbitant prices, a single spray, renewed twice a week, is
an extravagance which the housewife does not always feel she can afford
herself. Cheaper and quite as pretty in effect is it to have a pot of
primroses, or of cyclamen, or of some other hardy house plant that will
bloom for two or three weeks, and of which the first cost is but small.
In setting the table, the knife and the napkin, with a piece of bread
folded in the latter, should lie at the right of the plate, the fork at
the left, the spoon at right angles to both of these; between the plate
and the middle of the table, the glass, butter-plate, and salt-cellar
near the point of the knife, within easy reach of the right hand. An
extra knife or fork may be added for each course, where either may
be needed. A plate must stand at each place, although it is usually
removed to make room for a hot one after the family are seated and the
dinner brought on.
The space in front of the hostess is left free for the soup-tureen,
and before the host is spread the carving-cloth. The carving knife
and fork are laid upon this. At the corner of the table stand the
large salts, if these are used instead of the individual cellars, and
the pepper-cruets. Near them are the tablespoons. The water-pitcher,
or carafe, the ice bowl, and any relishes in the shape of jellies,
pickles, etc., are all else that is put on the table at the beginning
of the meal, except the soup tureen and plates.
When the latter have been removed, the principal meat dish is set in
front of the carver, and a hot plate is laid for each guest. At family
dinners the carver generally does the helping, although sometimes after
the meat is cut it is passed, and each person allowed to help himself.
The vegetables are next passed by the waitress, and offered at the
left of each person, and after them the jelly or pickles are served.
If, before the meat course, a fish dish or an _entrée_ is offered, it
is passed usually in the same fashion. Next comes the salad, which is
always passed, after each guest has been supplied with a clean plate.
This course removed, all the soiled dishes and the small silver are
removed, the table is crumbed, and the dessert is brought in. If fruit
succeeds this, a fresh plate and a finger-bowl are given to each one.
With the fruit comes the coffee.
Of course there are many families in which the daily _menu_ is simpler
than that outlined above. In large families each added course means
a perceptible increase of cost, and although the judicious manager
who has a fixed allowance for household expenses may so dovetail the
retrenchment of one day that it will balance the undue outlay of
another, yet in most instances she will feel that if she can feed her
household well and satisfy them, without providing them with five
or six courses at an ordinary dinner, more than this would savor of
extravagance. In some homes soup each day is considered an expensive
luxury. So it is when fresh meat must be purchased to make it, or even
when fresh or canned vegetables have to be bought for it; but when
there are bones or trimmings from raw or cooked meats, or vegetables
left over—a half-can of tomatoes, a cupful or two of mashed potato, a
saucer of pease, or other similar remnants—or when fish and eggs are
plentiful, the soup need be but a small item in the expense, and is
really economical, as, by blunting the edge of the appetite, it renders
the attack upon the next course less vigorous. There is a large variety
of bean, pea, lentil, and cream soups that are cheap, palatable, and
nourishing.
Salad is not a frequent dish in many homes, but in warm weather it may
well be substituted sometimes for soup and cost little more. Still that
may be a good dinner at which neither soup nor salad is seen. The final
cup of tea or coffee adds a graceful finish to a simple dessert, and is
generally enjoyed by the adult members of the family.
A word concerning the dinner toilette may not be amiss. In England,
donning full dress for a late dinner is a matter of course. Not so in
America. Our independent citizen usually thinks he honors the home meal
quite enough if he washes the dust of the day from his hands and face,
and brushes his hair and his coat. Yet there are few homes in which the
mistress does not change her gown for dinner, or at least brighten or
freshen her attire so as to make it differ decidedly from that in which
she appeared at breakfast. The question involuntarily suggests itself
why it is easier for a tired woman to dress than it is for a tired man,
and one wonders if the husband would not find in a change of toilette
the refreshment his wife experiences from a similar operation. Even
without putting on full dress, a man should, at least by exchanging his
office for a house coat, and assuming fresh collar, cuffs, and cravat,
do his share in giving to the dinner-table the look of a pleasant
social gathering, instead of a mere stopping-place for food.
DINNER AT NOON
In some homes it seems out of the question to have a late dinner.
There may be several reasons for this. Possibly the mistress of the
house does all her own work, and finds it easier to dispose of the
bulk of her cooking in the morning than later, since she thus leaves
free the afternoon hours for leisure or social duties. Or she may, if
she keeps servants, live in a neighborhood where late dinners are so
far the exception that she finds it impossible to induce her cook to
accede to her desire to change the hour of dinner. Or, still again, it
may seem expedient to dine at noon, because that hour better suits her
husband and children. In any one of these cases, instead of repining
over the inevitable, she should set herself to work to make the best of
circumstances, and do all in her power to impart every possible charm
to the midday meal.
In some parts of the South a one-o'clock dinner is almost unheard of,
while the—to Northerners—singular hour of two, or half after two, or
three, is chosen. This has the advantage of giving the children plenty
of leisure for eating, as their schools have closed by this hour;
but the same necessity for haste is laid upon the head of the house
that must always prevail when a busy man is obliged to take the time
for dinner out of the most active part of the day. Whenever, for any
reason, the meal must be only an interlude in work, instead of coming
at the close of the day's labors, it should be made a comparatively
simple repast.
There is no doubt that the average American eats too rapidly. No one
who has witnessed the feats of deglutition performed by commercial
travellers at a railway station will cavil at this assertion. It is
safe to attribute the national disease of dyspepsia to this cause fully
as much as to the indigestible viands of which the ordinary citizen
makes his chief diet. And this haste is not confined to the hotel
dining-room or the railway eating-house. In private households as
astonishing and disgusting exhibitions of rapid gorging may be seen as
are ever witnessed in public restaurants.
No one who had once beheld the spectacle could ever forget the fashion
in which meals were conducted in a certain home where wealth and every
evidence of outward refinement gave promise of better things. The
father, a man of business from his sixteenth year, plainly considered
eating the duty to be accomplished at the table, and quite ignored such
minor considerations as the interchange of thought or observation, or
any of the social features usually connected with the operation of
dining. If he could not quite equal Napoleon the First, who was said to
have often devoured his entire dinner in six minutes, he did not fall
far behind the great warrior. Soup, meat, vegetables, dessert, were
swallowed in rapid succession and in almost utter silence. The slight
delay inseparable from a change of courses was endured impatiently.
Almost before the last mouthful was down, the eager man would push
back his chair, spring to his feet, and, with a muttered word of
farewell, make a rush for the street. In an instant the slam of the
front door would announce that he was on his way back to his office.
His children were not backward in imitating him, and all the pleadings
of their refined, care-worn mother were powerless to check the
influence of the father's example. With such a rush at meal-times,
elegant or even tolerably decent table manners were impossible, and the
visitor in the home found eating a difficult business when accompanied
by the sight of the haste and habits that often could only be described
as revolting.
If the midday meal must be hurried, let it also be simple. There is
no rhyme or reason in attempting to dispose of a three or four course
dinner in thirty or forty minutes. If only half an hour can be allowed
for the repast, let this consist of two courses only, either a soup
and a meat course, a meat course and a salad, or a meat course and a
dessert. These should be served promptly, but in an orderly fashion,
and both the conduct of the dinner and the gastric powers will be
benefited by such simplicity.
Upon this point the house mother must insist. Even if her husband will
not conform to her wishes in this regard, she should require from
servants and children a certain amount of propriety in serving the
meal and decorum in its discussion. After seeing that the dinner is
punctually served, and that the courses follow one another promptly,
she should herself set the example of deliberate eating, and should
strive, by the introduction of interesting subjects, to encourage the
pleasant chat that is a potent aid to digestion. It will cost an effort
to do this when she is weary and harassed by household worries, but she
will enjoy her own meal more if her mind is, by any agreeable means,
distracted for a little while from her cares.
For the midday dinner the table should be laid as it is at night, and
the waiting should be performed in the same fashion. The vegetables
should, if possible, be served from the side, although in a family
where no waitress is employed they may be set upon the table. The
custom of having four or five vegetables at dinner appears rather
absurd. Where there are only two courses, several kinds may be desired,
but as a rule two vegetables, or at the most three, are quite enough.
Only a few of these should ever be served in saucers. Even at the
tables of people who ought to know better it is nothing unusual to see
two or three or more small sauce-plates given to each person. One will
contain pease, another tomatoes, another stewed corn, another pickles
or jelly. While there may be some sense in having separate little
dishes for holding such semi-fluid compounds as stewed tomatoes, stewed
corn, or cranberry sauce, there is no cause for using them for pease,
string-beans, spinach, cauliflower, and the like. The appearance of
such an array suggests a hotel table, and detracts from the home-look
which should always be studied by the housekeeper.
Of course there is no possibility of dressy toilettes at midday, but
cleanliness and neatness at least may be attained, and it should be
one of the unwritten laws of the home that no one may come to the table
looking untidy, or in _négligé_ of curl-papers and collarless wrappers
for the women and shirt sleeves for the men.
Possibly it may seem strange to many people to learn that there are
classes among whom it is considered no breach of etiquette for a man
to come to the table not only coatless, but even without his collar,
cravat, or vest; this, too, not among farmers alone, but in cities and
in ranks of life much above those of the ordinary mechanic or common
day laborer. Often in the same families the wives and daughters will
appear well-bred, and will dress neatly and tastefully themselves, even
while they seem to perceive nothing shocking in the dishabille of the
men of the house. Perhaps, since those most interested do not complain,
no one else has a right to criticise; and yet it does seem as though
the regard for appearances and for the small sweet courtesies of life
had some claims.
In most cases where one notes such carelessness, it will be found that
the trouble began very far back, when the boys who are now men were
allowed a similar license in their parents' homes. For the sake of the
families of the future, if for no other reason, the mothers of the
rising generation should exact appropriate apparel at meals as well as
correct behavior and careful table manners from their growing boys and
girls, even if the children's fathers refuse to conform to what they
deem over-niceness in dress and demeanor.
THE SUNDAY DINNER
The "big dinner" of the week is, in most homes, eaten on Sunday. Then
the men of the family are at home for the day, the children have no
claims of school or play to hurry them through their meals, and there
is a general impression of delightful leisure which seems favorable to
the eating and digestion of an excellent and hearty dinner. This repast
is usually served at midday, in order that the servants may have the
afternoon and evening to themselves; and it is not uncommon for the
mistress of the house to prepare the Sunday-evening tea herself.
The old-fashioned idea of always having a cold dinner on the Sabbath
is almost obsolete. Some people who have been brought up in the habit
clung for a long while to the compromise of serving a piece of cold
meat at the Sunday dinner, although the vegetables were hot; but even
that is changed now, and there are few homes where as large an array of
smoking viands is not spread upon
"The day that comes between
The Saturday and Monday"
as is ever offered on any non-religious holiday.
The reasons given at the beginning of this chapter are quite sufficient
to account for this almost universal practice. The good housekeeper
enjoys seeing her culinary handiwork appreciated, and she generally
reserves any especially tempting _bonnes bouches_ for Sunday, when she
knows that those for whom she delights to cater will have the time
and inclination to give her cookery its meed of attention. Without
cavilling at this, one must at the same time deprecate the amount
of additional work that the Sunday dinner often involves upon what
should be, both physically and spiritually, a day of rest as well as
of refreshment. A little thought will often enable the housekeeper to
so minify the amount of work to be done on Sunday that the domestic
labors will be perceptibly lightened, and the dinner in no wise
injured. So much of the preparation for the meal can be made the day
before that the business of finally getting it ready for the table will
seem comparatively light.
In one family of strong Sabbatarian principles the omission of soup
from the Sunday bill of fare was evidently considered a means of
grace. The tureen and ladle always enjoyed a rest upon the first day
of the week, but by some curious process of ratiocination no harm was
thought of having at dinner a course of salad which cost as much time
to prepare, and demanded the use and washing of as many dishes as would
have sufficed to serve the tabooed soup. Yet the hostess would always
say, with an air of conscious virtue, "Oh, we never have _soup_ on
Sundays," as though the non-appearance of that dish upon the first day
of the week was proof positive of a high order of piety.
In spite of this, the soup course may be made a very trifling affair.
To say nothing of two or three excellent brands of canned soups,
which, with a little "doctoring" in the way of seasoning, may be
rendered quite equal to those freshly made, there are many soups which
can be brought on Saturday into a state of such complete readiness
that all that is necessary on Sunday is to heat them for the table.
Of these are chicken, mutton, and veal broths, _consommé_, Julienne,
ox-tail, mock-turtle, black or white bean and pea soup—indeed, nearly
every soup with a meat stock. Cream soups, like tomato, celery, potato,
cauliflower, green pea, and corn soups, are better prepared just before
using, and these may be served on week-days and yet leave a large
variety of _potages_ from which to make a choice for the Sunday dinner.
Leaving the soup, something should be said concerning the introduction
of _entrées_, etc. They are not necessary at a repast so essentially
domestic as the first-day feast. Even if they are prepared the day
before, their insertion in the bill of fare compels the use and washing
of another set of plates. The man-servant and maid-servant within our
gates merit a little consideration upon a day which should bring to
them too a modicum of rest. Still, if an _entrée_ is occasionally
desired, there are those which may be made on Saturday, and will need
only warming to be fit for the table, such as _pâtés_ of various
kinds. For these both pastry shells and filling may be prepared the
day before, so that simply heating them and putting them together will
comprise the work involved in getting them ready for the table.
When the meat course is reached it becomes less easy to shirk Sunday
labor. The roast may be bound and skewered, the turkey or chickens
trussed for roasting, the bread crumbed for the stuffing, on Saturday,
but the stuffing must not go in until the last moment, nor must the
meats, to be at their best, be put into the oven until just in time to
permit their being done in season for dinner. With vegetables, too,
much of the excellence depends upon brisk cooking. Few of them are,
like spinach, benefited by each time of warming over. Since this heavy
work cannot be avoided, all the housekeeper can do is to make the rest
of the meal as easy as possible for herself and her servants. At the
best, there will be enough to do.
If a salad is served, the mayonnaise dressing, if this is used, is no
whit injured by keeping on the ice even for two or three days. The
fish, flesh, or fowl, when such enter into the composition of the
salad, may be minced the day before, and kept in a cold place until
needed. Or if, as is better at dinner, a simple salad of lettuce,
celery, or something of the kind is used, upon which the hostess
bestows an ordinary French dressing after it is brought to the table,
the washing and picking over of the salad are a trifling matter.
As to desserts, it is a peculiar taste which refuses to be satisfied
with some one of the many that can be made in part or entirely the day
before.