To achieve a perfect little dinner with small means at command is
said to be a great intellectual feat. Dinner means so much--a French
cook, several accomplished servants, a very well-stocked china
closet, plate chest, and linen chest, and flowers, wines, bonbons,
and so on. But we have known many simple little dinners given by
young couples with small means which were far more enjoyable than
the gold and silver "diamond" dinners.
Given, first, a knowledge of _how to do it_; a good cook (not a
_cordon bleu_); a neat maid-servant in cap and apron--if the lady
can carve (which all ladies should know how to do); if the gentleman
has a good bottle of claret, and another of champagne--or neither,
if he disapproves of them; if the house is neatly and quietly
furnished, with the late magazines on the table; if the welcome is
cordial, and there is no noise, no fussy pretence--these little
dinners are very enjoyable, and every one is anxious to be invited
to them.
But people are frightened off from simple entertainments by the
splendor of the great luxurious dinners given by the very rich. It
is a foolish fear. The lady who wishes to give a simple but good
dinner has first to consult what is _seasonable_. She must offer the
dinner of the season, not seek for those strawberries in February
which are always sour, nor peaches in June, nor pease at Christmas.
Forced fruit is never good.
For an autumnal small dinner here is a very good _menu_:
Sherry./Oysters on the half-shell./Chablis, Soupe
la Reine.
Blue-fish, broiled./Hock, Filet de Boeuf aux Champignons./Champagne
Or,
Roast Beef or Mutton./Claret. Roast Partridges./ Burgundy, or Sherry
Salad of Tomatoes. Cheese./Liqueurs
Of course, in these days, claret and champagne are considered quite
enough for a small dinner, and one need not offer the other wines.
Or, as Mrs. Henderson says in her admirable cook-book, a very good
dinner maybe given with claret alone. A table claret to add to the
water is almost the only wine drunk in France or Italy at an
every-day dinner. Of course no wine at all is expected at the tables
of those whose principles forbid alcoholic beverages, and who
nevertheless give excellent dinners without them.
A perfectly fresh white damask table-cloth, napkins of equally
delicate fabric, spotless glass and silver, pretty china, perhaps
one high glass dish crowned with fruit and flowers--sometimes only
the fruit--chairs that are comfortable, a room not too warm, the
dessert served in good taste, but not overloaded--this is all one
needs. The essentials of a good dinner are but few.
The informal dinner invitations should be written by the lady
herself in the first person. She may send for her friends only a few
days before she wants them to come. She should be ready five minutes
before her guests arrive, and in the parlor, serene and cool,
"mistress of herself, though china fall." She should see herself
that the dinner-table is properly laid, the champagne and sherry
thoroughly cooled, the places marked out, and, above all, the guests
properly seated.
"Ay, there's the rub." To invite the proper people to meet each
other, to seat them so that they can have an agreeable conversation,
that is the trying and crucial test. Little dinners are social;
little dinners are informal; little dinners make people friends. And
we do not mean _little_ in regard to numbers or to the amount of
good food; we mean _simple_ dinners.
All the good management of a young hostess or an old one cannot
prevent accident, however. The cook may get drunk; the waiter may
fall and break a dozen of the best plates; the husband may be kept
down town late, and be dressing in the very room where the ladies
are to take off their cloaks (American houses are frightfully
inconvenient in this respect). All that the hostess can do is to
preserve an invincible calm, and try not to care--at least not to
show that she cares. But after a few attempts the giving of a simple
dinner becomes very easy, and it is the best compliment to a
stranger. A gentleman travelling to see the customs of a country is
much more pleased to be asked to a modest repast where he meets his
hostess and her family than to a state dinner where he is ticketed
off and made merely one at a banquet.
Then the limitations of a dinner can be considered. It is not kind
to keep guests more than an hour, or two hours at the most, at
table. French dinners rarely exceed an hour. English dinners are too
long and too heavy, although the conversation is apt to be
brilliant. At a simple dinner one can make it short.
It is better to serve coffee in the drawing-room, although if the
host and hostess are agreed on this point, and the ladies can stand
smoke, it is served at table, and the gentlemen light their
cigarettes. In some houses smoking is forbidden in the dining-room.
The practice of the ladies retiring first is an English one, and the
French consider it barbarous. Whether we are growing more French or
not, we seem to be beginning to do away with the separation after
dinner.
It is the custom at informal dinners for the lady to help the soup
and for the gentleman to carve; therefore the important dishes are
put on the table. But the servants who wait should be taught to have
sidetables and sideboards so well placed that anything can be
removed immediately after it is finished. A screen is a very useful
adjunct in a dining-room.
Inefficient servants have a disagreeable habit of running in and out
of the dining-room in search of something that should have been in
readiness; therefore the lady of the house had better see beforehand
that French rolls are placed under every napkin, and a silver basket
full of them ready in reserve. Also large slices of fresh soft bread
should be on the side table, as every one does not like hard bread,
and should be offered a choice.
The powdered sugar, the butter, the caster, the olives, the
relishes, should all be thought of and placed where each can be
readily found. Servants should be taught to be noiseless, and to
avoid a hurried manner. In placing anything on or taking anything
off a table a servant should never reach across a person seated at
table for that purpose. However hurried the servant may be, or
however near at hand the article, she should be taught to walk
quietly to the left hand of each guest to remove things, while she
should pass everything in the same manner, giving the guest the
option of using his right hand with which to help himself. Servants
should have a silver or plated knife-tray to remove the gravy-spoon
and carving knife and fork before removing the platter. All the
silver should be thus removed; it makes a table much neater.
Servants should be taught to put a plate and spoon and fork at every
place before each course.
After the meats and before the pie, pudding, or ices, the table
should be carefully cleared of everything but fruit and flowers--all
plates, glasses, carafes, salt-cellars, knives and forks, and
whatever pertains to the dinner should be removed, and the table-
cloth well cleared with brush or crumb-scraper on a silver waiter,
and then the plates, glasses, spoons, and forks laid at each plate
for the dessert. If this is done every day, it adds to a common
dinner, and trains the waitress to her work.
The dinner, the dishes, and the plates should all be hot. The
ordinary plate-warmer is now superseded by something far better, in
which a hot brick is introduced. The most _recherch_ dinner is
spoiled if hot mutton is put on a cold plate. The silver dishes
should be heated by hot water in the kitchen, the hot dinner plates
must be forthcoming from the plate-warmer, nor must the roasts or
_entres_ be allowed to cool on their way from the kitchen to the
dining-room. A servant should have a thumb napkin with which to hand
the hot dishes, and a clean towel behind the screen with which to
wipe the platters which have been sent up on the dumb-waiter. On
these trifles depend the excellence of the simple dinner.