Malt Extract.Alcohol.Carbonic Acid.Water.Burton ale14·55·9079·6Edinburgh ale10·98·50·1580·45Porter (Barclay and Perkins)6·05·40·1688·44Bavarian beer5·83·80·1490·26
Malt extract has lately been brought into the market, and may be used where alcohol is for any reason considered undesirable. (Philip Foster, ‘Alcohol.’)
Smoking.—Though hardly a branch of dietetics, the habit of smoking is now so general (and to some people as necessary as their meals through long habit) as to deserve a few words of notice. Concerning its merits or demerits doctors are far from being agreed. One fact, however, is certain. Ptyalin, the active principle of the saliva or juice of the mouth, is identical in chemical composition with diastase, and has been supplied to us by nature for the purpose of effecting the necessary change of starch into sugar. Now the expectoration which so often accompanies smoking, and is unduly increased by it, means the loss of large quantities of this invaluable fluid.
As to the actual effects of tobacco smoke, Dr. Zulinski has recently published in a Warsaw medical journal the results of a long series of experiments made by him both upon human beings and animals with a view of verifying the physiological effects. He found in the first place that it is a distinct poison even in small doses. Upon men its action is very slight when not inhaled in large quantities, but it would soon become powerful if the smoker got into the habit of “swallowing the smoke,” and Dr. Zulinski ascertained that this toxical property is not due exclusively to the nicotine, but that tobacco smoke, even when disengaged of the nicotine, contains a second toxical principle called colidine, and also carbon oxide and hydrocyanic acid. The effects produced by tobacco depend, he says, to a great extent upon the nature of the tobacco and the way in which it is smoked. The cigar-smoker absorbs more poison than the cigarette-smoker, and the latter in turn than those who smoke pipes, while the smoker who takes the precaution of using a narghilie, or any other apparatus which conducts the smoke through water, reduces the deleterious effects of tobacco to a minimum. As a rule, the light-coloured tobaccos are supposed to be the mildest, but Dr. Zulinski says that a great many of the tobaccos are artificially lightened by the aid of chemical agents which are not always free from danger. He adds that several light tobaccos are also open to the objection of emitting a burning smoke, owing to the large proportion of wooden fibres which they contain, notably the French “caporal” and the English “bird’s-eye,” and that the smoke from these tobaccos is of such a high temperature as often to cause slight inflammation of the tongue, which with people of mature age is not unlikely to lead to cancer. The dark tobaccos are often adulterated, too, but Dr. Zulinski thinks that upon the whole they are the less dangerous. If tobacconists would only introducea very cheap stem for pipes, smokers could afford to use a new stem every time they lit up, and by this means most of the evils of smoking pipes would disappear.
On cigarette smoking Sir Henry Thompson lately communicated the following remarks to theLancet. (a) The cigarette, without a mouthpiece, is really never smoked more than half-way through in the East, where cigarettes are very cheap. It is well understood there, as it is by all practised cigarette smokers, that every inhalation from a cigarette slightly deteriorates in quality from the first. A small deposit of the very offensive oil of tobacco is deposited in the finely cut leaf, which acts as a strainer, and intercepts the deposit as it passes. Very little of this arrives in the smoker’s mouth if he stops when half is consumed. Many Oriental smokers consume no more than a third. (b) If a cigarette with a card mouthpiece is employed, the noxious matter may be intercepted by always introducing a light plug of cotton wool into the tube. If now the cigarette is nearly consumed, a considerable quantity of brown and very offensive matter will be found in the cotton wool, from the evil of which the smoker is thus preserved. The wool requires renewal after half-a-dozen cigarettes. (c) The maximum pernicious influence which occurs through cigarette smoking is attained by the practice of inhaling the smoke largely direct into the lungs, where it comes into immediate contact with the circulation, and the toxic effect is strongly perceptible after three or four consecutive inhalations, and felt by a sensitive person to the very tips of the fingers. Such smoking ought to be exceptional. All the fragrance, with a little only of the toxic effect, is obtained by admission of the smoke into the mouth only, still more by passing it through the passages of the pharynx and nose; but pulmonary inhalation, often associated with cigarette smoking, and rarely with the pipe, constitutes the great mischief of the cigarette.
Laying and Waiting at Table.—The following suggestions are condensed from a series of articles on the subject by H. Burleigh in the indispensableQueen, intended for households with 2 to 7 servants. Housewives with smaller establishments may still benefit much by the instructions given.
No table ought to be laid, no tablecloth brought into the room, until the hearth has been thoroughly swept up, and the mantelpiece and sideboard well dusted. The neglect of this spoils the look of a room. Then another most important item is the proper preparation in the pantry. Most half-taught servants, which means 19 out of 20, will be continually running backwards and forwards between the pantry and the dining room bringing things piecemeal, instead of first preparing every article and bringing up everything, and then shutting the door on themselves, and quietly laying the table, without the confusing scramble that the former want of method produces. Servants cannot know these things unless a mistress has it in her to teach and train them. It behoves good women to learn each one for herself how to do everything in her house, so that she may teach those who enter her service.
For each meal—breakfast, luncheon, and dinner—there are different rules for laying the table and sideboard. We may call breakfast and luncheons movable feasts, for each day the laying of the table for these meals varies according to the food to be sent up, as at these meals everything is put on at once; whereas for dinner there is one invariable rule, whether there be many or few courses.
Breakfast.—Before you begin to lay your cloth, look to the fire, that it is not in a half-lighted and half-dying condition. If there is one time more than another in which we value a good clear fire, it is in the early morning, when the members of a family come down cold and hungry; but how miserable to descend to a hearth scattered over with half-burned wood and paper, and a cold fire with a hollow in the middle. A good stir, a little more coal, a good sweeping up of bars and hearth ought to be done before the cloth is laid.
The sideboard for breakfast in a small household of 2 or 3 servants ought to have a sideboard cloth, with a joint or a ham on it, with a pile of plates on it according to thenumber of the family; 2 knife rests, a carving knife and fork, and small knives and forks arranged in stiff rows on each side of the pile of plates, which at breakfast ought to be in the middle of the sideboard, in front of the joint. On the right side should stand the bread board, with white and brown bread, and a bread knife; and on the left side a silver tray, for handing letters when they arrive, and also if the bell has to be rung for anything needed or forgotten, the tray is there ready. In larger households there ought to be a side table, with different cold comestibles, of course a much larger variety than in a smaller establishment; but the same rule holds good, that a sideboard and a side table ought to be straightly and stiffly laid for breakfast.
For the table it is quite absurd to put tablespoons at the corners with saltcellars. Put any tablespoons that are needed at the right side of the dish whose contents require one, or in front of the dish. For each person lay 2 small silver forks, 1 small steel knife, and 1 silver knife. It is a very slovenly way to put only 1 steel knife to each person, for after eating bacon or any meat with the steel knife, it is very nasty to use the same knife for marmalade or butter. Small second-hand silver knives are not expensive to buy for breakfast or for meat teas; keep them for that purpose, and for children’s fruit at lunch, and it saves the nicer dessert knives and forks being used.
In laying your cloth take the greatest care that your tablecloth is exactly in the centre, if not your whole table is thrown out. The laundress ought to be taught to fold the cloths with 2 outside seams and 1 inside fold, not in half and in half again. The former way makes them set so much better. Measure with your apron the distance of the side folds from the edge of the table. The distances ought to be exact.
Be careful before arranging your table for every and any meal to think what will be the general effect on entering the room. Think of what it will look like from the door, which is almost without exception farthest from the head of the table, and therefore so arrange the articles of china and silver that the tallest are nearest to the hand, and thus the effect of each thing is seen as it slopes down to the bottom of the table.
One thing has always to be taught to a new servant, and that is to put knives, forks, and spoons an inch on the table, I. e. to leave 1 in. between the edge of the table and the handles. It is wretched to see the handles over the edge, and the least touch in passing swings them round, to say nothing of the untidy effect. Do not leave a straggling space between the knives and forks for each person, only sufficient for the width of a plate, and let the prongs and handles be exactly and precisely together top and bottom. Care in these details makes such a very great difference in the whole look of a table. If there are flowers in the centre there will not be room for large casters. It is quite the proper thing to have casters on the table for breakfast and lunch, as at these meals every one waits on himself, except in a few uncomfortably grand houses, and, therefore, though it is a vulgarity to put the casters on a dinner table, it is quite right to put them on a breakfast or luncheon table.
After you have arranged your table so far, see that marmalade or honey, or both, rolled butter, sardines, and all cold things, are arranged on the table before you bring up the urn, or coffee or tea, or any hot things. Also have all your sideboard and side table arranged before any hot things come up. Then remember that it is very bad style to bring them in in a straggling and single way. After the urn or kettle and the coffee and tea have been placed on the table, wait until the cook has placed everything on your tray—eggs, muffins, or rolls or buttered toast, bacon, fish, hot milk, &c.—and bring it all up at once, and place them one after the other quickly on the table. In arranging your table take this simple rule—let nothing touch another, be able to pass your finger at least round each article, and place the coffee-pot, teapot, milkjugs, sugar basins, and slop basin so that each is seen, and has its clear and distinct place. Let marmalade and butter correspond, and saltcellars occupy a rather central position at a breakfast table. If small casters are used, containing salt, pepper, and mustard, they can, of course, be placed at corners.
Have perfectly clean and freshly made mustard for each meal. Nothing is worse than to open the lid of a mustard-pot, and see the inside and the spoon clogged with old dry mustard. Cast your salt in an old wineglass, and turn it out in a shape. Place a toast-rack always on a large plate, or else the crumbs make the cloth untidy.
Put a table napkin to each person, and see that your moist-sugar spoon is not clogged with sugar, but thoroughly clean. If you place a knife and fork in front of a breakfast dish, or a spoon and fork, place them so that they meet top and bottom—i.e. let the bowl of the spoon meet the end of the handle of the fork, and the prongs of the fork meet the handle of the spoon; the same with a knife and fork. Do not put a spoon on the preserve glass, but at the side; the same with a butter knife.
To each person at the breakfast table there ought to be, in addition to the usual plate, an extra one, very small, for eggs. In buying a breakfast service, it is better to get more plates and dishes than are usually sold with a set, otherwise the cook is fond of sending up dinner plates and dishes, which make an ugly conglomeration. When it is time to remove the breakfast things, whether it is done by the cook, parlour-maid, or man-servant, it is a most painful ordeal to a methodical mistress unless she teaches them how to do it. A tin tray, not too clean underneath, popped down on the white damask cloth, and everything put upon it promiscuously, plates upon plates with forks and knives left in them, others ditto on the top of that, silver mixed up with knives, delicate glass butter-dishes smashed in among bacon dishes, &c.
Now for the proper method—a much easier one in the end, both as regards the comfort of any one sitting in the room, and of the servant when she deposits the things in the pantry. First take away the silver; take the slop basin in your left hand, and go round the table and put into it each dirty teaspoon, fork, eggspoon, and tablespoon, and put the slop basin on the tray, which should be on a table outside the door. On the same tray put every other silver article except the urn, and carry down this tray and leave it, and bring up another. Then remove the urn; then on the tray take down bread, meat, and dirty dishes, and take the large plate that the toast rack has stood on, and place on it every dirty knife, placing the handles in the plate, which makes less rattling. Then collect plates neatly in piles, and all the saucers in piles, the cups two together, and you will see how much less room they occupy. When the last tray has been removed, bring up your dust shovel and brush, your hearth brush, crumb brush, or towel and a duster. Brush the cloth free from crumbs, and fold it up on the table; also the sideboard cloth, in their exact folds. Leave them on the table and brush up the hearth, brush up the crumbs under the table, and dust the top of the sideboard and mantelpiece, arrange the chairs, and, if allowed, open the window to get rid of the odours of breakfast, and you thus leave the room neat and ready for morning occupation.
A servant can be trained to do all this in ¼ hour from the time she enters the room until the dusting is finished. When she goes into the pantry to wash up, instead of finding everything mixed up, and thus leading to a general washing up of greasy plates and silver spoons in one greasy water, she ought first to wipe the knives, and put them away ready for cleaning, and thus secure them from lying about getting splashed over and rusted. Then all the china should be washed up, first in warm water and soap—no soda, as soda eats away the glaze and the pattern—and then rinsed in cold water, and put away in their places. The eatables ought never to be taken into the pantry at all, but placed at once in the larder—the bread in the breadpan, and the meat on larder dishes, not dining-room dishes left in the larder. The silver ought to be washed up in a quite separate tub, and if servants would only wash up silver in a proper manner, very little plate cleaning would be required. It makes one shudder to see and hear heaps of silver being tumbled higgledy-piggledy into a tub, and when it has been roughly banged about and gloriously scratched, it is equally roughly tumbled out again and left to drain, the very thing that ought not to be done. In washing up silver, take each article singly, wash it well in hot water and plenty of soap; when it is washed leave itin the water, and go on in this way until all is washed. A very good mixture for washing silver in is a lump of soft soap and a lump of whiting put into hot water, and beaten up to a lather with an egg whisk. The great secret in making silver look well is the way in which you dry it. Take each thing out separately, leaving the others in the water; dry it as dry as a bone; dry it as if your glass cloth or plate cloth were a polishing leather, and do not put it down as finished until it is quite hot with friction. This simple rule is sufficient to make silver always ready for table.
You require two cloths, one for the first wet, the other to finish with; but remember to finish off each thing thoroughly at once. If you leave silver to drain, or half finished, there is always a film and a stickiness about it. Before the servant commences any washing up, she ought to put the tablecloth and sideboard cloth in the screw press. If you leave any crumbs in a cloth, they stain it, and 2 or 3 washings will sometimes not remove the stain. In addition to your screw press, have 2 deal boards with spliced ends, and beautifully smooth, and a shade smaller than your press. Lay your cloths between these boards, and it keeps them clean. Take the boards out each time, and after breakfast put the breakfast cloth at the bottom, and the luncheon cloth at the top. Once a week have these boards scrubbed, and your cloths will always be clean.
A great addition to a breakfast table is stewed fruit; it not only looks pretty, and gives an air of refinement to the table, but it is really necessary for health. As the old Spanish proverb says: “Fruit is medicine in the morning, food at noon, and poison at night”; and another version says: “It is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night.” We do not eat half enough fruit in England, and fruit is much dearer than it ought to be. With proper management a lady can lay in every Saturday a week’s store of fruit—not, of course, the small summer fruits, which must be bought daily. But apples and pears for stewing will keep both before and after cooking, and there are prunes, oranges, melons, all of which are most excellent and wholesome if eaten early in the morning.
Luncheon.—The luncheon table is never 2 days alike, and it is a meal that perhaps is the prettiest of the 3, and certainly calls for taste and management. The proper way to lay the different places for people and the way to arrange the silver and knives on the sideboard is always the same, but the disposition of dishes is almost each day different. For the sideboard, let it be stiffly laid, but of a different stiffness from a sideboard for breakfast. Instead of arranging small knives and forks tightly on each side of the plates as for breakfast, they must be spread out, but straight and stiff. Place in even rows a few tablespoons, dessert spoons and forks, also small knives. Knives ought never to appear on the sideboard for a late dinner, but for breakfast and lunch, because the family wait on themselves at these meals.
Some large and some small plates ought to be put in piles, the former separate from the latter. Sufficient small plates ought to be put for the different sweets and for cheese. The fashion that has of late prevailed of having only large plates, is better omitted than observed, like many other fashions; taste and suitability ought to be the guides and the reasons for fashions. Unfortunately, the only reasons for adopting many fashions is merely because some one with a title has done it.
On the sideboard at luncheon there ought to be the bread trencher, but it is quite wrong to put it for dinner. On the sideboard ought also to be any cold meat, for which there may not be room on the table. A butler’s tray and stand are not necessary or suitable for breakfast or luncheon, especially where there is a dinner waggon and side table.
The first thing in laying your lunch table, is to make it as pretty as you can; and sifted sugar in a coloured basket, wine, fruit, sweets, and rather fanciful glass, all being put on from the beginning, make a lunch table a very pretty sight. With regard to the laying of the table; for lunch put for each person a large and small knife, and 2 large and 1 small forks, and a dessertspoon. You may either place the dessertspoonbetween the large knife and the small knife, and the small fork between the two large ones, taking care that the end of each handle is even, and an inch off the edge of the table, or you may put the dessert spoon and fork in front of each plate, making the handle of the spoon even with the prongs of the forks. It is quite wrong to put a dessert spoon and fork on the table for a late dinner, because at dinner we are properly waited on; and therefore where it would be bad style to place them for dinner, it is equally out of taste and common sense not to place them for luncheon. It is quite correct to place casters on the table for lunch, either in the middle, or, if small ones, at the corners, or on each side of the centre of the table. Flowers being generally in the middle, the table must be arranged accordingly.
With regard to the way of placing tablespoons, every servant and every mistress has a different way; but the best style, if you have the room, is to let the saltcellars be on a line with the top of the large silver forks, and as far from the edge of the table as the length of the handle of a large silver fork. Then place your tablespoons on each side of the saltcellar, so that the bowls of the spoons are clear of the saltcellar; and thus the handles can be closer together, for compactness in every detail is the very foundation of good service at table. It is not of any great moment if the tablespoons are put at cross corners or not; and sometimes to put them across the corner is a convenience, especially for a lunch table; but, if they are put across corners, then one spoon should be turned one way, and the other another way. If they are arranged the first way, then the water bottles should stand just off the tip of the inside spoon, a little towards the inside of the table. The salt ought to be moulded out of a wineglass. If the spoons and salt are arranged the latter-mentioned way, then the water bottles should be placed in front of the middle part of the inside tablespoon. Meat and vegetables and cold sweets are all put on together at luncheon.
Sometimes servants do not wait at all at lunch, but the more general way is, after the bell or gong has sounded, to come in to remove the covers, and sometimes to hand round the first plates and vegetables; but, unless there are young children, the middle course is best—that the servant should follow the family into the room, remove the covers, and depart. Every one prefers waiting on himself at luncheon, as chatty gossip is more usual than at dinner; and besides, the servants cannot dine at 12.30, unless there is a full establishment, and the luncheon hour of the family is in 9 families out of 10 the dinner hour of the servants, and it is our bounden duty to them to give them peace and rest at their dinner-time.
Unless there is a hot pudding that will spoil, if not served just when it is wanted, there is no need to ring the bell until lunch is finished; and a thoughtful woman will order luncheon with a regard to her servants not having to be rung up.
For lunch, tumblers as well as wineglasses ought to be placed for each person. It is quite wrong to place tumblers for the late dinner on the table, but at lunch it is quite right, because there is no waiting. The wineglasses, either 2 or 3, should be grouped close together, the tallest a little from the right side of the tip of the large knife, and the tumbler below the wineglasses.
The wine decanters for lunch ought to be quarts, and, if possible, placed on each side of the centre crease of the tablecloth, either behind the top dish or the bottom dish. If this is not possible on account of the varying rules for arranging the lunch table, then put them at the corners.
Sometimes for luncheon 2 water bottles are enough, and then cut cheese, or sifted sugar, or rolled butter, or preserves can be put at cross corners opposite the water bottles. Ale, either in a jug, or bottled ale, can be placed on the sideboard; and it is not at all the wrong thing to place it on the table, for ale jugs can be very ornamental, and, if it is bottled beer, the cork ought to be drawn if it is the habit of the family to drink beer; an ornamental cork should be put in, and the bottle placed in a silver hock-stand, either on the sideboard or the table. An ale bottle ought to be washed beforedrawing it, so should a claret bottle, or any other bottle that is not to be decanted, champagne included.
In pouring out bottled ale, if you will only rest it on the edge of the tumbler where the last rib of the neck of the bottle is, and keep it straight, not tilting it, except in the most gradual way, there would be a proper supply of drinkable ale in the tumbler, and not all froth.
Before laying the lunch table the servant ought to prepare the room, by making up the fire, sweeping up the hearth, and dusting the mantelpiece and sideboard. This ought to be done before the parlour-maid or man-servant dresses for lunch. There is a habit in many families of using the dining room in the morning, but it does look so unrefined to sit down to meals with newspapers, books, workboxes, and writing materials scattered about on chairs and side tables. When luncheon time arrives all such things should be removed, either to a morning room or the back dining room, and put in their proper places.
After washing up the breakfast things the servant ought to prepare for lunch, by setting on a tray everything needed for the table, and also the knives ought to be cleaned, both for the early and late dinner. The French way of cleaning knives is excellent. Wipe the dirty knives clean, not by washing, but with a piece of paper, then lay the knife on a knifeboard, and take a cork and dip the end of it in emery powder, and rub it well up and down the blade with this, and then wipe clean.
Where there are young children whose dinner is at lunch time, the arrangements must of course be different. These arrangements depend so entirely on the numbers in the household, and the ages of the children, that no decided rules can be laid down. But in every case an early dinner ought always to be laid luncheon fashion, as otherwise it can never be laid prettily. What can be more bare and ungraceful than an early dinner laid in most respects as a dinner, yet with none of the accessories that make either lunch or dinner pretty. If the children are very young they require waiting on; but for older school-room children who, with their governess, have dinner at lunch time, unless there is a sufficient staff of servants, waiting is not necessary.
Sometimes it is necessary that hot puddings should come up after lunch has been half finished, and in bringing the pudding, and removing other things, of course a little rearrangement of the table is required. Supposing, too, that the meat was to go down to the kitchen as soon as every one is helped, then the servant should not leave the place vacant that the meat has occupied, but rearrange the dishes so that some other fills its place before she leaves the room.
In taking away the things after lunch is finished, there should be a proper order observed. All silver articles should be kept separate, and the double basket should be brought in, to remove the knives and forks properly, putting each by themselves on each side of the division. After everything is removed, the crumbs ought to be swept up, the carving chairs pushed close up to the table, all the other chairs put in their places, and the window opened. A servant ought to be taught that it is disrespectful to keep a room in a disorderly and unfinished condition, by taking away in a dawdling and unmethodical fashion. Before the last trayful is taken down to the pantry, leave it outside, and return to sweep up the crumbs and finish the room.
It is very good for young people to wait on themselves and their elders at the early dinner, and this can be done without any undue disturbing of their hungry young selves. A good way is to let them take turns day by day to change the plates, and they should be taught not to put the plates upon each other without removing the knife and fork on each, and placing them gently, and without soiling their fingers, in the double basket, which ought to be in the room, as well as the basket for dirty plates.
A butler’s tray is not necessary for luncheon.
Fresh fruit is a great ornament on the lunch table, or on the sideboard, and thedessert plates should be placed there in a pile, or on the dinner waggon, with the silver knives and forks stiffly placed on each side of the plates, and close together. No finger glasses or d’oyleys are used at lunch.
Dinner.—The dining room ought to be the right heat by attending to the fire at 4 o’clock in the afternoon through the winter, or by letting it out if the room is over the kitchen. The intelligent care of the dining-room fire evinced by so many servants in throwing some black coals on just as dinner is ready, is too delightful. If the under bar is well raked out at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, or 5 according to the dinner hour, and well but moderately made up with first a layer of coke, and then coal, the fire will be what it ought to be when the time comes to lay the cloth. Then before bringing in the cloth or anything else for the table, stir the fire, sweep the bars and grate, and dust the mantelpiece, sideboard, and dinner waggon. This is a rule very much neglected by servants, both before luncheon and dinner, but it is a most necessary one, for it is really a dirty trick to throw the tablecloth, sideboard cloth, &c., on a sideboard covered with dust, and an undusted mantelpiece and ornaments on it are unsightly.
The laying of the table for dinner should not be put off, as it so often is, until the servant has barely time to scramble through it; this applies also to all the meals, and there should always be a comfortable margin of time left, so that a servant can wash her hands, and change her apron and cuffs and collar, or a footman make a suitable freshening of himself for waiting at table. To prepare properly in the butler’s pantry is the great secret for a methodical and well-trained manner of laying a dinner table. Not one tray, but two or three if necessary must first be prepared, so that every requisite for the table is brought up before the servant commences to lay the cloth. Silver, knives, glass, cold plates, water bottles, cheese, butter, bread, dessert, finger glasses, &c., ought all to be prepared, and put into the dining room before commencing to lay the cloth. Either in laying a table or in cleaning a room, a well-bred servant ought to shut herself up in the room in which she is busy, surrounded with all her tools.
Before beginning to lay a cloth, a large clean apron ought to be tied on, whether it be a man or a woman servant, so that the dress does not soil the cloth. The thicker the under-cloth the better the white cloth looks. Have your white cloth most exactly in the centre, so that the side folds are at equal distances from the edge of the table, and smooth and stroke and pull your cloth well before you place anything on it. (Wash your hands well before beginning.) Then to each person put 2 large knives and 2 large silver forks, both to be an inch from the edge of the table, and the handles close together and perfectly even. At the top, just to the right of the end of the outside large knife, put your tallest and largest wineglass, and then group the others below, but always slanting a little towards the right, and close together. Unless you place them in this manner, it would inconvenience the person using them. Place sherry, hock, claret, and champagne glasses in this way. Of course this is an extreme of wineglasses, but these are the wines drunk during dinner. Generally for every-day use sherry and claret are sufficient, or sherry, hock, and claret, and if there is champagne, hock may not be needed. Do not put any tumblers on the table for a late dinner, nor any port-wine glasses. Unless there is a good staff of servants, you must lay your table for a dish of each course to be placed at the bottom o£ the table. To attempt to have everything carved at a side table, unless you can do it properly, is simply vulgar pretension. The table can be laid prettily with fruit and flowers, and yet have the soup, then the fish, then the joint placed at the bottom.
If, when there is only one servant to wait at table, the carving is done by her at a side table, either the first person she helps must wait for vegetables, sauce, &c., while she is carving for others, or they must wait for their fish or meat. The sideboard for the late dinner must be laid fancifully and prettily, and with such a disposition of the tallest articles, that all the rest are shown to good effect. No knives should be seen, all should be silver and glass. Never turn a tumbler or a wineglass upside down inarranging a sideboard or a table—it is a vulgarity. At an hotel or restaurant it is reasonable to do so, where tables are really laid for hours, as it keeps out the dust; and on the washing-stand of a bedroom it is proper to turn medicine glasses and tumblers upside down for the same reason, but not in preparing meals in a private house, where the glasses are going to be immediately used. Neither should any spoon or fork be turned upside down, only saltspoons, because otherwise they would not lie on the top of the saltcellars. Arrange on the sideboard dessert spoons and forks, some large spoons and forks, sauce ladles, gravy spoon, fish slice—in short, all of silver that will be required during the different courses. Lay them out in a tasty manner, not too straggling, never in bundles as you would keep them in a plate basket. This is only admissible when there is a large dinner or ball supper, and then you must of course have a reserve in bundles, in addition to those you lay out ornamentally.
In laying the table do not place a soup ladle, a gravy spoon, and a fish slice, or fish knife and fork altogether at the bottom of the table, as so many servants do. Keep the fish knife and the gravy spoon on the sideboard until they are wanted. It is quite right to place the carving knife and fork from the beginning at the bottom of the table, it is then ready, and yet does not make a confusion; in fact it would make more of a confusion if you were to place it only when it was wanted; but remember in laying them to let the bottom of their handles correspond exactly with the bottom of the handles of the two large knives, and let the ends lie on the knife rests. Put 4 saltcellars, one at each corner, or a small one to each person as the custom of the family may be. Place the tablespoons on each side of the saltcellars, so that the handles are in a line; and if you prefer to place your tablespoons straight, let the saltcellars be on a line with the ends of the large knives, but if you prefer to put your tablespoons at cross corners, they ought to be nearer to the edge of the table. If you place the tablespoons straight, the water bottles ought to stand off a little from the tip of the inside tablespoon. If the tablespoons are at cross corners the water bottles must stand across the middle of the inside tablespoon, and in this case you may turn the handle of one tablespoon one way, and that of the other spoon the other way; but when you place them straight, it is better style to have both handles in a row. You may either place 4 water bottles, or 2 water bottles and 2 pint decanters of dinner sherry, letting them correspond at cross corners. Pint decanters have gone very much out of fashion, in these days of handing everything, but they look pretty and cosy. As a guide how far apart you should place the knives and forks for each person, put a plate down between; the edges of a large plate should go over the knives and forks, a small plate should not. Salt ought to be moulded in a little hillock, either out of a small china eggcup, or a wineglass that has lost its stem, and then turned out into the saltcellar. Remember to place knife rests. The butler’s tray is a very ugly object unless a clean tray cloth is put over it; but it is a very necessary relief to the sideboard, as it holds the pudding and cheese plates, knives, and cheese, which ought all to be arranged there during the laying of the cloth, and room left for 2 vegetable dishes—if the family is small; if not, a large side table is needed. The dinner waggon should only be used for dessert plates, and such dessert dishes as cannot be put on the table until dinner is over. Wines for dessert ought also to be placed in the dinner waggon. Each dessert plate ought to be arranged quite ready for placing, with its d’oyley, finger glass, knife, fork, and spoon. The finger glass ought not to be even half full of water. If dessert plates are used without a d’oyley or a finger glass, then place your dessert knife and fork handles on the plates, and let the points go over the plate; this prevents their falling or straggling. The arrangement of the dessert ought always to be the care of the mistress, unless she has a housekeeper, and even then it requires her supervision. It is a thing that requires a lady’s taste and touch. Each day the dishes require wiping, the papers rearranging; and once a week, at least, the dishes want washing. Nothing is worse than to see an old dessert from yesterday put on the table without to-day’s restoration; better gowithout. Nothing is better than a pretty and fresh dessert paper. For strawberries or any of the small summer fruits that stain in the helping, it is better taste to place them on the bare dish, unless you use the leaves that belong to the fruit; but do not use too many, and be sure to wash them. Never use artificial leaves or flowers to decorate dessert; in fact, never use flowers at all to decorate fruit, it is not true taste. For all winter and dried fruits dessert papers are best, also for biscuits and cake. Do not overload any dessert dish, and never put out ginger either wet or dry, or guava, &c., on a dessert dish, but on a small glass one, and place this on the dish, with a dessert paper under.
Small crystallised fruits are pretty arranged in ornamental paper cups especially made for dessert. Fill each with a different kind, and by leaning them against each other you can make a sort of pyramid. If only one dish of meat is put on at each course, a water dessert jug and goblets can be placed at the top of the table. It is impossible to give more detailed directions as to how the dessert dishes should be arranged on the table, only taking care there be not too many dishes. If the door of the dining room is farthest from the head of the table, let your tallest ornaments be near the head of the table. If you have occasion to bring in any odd chairs for a dinner or supper, do not put them on the side of the table opposite the door. If these two last hints are remembered, you do not spoil the general effect.
After removing the meat course, and all that belongs to it, remembering to turn out also the plates, so that the cook can be going on with her washing-up, return to the room, and shut the door.
If there is a tart, go to the sideboard, and place on a tray 2 clean knife rests, and a knife and fork—the latter, of course, to be silver. Place these to the right and left of your master, the handles an inch from the edge of the table; then put a tablespoon to the right of where the tart dish will be,notby the side of the knife. Look round, and remove unsightly articles, such as tumblers that have been used for beer, and remove also any large knives that have not been used during the meat course; also put the saltcellars in their places, and water bottles. These little matters are easily and quickly done, and give a much more suitable and refined appearance to the dinner table for the serving of the sweets; for, naturally, the table gets a little disordered during the meat course from people using salt, mustard, cayenne, water, &c.
However small the article may be, always bring it to the table on a tray, or take it off in the same way. Now bring in and place before your master the tart or pudding and put the other sweets on the side table. Take in your right hand the sugar basin, and hold a pudding plate in your left. If your master puts the first helping on the plate that is before him, then the one you have in your hand does to replace it, and if there is only one servant waiting, of course this is the best way, but if two are waiting, then one can always hold a plate for a helping to be put on it. If two servants are waiting, the second follows with the sugar and sauce, if the latter be needed. When every one has had pudding or tart, remove it before handing the other sweets, or, if it is merely an every-day family dinner, you may hand the sweets to those that refuse pudding. As you remove a pudding plate that has been used, replace it with a clean one, with a fork upon it, with the handle on the plate and the prongs over the edge to keep it steady. Then hand the other sweets, holding the dishes with your hand underneath and very firm. If it should be jelly, blancmange, or cream, a tablespoon is sufficient, but for pastry a large fork as well as a spoon is needed. In handing entrées or sweets that require cutting, the first cutting should be done by the servant at the sideboard before she hands the dish. In dishing sweets, never decorate them either with flowers or anything else, except their own cooking belongings. It is very bad taste simply because it is without any reason. A glass dish set in a silver one is the best, with a fringed d’oyley between, barely showing, but just enough to prevent a hard look. If there are not any silver dishes, then hand the glass dish by itself. Inexperiencedservants commit the mistake of offering sweets to people who have already some of another kind on their plate. You must wait, and give a clean and separate plate for each sweet. Not only is it better taste and style, but your own sense will tell you that one sweet will spoil another, if eaten together. If there is game, it comes in before the sweets, and without any vegetables. In the case of a game course following the entrée and meat course, do not trouble to rearrange the table so exactly as before the sweet course, but still, a sharp natty servant will always give some touches before each. The bread-sauce ought to be in one tureen and the gravy in another, if it is game that requires gravy, and the breadcrumbs should be handed on a flat dish, as you would cut toast for soup. To all game hand cayenne pepper but no sauces, as the game flavour would be destroyed. If the game should be wild duck, it ought to be dished quite dry, and, as soon as you have placed it before your master, place by his side a cut lemon, cayenne pepper, and the sauce, which should be poured over the breast after it has been cut. In the same way, if, at the meat course the dish should be a fore-quarter of lamb, you must place by the side some butter, lemon, and cayenne pepper, and you must have ready in your hand a small dish on which to receive the shoulder when it is removed. The lemon, butter, and cayenne should be put in between the shoulder and the ribs after it is cut and before removing the former.
Another hint for beefsteak puddings, if that dish should happen to represent the meat course. Have a hot-water jug, with boiling water; place it by the side on a little china stand. The pudding should be carved by cutting a round out of the top, and then pour plenty of the boiling water in; make an incision at the bottom of the pudding, and rich gravy will rush out; take a tablespoon, and ladle it into the pudding several times. This by no means impoverishes the pudding, but improves it, especially if there are kidneys in it.
To prepare for the cheese course. Remove everything belonging to the sweet course, and then return to the room, and shut the door. There is so much less rule observed nowadays, and so much more carelessness indulged in, that the proper rules will soon be lost sight of, and there is not one house in 20 where one sees the cheese course properly done. The proper rule is this—before cheese is brought in everything should be removed, except water and salt—because these are the only things that are required with cheese, so far as the things on the table are concerned. The port wine and ale are on the sideboard, and so are the tumblers and wineglasses in which they ought to be handed. As you remove the dirty pudding plates, replace them with cheese plates, with a small knife and fork on each, with the handles resting in the plate. Never place a cheese plate with only a knife. Half the reason why it is popularly supposed to be unladylike to eat cheese, is that it has been so generally eaten with only a knife, and this is done away with if a silver fork is used. In fact a fork is sufficient without a knife. If two servants are waiting, the second holds the tray while the other places everything on it; but if there is only one, she has to use a smaller tray, and then it is a better method to remove all the silver together, and then all the glass. If any one has used a tumbler to drink water out of during dinner, do not remove it, but leave it for the same use during cheese. There are many ways of handing cheese, the most refined being to hand it, cut in squares from which the rind has been removed, on a round glass dish or small tazza, and some rolled butter on another; or it may be handed in a china dish with 3 divisions—for butter, for biscuits, and for cheese. This latter is the more convenient where there is only one servant. But many people like to have the cheese placed on the table when they are alone; and in that case you must place your cheese scoop or knife ready to the right before you place the cheese on the table, and remember to bring it on a tray. If the cheese is put on the table, you must stand at your master’s left side with a spare cheese plate in your hand. Several squares of cheese are cut, and you must place on this a small silver fork, and hand it round to each person, as you would a dish, and each takes a piece on to their own plate with the fork. Then hand bread, or biscuits,or oat cake, or pulled bread, and butter. Then go to the sideboard and pour out, in a port-wine glass, some port wine, not to the brim, and 2 tumblers of ale. (This is supposing that there are 3 gentlemen at the table.) Hand these on a small round tray; if a gentleman takes the port wine, return to the sideboard with your tray and pour out another glass, and hand with the ale.
Now remove the cheese course, but if cheese straws or cheese pudding or cheese soufflé are eaten instead of plain cheese, you must observe the same rules, the only thing you have to remember is to hand cayenne with these.
There is only one proper way to wait at table, and the foundation of good waiting is, that there is a reason and a suitableness in every rule, there is also a graceful simplicity in good waiting. And by clearing as you go, which is the key-note of all these directions, it is a help to every one. Firstly, the family comfort and refinement are more attended to, the cook gets her dishes and plates, and has not a general descent upon her of greasy things, muddled up with others, and the things can be taken to the butler’s pantry in a more methodical manner.
Having a proper table in the hall for placing dishes on greatly facilitates their removal down stairs. A flap table with strong supports is the best for a narrow hall, or a trestle table, which should not be put out until the first course has begun.
Now, to prepare for dessert. Having followed the rules, you will find there is very little left to remove. Having cleared the table, remove the slip cloth from the bottom, and take all the crumbs away. A scraper with a handle is best, as a brush is not often enough washed; always use a pudding plate—a clean one, of course—to scrape the crumbs into. First bring a fork to take away the pieces of bread with, and then scrape the cloth very carefully, for nothing stains damask more than breadcrumbs, if the cloth is screwed down in a press with crumbs left in it. Never bring a dessert plate to the table until you have quite cleared it of crumbs. Spread out your dessert dishes, and fill up the spaces with others, that you have kept on the dinner waggon. After you have placed spoons to the right of each dish, place to each person the proper wineglasses, and lastly, the wine, before your master, and if you have used other decanters during dinner, the dessert decanters are nice and bright. See that the sifted sugar basin that has been used at the pudding course is wiped, and the sifter clean before putting it on the table.
Where there is only a house and parlour maid, it is absurd to expect her to hand the dessert dishes; and even if two are waiting, it is rather a bore in every-day life. It is kinder to the servants to let them go to their washing-up, and pleasanter to oneself to be without them.
One of the untidy customs of nowadays is to leave the sideboard half-cleared, and for the servants to withdraw, leaving many things about there that have nothing to do with dessert, and which had much better be cleared away and put in their proper places, including the sideboard cloth, while the family are at dessert.
As soon as the servants have left the room, the fire in the drawing-room ought to be attended to if it is winter, and any little touches the room requires; and before the lady of the house leaves the dining room it is a good plan to ring the bell, as a hint to the cook to look to the coffee, which should either be brought in when the drawing-room bell rings, or at a regular hour. (II. Burleigh.)
Folding Serviettes.—A few examples only are given. Those wishing for more are referred to the ‘Book of Dinner Serviettes,’ published at theQueenoffice.