Champagne Cup: One pint bottle of soda water, one quart dry champagne, one wine-glass of brandy, a few fresh strawberries, a peach quartered, sugar to taste; cracked ice.Another recipe: One quart dry champagne, one pint bottle of Rhine wine, fruit and ice as above; cracked ice. Mix in a large pitcher.Claret Cup: One bottle of claret, one pint bottle of soda water, one wine-glass brandy, half a wine-glass of lemon-juice, half a pound of lump sugar, a few slices of fresh cucumber; mix in cracked ice.Mint Julep: Fresh mint, a few drops of orange bitters and Maraschino, a small glass of liqueur, brandy or whiskey, put in a tumbler half full of broken ice; shake well, and serve with fruit on top with straws.Another recipe for Mint Julep: Half a glass of port wine, a few drops of Maraschino, mint, sugar, a thin slice of lemon, shake the cracked ice from glass to glass, add strawberry or pineapple.Turkish Sherbets: Extract by pressure or infusion the rich juice and fine perfume of any of the odouriferous flowers or fruits; mix them in any number or quantity to taste. When these essences, extracts, or infusions are prepared they may be immediately used by adding a proper proportion of sugar or syrup; and water. Some acid fruits, such as lemon or pomegranate, are used to raise the flavour, but not to overpower the chief perfume. Fill the cup with cracked ice and add what wine or spirit is preferred.Claret Cobbler: One bottle wine, one bottle Apollinaris or Seltzer, one lemon, half a pound of sugar; serve with ice.Champagne Cobbler: One bottle of champagne, one half bottle of white wine, much cracked ice, strawberries, peaches or sliced oranges.Sherry Cobbler: Full wine-glass of sherry, very little brandy, sugar, sliced lemon, cracked ice. This is but one tumblerful.Kümmel: This liqueur is very good served with shaved ice in small green claret-cups.Punch: One bottle Arrack, one bottle brandy, two quart bottles dry champagne, one tumblerful of orange curaçoa, one pound of cracked sugar, half a dozen lemons sliced, half a dozen oranges sliced. Fill the bowl with large lump of ice and add one quart of water.Shandygaff: London porter and ginger ale, half and half.
Champagne Cup: One pint bottle of soda water, one quart dry champagne, one wine-glass of brandy, a few fresh strawberries, a peach quartered, sugar to taste; cracked ice.
Another recipe: One quart dry champagne, one pint bottle of Rhine wine, fruit and ice as above; cracked ice. Mix in a large pitcher.
Claret Cup: One bottle of claret, one pint bottle of soda water, one wine-glass brandy, half a wine-glass of lemon-juice, half a pound of lump sugar, a few slices of fresh cucumber; mix in cracked ice.
Mint Julep: Fresh mint, a few drops of orange bitters and Maraschino, a small glass of liqueur, brandy or whiskey, put in a tumbler half full of broken ice; shake well, and serve with fruit on top with straws.
Another recipe for Mint Julep: Half a glass of port wine, a few drops of Maraschino, mint, sugar, a thin slice of lemon, shake the cracked ice from glass to glass, add strawberry or pineapple.
Turkish Sherbets: Extract by pressure or infusion the rich juice and fine perfume of any of the odouriferous flowers or fruits; mix them in any number or quantity to taste. When these essences, extracts, or infusions are prepared they may be immediately used by adding a proper proportion of sugar or syrup; and water. Some acid fruits, such as lemon or pomegranate, are used to raise the flavour, but not to overpower the chief perfume. Fill the cup with cracked ice and add what wine or spirit is preferred.
Claret Cobbler: One bottle wine, one bottle Apollinaris or Seltzer, one lemon, half a pound of sugar; serve with ice.
Champagne Cobbler: One bottle of champagne, one half bottle of white wine, much cracked ice, strawberries, peaches or sliced oranges.
Sherry Cobbler: Full wine-glass of sherry, very little brandy, sugar, sliced lemon, cracked ice. This is but one tumblerful.
Kümmel: This liqueur is very good served with shaved ice in small green claret-cups.
Punch: One bottle Arrack, one bottle brandy, two quart bottles dry champagne, one tumblerful of orange curaçoa, one pound of cracked sugar, half a dozen lemons sliced, half a dozen oranges sliced. Fill the bowl with large lump of ice and add one quart of water.
Shandygaff: London porter and ginger ale, half and half.
"And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urnThrows up a steamy column, and the cupsThat cheer but not inebriate wait on each,So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
"And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urnThrows up a steamy column, and the cupsThat cheer but not inebriate wait on each,So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
"And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urnThrows up a steamy column, and the cupsThat cheer but not inebriate wait on each,So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
"And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
Whatever objections can be urged against all other systems of entertaining, including the expense, the bore it is to a gentleman to have his house turned inside out, the fatigue to the lady, the disorganization of domestic service, nothing can be said against afternoon tea, unless that it may lead to a new disease, thedelirium teamens. There is danger to nervous women in our climate in too great indulgence in this delicious beverage. It sometimes murders sleep and impairs digestion. We cannot claim that it is always safer than opium. It was very much abused in England in 1678, ten years after Lords Arlington and Ossory brought it over from the meditative Dutchman, who was the first European to appreciate it. It was then called a "black water with an acrid taste." It cost, however, in England sixty shillings a pound, so that it must have been fashionable. Pepys in his diary records that he sent for a cup of tea, a "China drink which he had not used before." He did not like it, but then he did not like the "Midsummer Night's Dream." "The most insipid, ridiculous play I ever saw in my life," he writes; so we do not care what he thought about a blessed cup of tea.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, with pasties and ale for breakfast, with sugared cakes and spiced wines at various hours of the day, with solid "noonings," and suppers with strong potations of sack and such possets as were the ordinary refreshments, it is not probable that tea would have been appreciated. The Dutch were crafty, however; they saw that there was a common need of a hot, rather stimulating beverage, which had no intoxicating effects. They exported sage enough to pay for the tea, and got the better of even the wily Chinaman, who avowed some time after, in their trade with America, "That spent tea-leaves, dried again, were good enough for second-chop Englishmen."
Jonas Haunay wrote a treatise against tea-drinking in Johnson's time, and that vast, insatiable, and shameless tea-drinker took up the cudgels for tea, settling it as a brain-inspirer for all time, and wrote Rasselas on the strength of it. Cobbett wrote against its use by the labouring classes, and the "Edinburgh Review" endorsed his arguments, stating that a "prohibition absolute and uncompromising of the noxious beverage was the first step toward insuring health and strength for the poor," and asserting that when a labourer fancied himself refreshed with a mess of this stuff, sweetened with the coarsest brown sugar and diluted by azure-blue milk, it was only the warmth of the water which consoled him for the moment. Cobbett claimed that the tea-table cost more to support than would keep two children at nurse.
The "Quarterly Review" in an article written perhaps by the most famous chemist of the day, said, however, that "tea relieves the pains of hunger rather by mechanical distention than by supplying the waste of nature by adequate sustenance," but claimed for it the power ofcalm, placid, and benignant exhilaration, greatly stimulating the stomach, when fatigued by digestive exertion, and acting as an appropriate diluent of the chyle. More recent inquiries into the qualities of the peculiar power of tea have tended to raise it in popular esteem, although no one has satisfactorily explainedwhyit has become so universally necessary to the human race.
An agreeable little book called "The Beverages We Indulge In," "The Herbs Which We Infuse," or some such title, had a great deal to do with the adoption of tea as a drink for young men who were training for a boat-race, or who desired to economize their strength for a mountain climb. But every one, from the tired washerwoman to the student, the wrestler, the fine lady, and the strong man, demands a cup of tea.
To the invalid it is the dearest solace, dangerous though it may be. Tannin, the astringent element in tea, is bad for delicate stomachs and seems to ruin appetite. Tea, therefore, should never be allowed to stand. Hot water poured on the leaves and poured off into a cup can hardly afford the tannin time to get out. Some tea-drinkers even put the grounds in a silver ball, perforated, and swing this through a cup of boiling water, and in this way is produced the most delicate cup of tea.
The famous Chinese lyric which is painted on almost all the teapots of the Empire is highly poetical. "On a slow fire set a tripod; fill it with clear rain-water. Boil it as long as it would be needed to turn fish white and lobsters red. Throw this upon the delicate leaves of choice tea; let it remain as long as the vapour rises in a cloud. At your ease drink the pure liquor, which will chase away the five causes of trouble."
The "tea of the cells of the Dragons," the purestPekoe from the leaf-buds of three-year-old plants, no one ever sees in Europe; but we have secured many brands of tea which are sufficiently good, and the famous Indian tea brought in by the great Exposition in Paris in 1889 is fast gaining an enviable reputation. It has a perfect bouquet and flavour. Green tea, beloved by our grandmothers and still a favourite with some connoisseurs, has proved to have so much theine, the element of intoxication in tea, that it is forbidden to nervous people. Tea saves food by its action in preventing various wastes to the system. It is thus peculiarly acceptable to elderly persons, and to the tired labouring-woman. Doubtless Mrs. Gamp's famous teapot with which she entertained Betsy Prig contained green tea.
There is an unusually large amount of nitrogen in theine, and green tea possesses so large a proportion of it as to be positively dangerous. In the process of drying and roasting, this volatile oil is engendered. The Chinese dare not use it for a year after the leaf has been prepared, and the packer and unpacker of the tea suffer much from paralysis. The tasters of tea become frequently great invalids, unable to eat; therefore our favourite herb has its dangers.
More consoling is the legend of the origin of the plant. A drowsy hermit, after long wrestling with sleep, cut off his eyelids and cast them on the ground. From them sprang a shrub whose leaves, shaped like eyelids and bordered with a fringe of lashes, possessed the power of warding off sleep. This was in the third century, and the plant was tea.
But what has all this to do with that pleasant visage of a steaming kettle boiling over a blazing alcohol lamp, the silver tea-caddy, the padded cozy to keep the teapotwarm, the basket of cake, the thin bread and butter, the pretty girl presiding over the cups, the delicate china, the more delicate infusion? All these elements go to make up the afternoon tea. From one or two ladies who stayed at home one day in the week and offered this refreshment, to the many who came to find that it was a very easy method of entertaining, grew the present party in the daytime. The original five o'clock tea arose in England from the fact that ladies and gentlemen after hunting required some slight refreshment before dressing for dinner, and liked to meet for a little chat. It now is used as the method of introducing a daughter, and an ordinary way of entertaining.
The primal idea was a good one. People who had no money for grand spreads were enabled to show to their more opulent neighbours that they too had the spirit of hospitality. The doctors discovered that tea was healthy. English breakfast tea would keep nobody awake. The cup of tea and the sandwich at five would spoil nobody's dinner. The ladies who began these entertainments, receiving modestly in plain dresses, were not out of tone with their guests who came in walking-dress.
But then the other side was this,—ladies had to go to nine teas of an afternoon, perhaps taste something everywhere. Hence the new disease,delirium teamens. It was uncomfortable to assist at a large party in a heavy winter garment of velvet and fur. The afternoon tea lost its primitive character and became an evening party in the daytime, with the hostess and her daughters in full dress, and her guests in walking-costume.
The sipping of so much tea produces the nervous prostration, the sleeplessness, the nameless misery of our overwrought women; and thus a healthful, inexpensiveand most agreeable adjunct to the art of entertaining grew into a thing without a name, and became the large, gas-lighted ball at five o'clock, where half the ladies were indecolletédresses, the others in fur tippets. It was pronounced a breeder of influenzas, and the high road to a headache.
If a lady can be at home every Thursday during the season, and always at her position behind the blazing urn, and will have the firmness to continue this practice, she may create asalonout of her teacups.
In giving a large afternoon tea for which cards have been sent out, the hostess should stand by the drawing-room door and greet each guest, who, after a few words, passes on. In the adjoining room, usually the dining-room, a large table is spread with a white cloth; and at one end is a tea service with a kettle of water boiling over an alcohol lamp, while at the other end is a service for chocolate. There should be flowers on the table, and dishes containing bread and butter cut as thin as a shaving. Cake and strawberries are always permissible. One or two servants should be in attendance to carry away soiled cups and saucers, and to keep the table looking fresh; but for the pouring of the tea and chocolate there should always be a lady, who like the hostess should wear a gown closed to the throat; for nothing is worse form now-a-days than full dress before dinner. The ladies of the house should not wear bonnets.
When tea is served every afternoon at five o'clock, whether or no there are visitors, as is often the case in many houses, the servant—who, if a woman, should always in the afternoon wear a plain black gown, with a white cap and apron—should place a small, low table before the lady of the house, and lay over it a prettywhite cloth. She should then bring in a large tray, upon which are the tea service, and a plate of bread and butter, or cake, or both, place it upon the table, and retire,—remaining within call, though out of sight, in case she should be needed. The best rule for making tea is the old-fashioned one: "one teaspoonful for each person and one for the pot." The pot should first be rinsed with hot water, then the tea put in, and upon it should be poured enough water, actually boiling, to cover the leaves. This decoction should stand for five minutes, then fill up the pot with more boiling water, and pour it immediately. Some persons prefer lemon in their tea to cream, and it is a good plan to have some thin slices, cut for the purpose, placed in a pretty little dish on the tray. A bowl of cracked ice is also a pleasant addition in summer, iced tea being a most refreshing drink in hot weather. Neither plates nor napkins need appear at this informal and cosey meal. A guest arriving at this time in the afternoon should always be offered a cup of tea.
Afternoon tea, in small cities or in the country, in villages and academic towns, can well be made a most agreeable and ideal entertainment, for the official presentation of a daughter or for the means of seeing one's friends. In the busy winter season of a large city it should not be made the excuse for giving up the evening party, or the dinner, lunch, or ball. It is not all these, it is simply itself, and it should be a refuge for those women who are tired of balls, of over dressing, dancing, visiting, and shopping. It is also very dear to the young who find the convenient tea-table a good arena for flirtation. It is a form of entertainment which allows one to dispense with etiquette and to save time.
Five-o'clock teas should be true to their name, nor should any other refreshment be offered than tea, bread and butter, and little cakes. If other eatables are offered the tea becomes a reception.
There is a high tea which takes the place of dinner on Sunday evenings in cities, which is a very pretty entertainment; in small rural cities, in the country, they take the place of dinners. They were formerly very fashionable in Philadelphia. It gave an opportunity to offer hot rolls and butter, escalloped oysters, fried chicken, delicately sliced cold ham, waffles and hot cakes, preserves—alas! since the days of canning, who offers the delicious preserves of the past? The hostess sits behind her silver urn and pours the hot tea or coffee or chocolate, and presses the guest to take another waffle. It is a delightful meal, and has no prototype in any country but our own.
It is doubtful, however, whether the high tea will ever be popular in America, in large cities at least, where the custom of seven-o'clock dinners prevails. People find in them a violent change of living, which is always a challenge to indigestion. Some wit has said that he always liked to eat hot mince-pie just before he went to bed, for then he always knew what hurt him. If anyone wishes to know what hurts him, he can take high tea on Sunday evening, after having dined all the week at seven o'clock. A pain in his chest will tell him that the hot waffle, the cold tongue, the peach preserve, and that "last cup of tea" meant mischief.
Oliver Cromwell is said to have been an early tea-drinker; so is Queen Elizabeth,—elaborate old teapots are sold in London with the cipher of both; but the report lacks confirmation. We cannot imagine Oliverdrinking anything but verjuice, nor the lion woman as sipping anything less strong than brown stout. Literature owes much to tea. From Cowper to Austin Dobson, the poets have had their fling at it. And what could the modern English novelist do without it? It has been in politics, as all remember who have seen Boston Harbor, and it goes into all the battles, and climbs Mt. Blanc and the Matterhorn. The French, who despised it, are beginning to make a good cup of tea, and Russia bathes in it. The Samovar cheers the long journeys across those dreary steppes, and forms again the most luxurious ornament of the palace. On all the high roads of Europe one can get a cup of tea, except in Spain. There it is next to impossible; the universal chocolate supersedes it. If one gets a cup of tea in Spain, there is no cream to put in it; and to many tea drinkers, tea is ruined without milk or cream.
In fact, the poor tea drinker is hard to please anywhere. There are to the critic only one or two houses of one's acquaintance where five o'clock tea is perfect.
"Lend me your ears."
"Lend me your ears."
"Lend me your ears."
"Lend me your ears."
"It has often perplexed me to imagine," writes Nathaniel Hawthorne, "how an Englishman will be able to reconcile himself to any future state of existence from which the earthly institution of dinner is excluded. The idea of dinner has so imbedded itself among his highest and deepest characteristics, so illuminated itself with intellect, and softened itself with the kindest emotions of his heart, so linked itself with Church and State, and grown so majestic with long hereditary custom and ceremonies, that by taking it utterly away, Death, instead of putting the final touch to his perfection, would leave him infinitely less complete than we have already known him. He could not be roundly happy. Paradise among all its enjoyments would lack one daily felicity in greater measure than London in the season."
No dinner would be worth the giving that had not one witty man or one witty woman to lift the conversation out of the commonplace. As many more agreeable people as one pleases, but one leader is absolutely necessary.
Not alone the funny man whom theenfant terriblesilenced by asking, "Mamma would like to know when you are going to begin to be funny," but those men whohave the rare art of being leaders without seeming to be, who amuse without your suspecting that you are being amused; for there never should be anything professional in dinner-table wit.
The dinner giver has often to feel that something has been left out of the group about the table; they will not talk! She has furnished them with food and wine, but can she amuse them? Her witty man and her witty woman are both engaged elsewhere,—they are apt to be,—and her room is too warm, perhaps. She determines that at the next dinner she will have some mechanical adjuncts, even an empirical remedy against dulness. She tries a dinner card with poetical quotations, conundrums, and so on. The Shakspeare Club of Philadelphia inaugurated this custom, and some very witty results followed:—
"Enter Froth" (before champagne)."What is thine age?" (Romeo and Juliet) brings in the Madeira.LOBSTER SALAD."Who hath created this indigest?"Pray you bid these unknown friends welcome, for it is a way to make us better friends.—Winter's Tale.ROAST TURKEY.See, here he comes swelling like a turkey cock.—Henry IV.YORK HAMS.Sweet stem from York's great stock.—Henry VI.TONGUE.Silence is only commendable in a neat's tongue dried—Merchant of Venice.BRAISED LAMB AND BEEF.What say you to a piece of lamb and mustard?—a dish that I do love to feed upon.—Taming of the Shrew.LOBSTER SALAD.Sallat was born to do me good.—Henry IV.
"Enter Froth" (before champagne)."What is thine age?" (Romeo and Juliet) brings in the Madeira.
LOBSTER SALAD."Who hath created this indigest?"
Pray you bid these unknown friends welcome, for it is a way to make us better friends.—Winter's Tale.
ROAST TURKEY.See, here he comes swelling like a turkey cock.—Henry IV.
YORK HAMS.Sweet stem from York's great stock.—Henry VI.
TONGUE.Silence is only commendable in a neat's tongue dried—Merchant of Venice.
BRAISED LAMB AND BEEF.What say you to a piece of lamb and mustard?—a dish that I do love to feed upon.—Taming of the Shrew.
LOBSTER SALAD.Sallat was born to do me good.—Henry IV.
And so on. The Bible affords others, well worth quoting:—
OYSTERS.He brought them up out of the sea.—Isaiah.And his mouth was opened immediately.—Lukei. 64.BEAN SOUP."Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils."FISH, STRIPED BASS.We remember the fish we did eat freely.—Numbers.These with many stripes.—Deuteronomy.STEINBERGER CABINET.Thou hast kept the good wine until now.—Johnii. 10.BOILED CAPON.Accept it always and in all places.—Acts xxiv. 3.PIGEON BRAISE.Pigeons such as he could get.—Leviticus.SUCCOTASH.They brought corn and beans.—Samuel.QUAIL LARDED.Even quail came.—Exodus.Abundantly moistened with fat.—Isaiah.LETTUCE SALAD.A pleasant plant, green before the sun.—Isaiah.Pour oil upon it, pure oil, olive.—Leviticus.Oil and salt, without prescribing how much.—Ezravii. 22.ICE CREAM.Ice like morsels.—Psalms.CHEESE.Carry these ten cheeses unto the captain.—Samuel.FRUITSAll kind of fruits.—Eccles.COFFEELast of all.—Matthewxxi. 37.They had made an end of eating.—Amosvii. 2.CIGARS.Am become like dust and ashes.—Jobxxx. 19.
OYSTERS.He brought them up out of the sea.—Isaiah.And his mouth was opened immediately.—Lukei. 64.
BEAN SOUP."Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils."
FISH, STRIPED BASS.We remember the fish we did eat freely.—Numbers.These with many stripes.—Deuteronomy.
STEINBERGER CABINET.Thou hast kept the good wine until now.—Johnii. 10.
BOILED CAPON.Accept it always and in all places.—Acts xxiv. 3.
PIGEON BRAISE.Pigeons such as he could get.—Leviticus.
SUCCOTASH.They brought corn and beans.—Samuel.
QUAIL LARDED.Even quail came.—Exodus.Abundantly moistened with fat.—Isaiah.
LETTUCE SALAD.A pleasant plant, green before the sun.—Isaiah.Pour oil upon it, pure oil, olive.—Leviticus.Oil and salt, without prescribing how much.—Ezravii. 22.
ICE CREAM.Ice like morsels.—Psalms.
CHEESE.Carry these ten cheeses unto the captain.—Samuel.
FRUITSAll kind of fruits.—Eccles.
COFFEELast of all.—Matthewxxi. 37.They had made an end of eating.—Amosvii. 2.
CIGARS.Am become like dust and ashes.—Jobxxx. 19.
And so on. Written conundrums are good stimulants to conversation, and dinner cards might be greatly historical, not too learned. A legend of the day, as Lady Day, or Michaelmas, is not a bad promoter of talk. Or one might allude to the calendar of dead kings and queens, or other celebrities, or ask your preferences, or quote something from a memoir, to find out that it is a birthday of Rossini or Goethe. All these might be written on a dinner card, and will open the flood gates of a frozen conversation.
Let each dinner giver weave a net out of the gossamer threads of her own thoughts. It will be the web of the Lady of Shalott, and will bid the shadows of pleasant memory to remain, not float "forever adown the river," even toward "towered Camelot" where they may be lost.
Some opulent dinner giver once made the dinner card the vehicle of a present, but this became rather burdensome. It was trying and embarrassing to carry the gifts home, and the poorer entertainer hesitated at the expense. The outlay had better come out of one's brain, and the piquing of curiosity with a contradiction like this take its place:—
"A lady gave me a gift which she had not,And I received the gift, which I took not,And if she take it back I grieve not."
"A lady gave me a gift which she had not,And I received the gift, which I took not,And if she take it back I grieve not."
"A lady gave me a gift which she had not,And I received the gift, which I took not,And if she take it back I grieve not."
"A lady gave me a gift which she had not,
And I received the gift, which I took not,
And if she take it back I grieve not."
But there is something more required to form the intellectual components of a dinner than these instruments to stimulate curiosity and give a fillip to thought. We must have variety.
Mrs. Jameson, the accomplished author of the "Legends of the Madonna" gives the following description of an out-of-door dinner, which should embolden the young American hostess to go and do likewise:—
"Yesterday we dinedal frescoin the Pamfili Gardens, in Rome, and although our party was rather too large, it was well assorted, and the day went off admirably. The queen of our feast was in high good humour and irresistibly charming, Frattino very fascinating, T. caustic and witty, W. lively and clever, J. mild, intelligent and elegant, V. as usual quiet, sensible, and self-complacent, L. as absurd and assiduous as ever.
"Everybody played their part well, each by a tacit convention sacrificing to theamour propreof his neighbour, each individual really occupied with his own peculiarrôle, but all apparently happy and mutually pleased. Vanity and selfishness, indifference andennuiwere veiled under a general mask of good humour and good breeding, and the flowery bonds of politeness and gallantry held together those who knew no common tie of thought or interest.
"Our luxurious dinner, washed down by a competent proportion of Malvoisie and champagne, was spread upon the grass, which was literally the flowery turf, being covered with violets, iris, and anemones of every dye.
"For my own peculiar taste there were too many servants, too many luxuries, too much fuss; but considering the style and number of our party, it was all consistently and admirably managed. The grouping of the company, picturesque because unpremeditated, the scenery around, the arcades and bowers and columns and fountains had an air altogether poetical and romantic, and put me in mind of some of Watteau's beautiful garden pieces."
Now in this exquisite description Mrs. Jameson seems to me to have given the intellectual components of a dinner. "The hostess, good-humoured and charming, Frattino very fascinating, T. caustic and witty, W. livelyand clever, J. mild, intelligent, and elegant, V. as usual quiet, sensible, and self-complacent, L. as absurd and as assiduous as ever."
There was variety for you, and the three last were undoubtedly listeners. In the next paragraph she covers more ground, and this is most important:—
"Each by a tacit convention sacrificing to theamour propreof his neighbour."
That is an immortal phrase, for there can be no pleasant dinner when this unselfishness is not shown. It was said by a witty Boston hostess that she could never invite two well-known diners-out to the same dinner, for each always silenced the other. You must not have too many good talkers. The listeners, the receptive listeners, should outnumber the talkers.
In England, the land of dinners, they have, of course, no end of public, semi-official, and annual dinners,—as those of the Royal Literary Fund, the Old Rugbians, the Artists Benevolent Fund, the Regimental dinners, the banquets at the Liberal and the Cobden Club, and the nice little dinners at the Star and Garter, winding up with the annual fish dinner.
Now of all these the most popular and sought after is the annual dinner of the Royal Academy. Few gratifications are more desired by mortals than an invitation to this dinner. The president, Sir Frederic Leighton, is handsome and popular. The dinner is representative in character; one or more members of the Royal Family are present; the Church, the Senate, the Bar, Medicine, Literature and Science, the Army, the Navy, the City,—all these have their representatives in the company.
Who would not say that this would be the most amusing dinner in London? Intellect at its highest watermark is present. Themenuis splendid. But I have heard one distinguished guest say that the thing is over-freighted, the ship is too full, and the crowd of good things makes a surfeit.
Dinners at the Lord Mayor's are said to be pleasant and fine specimens of civic cheer, but the grand nights at the Middle Temple and others of the Inns of Court are occasions of pleasant festivity.
We have nothing to do with these, however, except to read of them, and to draw our conclusions. I know of no better use to which we can put them than the same rereading which we gave Mrs. Jameson's well-consideredmenu: "Each individual really occupied with his ownrôle, but all apparently happy and mutually pleased. Variety and selfishness or indifference orennuiwell veiled under a general mask of good humour and good breeding, and the flowery bands of politeness and gallantry holding together those who knew no common tie of thought and interest." It requires very civilized people to veil their indifference andennuiunder a general mask of good humour.
To have unity, one must first have units; and to make an agreeable dinner-party the hostess should invite agreeable people, and her husband should be a good host; and here we must again compliment England. An Englishman is churlish and distant, self-conscious and prejudiced everywhere else but at his own table. He is a model host, and a most agreeable guest. He is the most genial of creatures after the soup and sherry. Indeed the English dinner is the keynote to all that is best in the English character. An Englishman wishes to eat in company.
How unlike the Spaniard, who never asks you to dinner.However courtly and hospitable he may be at other times and other hours of the day, he likes to drag his bone into a corner and gnaw it by himself.
The Frenchman, elegant,soigné, and economical, invites you to the best-cooked dinner in the world, but there is not much of it. He prefers to entertain you at a café. Country life in France is delightful, but there is not that luxurious, open-handed entertaining which obtains in England.
In Italy one is seldom admitted to the privacy of the family dinner. It is a patriarchal affair. But when one is admitted one finds much that issimpatica. The cookery is good, the service is perfect, the dinner is short, the conversation gay and easy.
In making up a dinner with a view to its intellectual components, avoid those tedious talkers who, having a theme, a system, or a fad to air, always contrive to drag the conversation around to their view, with the intention of concentrating the whole attention upon themselves. One such man, called appropriately the Bore Constrictor of conversation in a certain city, really drove people away from every house to which he was invited; for they grew tired of hearing him talk of that particular science in which he was an expert. Such a talker could make the planet Jupiter a bore, and if the talker were of the feminine gender how one would shun her verbosity.
"I called on Mrs. Marjoribanks yesterday," said a free lance once, "and we had a little gossip about Copernicus." We do not care to have anything quite so erudite, for if people are really very intimate with Copernicus they do not mention it at dinner.
It is as impossible to say what makes the model diner-out as to describe the soil which shall grow thebest grapes. We feel it and we enjoy it, but we can give no receipt for the production of the same.
As history, with exemplary truthfulness, has always painted man as throwing off all the trouble of giving a dinner on his wife, why have not our clever women appreciated the power of dinner-giving in politics? Why are not our women greater politicians? Where is our Lady Jersey, our Lady Palmerston, our Princess Belgioso? The Princess Lieven, wife of the Russian Ambassador in London, was said to have held the peace of Europe in the conduct of herentrées; and a country-woman of our own is to-day supposed to influence the policy of Germany largely by her dinners. From the polished and versatile memoirs of the Grammonts, Walpoles, D'Azelios, Sydney Smith, and Lord Houghton, how many an anecdote hinges on the efficacy of a dinner in reconciling foes, and in the making of friends. How many a conspiracy was hatched, no doubt, behind an aspic of plover's eggs or avol au vent de volaille. How many a budding ministry, according to Lord Lammington, was brought to full power over a well-ordered table-cloth. How many a war cloud dispelled by the proper temperature of the Burgundy. It is related of Lord Lyndhurst that when somebody asked him how to succeed in life, he answered, "Give good wine." A French statesman would have answered, "Give good dinners." Talleyrand kept the most renowned table of his day, quite as much for political as hygienic reasons. At eighty years of age he still spent an hour every morning with hischef, discussing the dishes to be served at dinner. The Emperor Napoleon, who was no epicure, nor even a connoisseur, was nevertheless pleased with Talleyrand's luxurious and refined hospitality, in consequenceof the impression it made on those who were so fortunate as to partake of it. On the other hand, one hesitates to contemplate the indigestions and bad English cooking which must have hatched an Oliver Cromwell, or still earlier that decadence of Italian cookery which made a Borgia possible.
Social leaders in all ages and countries have thus studied the tastes and the intellectual aptitudes and capabilities of those whom they have gathered about their boards; and Mythology would suggest that thepetits souperson high Olympus, enlivened by the "inextinguishable laughter of the gods," had much to do with the politics of the Greek heaven under Jupiter. Reading the Northern Saga in the same connection, may not the vague and awful conceptions of cookery which seem to have filled the Northern mind have had something to do with the opera of Siegfried? Even the music of Wagner seems to have been inspired by a draught from the skull of his enemy. It has the fascination of clanging steel, and the mighty rustling of armour. The wind sighs through the forest, and the ice-blast freezes the hearer. The chasms of earth seem to open before us. But it has also the terror of an indigestion, and the brooding horror of a nightmare from drinking metheglia and eating half-roasted kid. The political aspect of a Scandinavian heaven was always stormy. Listen to the Trilogy.
In America a hostess sure of her soups and herentrées, with such talkers as she could command, could influence American political movements—she might influence its music—by her dinners, and become an enviable Lady Palmerston.
Old people are apt to say that there is a decay in the art of conversation, that it is one of the lost arts. Nodoubt this is in a measure true all over the world. A Frenchsalonwould be to-day an impossibility for that very reason. It is no longer the fashion to tell anecdotes, to try to be amusing. A person is considered a prig who sits up to amuse the company. All this is bad; it is reactionary after the drone of the Bore Constrictor. It is going on all over the world. It is part of that hurry which has made us talk slang, the jelly of speech, speech condensed and boiled down, easily transported, and warranted to keep in all climates.
But there is a very pleasantjuste milieubetween the stately, perhaps starchy, anecdotist of the past and the easy and witty talker of to-day, who may occasionally drop into slang, and what is more, may permit a certain slovenliness of speech. There are certain mistakes in English, made soberly, advisedly, and without fear of Lindley Murray, which make one sigh for the proprieties of the past. The trouble is we have no standard. Writers are always at work at the English language, and yet many people say that it is at present the most irregular and least understood of all languages.
The intellectual components of a successful dinner, should, if we may quote Hawthorne, be illuminated with intellect, and softened by the kindest emotions of the heart. To quote Mrs. Jameson, they must combine the caustic and the witty, the lively and the clever, and even the absurd, and the assiduous above all. Everybody must be unselfish enough not to yawn, and never seem bored. They must be self-sacrificing, but all apparently well-pleased. The intellectual components of a dinner, like the condiments of a salad, must be of the best; and it is for the hostess to mix them with the unerring tact and fine discrimination of an American woman.
It is chiefly men of intellect who hold good eating in honour. The head is not capable of a mental operation which consists in a long sequence of appreciations, and many severe decisions of the judgment, which has not a well-fed brain.Brillat Savarin.
It is chiefly men of intellect who hold good eating in honour. The head is not capable of a mental operation which consists in a long sequence of appreciations, and many severe decisions of the judgment, which has not a well-fed brain.Brillat Savarin.
A good dinner and a pretty hostess,—for there are terms on which beauty and beef can meet much to the benefit of both,—one wit, several good talkers, and as many good listeners, or more of the latter, are said to make a combination which even our greatest statesmen do not despise. Man wants good dinners. It is woman's province to provide them; but nature and education must make the conscientious diner.
It is to be feared that we are too much in a hurry to be truly conscientious diners. Our men have too many school-tasks yet,—politics, money-making, science, mental improvement, charities, psychical research, building railroads, steam monitors, colleges, and such like gauds,—too many such distractions to devote themselves as they ought to the question ofentréesandentremets. They should endeavour to give the dinner a fitting place. Just see how the noble language of France, which Racine dignified and Molière amplified, respectfully puts on its robes of state which are lined with ermine when it approaches the great subject of dinner!
It is to be feared that we are far off from the fine art of dining, although many visits to Paris and much patronage of Le Doyon's, the Café Anglais, and the Café des Ambassadeurs, may have prepared us for theentremetand thepièce de résistance. We are improving in this respect and no longer bolt our dinners. The improvement is already manifest in the better tempers and complexions of our people.
But are we as conscientious as the gentleman in "Punch" who rebuked the giddy girl who would talk to him at dinner? "Do you remember, my dear, that you are in the house of the bestentréesin London? I wish to eat my dinner."
That was a man to cook for! He had his appropriate calm reserve of appreciation, for thesuprême de volaille. He knew how to watch and wait for the sweetbreads, and green peas. Not thrown away upon him was that last turn which makes the breast of the partridge become of a delicate Vandyck brown. How respectful was he to that immortal art for which the great French cook died, a suicide for a belated turbot.
"Ah," said Parke Godwin once, when in one of his most brilliant Brillat Savarin moods, "how it ennobles a supper to think that all these oysters will become ideas!"
But if a dinner is not a cookery book, neither is it a matter of expense alone, nor a payment of social debts. It is a question of temperature, of the selection of guests, of the fitness of things, of a proper variety, and of time. The French make their exquisite dinners light and short. The English make theirs a trifle long and heavy.
The young hostess, to strike thejuste milieu, must travel, reflect, and go to a cooking-school. She mustbuy and read a library of cooking-books. And when all is done and said, she must realize that a cookery-book is not a dinner. There are some natures which can absorb nothing from a cookery-book. As Lady Galway said that she had put all her wits into Bradshaw's "Railway Guide" and had never got them out again, so some amateur cook remarked that she had tested her recipes with the "cook-book in one hand and the cooking-stove in the other," yet the wit had stayed away. All young housekeepers must go through the discipline—in a land where cooks are as yet scarce—of trying and failing, of trying and at length succeeding. They must go toLa Belle Franceto learn how to make a soup, for instance. That is to say, they must study the best French authorities.
The mere question of sustenance is easy of solution. We can stand by a cow and drink her milk, or we can put some bread in our pockets and nibble it as we go along; but dinner as represented by our complicated civilization is a matter of interest which must always stand high amongst the questions which belong to social life. It is a very strange attendant circumstance that having been a matter of profound concern to mankind for so many years, it is now almost as easy to find a bad dinner as a good one, even in Paris, that headquarters of cookery.
There would be no sense in telling a young American housekeeper to learn to make sauces and to cook like a Frenchchef, for it is a profession requiring years of study and great natural taste and aptitude. A Frenchchefcommands a higher salary than a secretary of state or than a civil engineer. As well tell a young lady that she could suddenly be inspired with a knowledge of theart of war or of navigation. She would only perhaps learn to do very badly what they in ten years learn to do so well. She would say in her heart, "For my part I am surfeited with cookery. I cry, somethingrawif you please for me,—something that has never been touched by hand except the one that pulled it off the blooming tree or uprooted it from the honest ground. Let me be a Timon if you will, and eat green radishes and cabbages, or a Beau Brummel, asphyxiated in the consumption of a green pea; but noragoût,côtelette,compote,crème, or any hint or cooking till the remembrance of all that I have seen has faded and the smell of it has passed away!"
Thus said one who attended a cooking-school, had gone through the mysteries of soup-making, had learned whatsautémeans; had masteredentremets, andentrées, andplats, andhors d'œuvres; had learned thatboudins de veauare simply veal puddings, something a little better than a veal croquette made into a little pie; and had found that all meats if badly cooked are much alike. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about making good dishes out of nothing. A French cook is very economical, he uses up odds and ends, but he must have something to cook with.
Stone broth does not go down with a hungry man, nor bad food, however disguised with learned sauces. A little learning is a dangerous thing, and one who attempts too much will fail. But one can read, and reflect, and get the general outlines of cultivated cookery. As to cultivated cookery being necessarily extravagant, that is a mistake. A great, heavy, ill-considered dinner is no doubt costly. Almost all American housekeeping is wasteful in the extreme, but the modern vanities whichdepend on the skill of the cook and the arranging mind of the housekeeper, all these are the triumphs of the present age, and worthy of deep thought and consideration. Let the young housekeeper remember that the prettyentréesmade out of yesterday's roast chicken or turkey will be a great saving as well as a great luxury, and she will learn to make them.
Amongst a busy people like ourselves, from poorest to the richest, dinners are intended to be recreations, and recreations of inestimable value. The delightful contrast which they offer to the labours of the day, the pleasant, innocent triumph they afford to the hostess, in which all may partake without jealousy, the holiday air of guests and of the dining-room, which should be fresh, well aired, filled with flowers, made bright with glass and silver,—all this refreshes the tired man of affairs and invigorates every creature. As far as possible, the discussion of all disagreeable subjects should be kept from the dinner-table. All that is unpleasant lowers the pulse and retards digestion. All that is cheerful invigorates the pulse and helps the human being to live a more brave and useful life. No one should bring an unbecoming grumpiness to the dinner-table. Be grumpy next day if you choose, when the terrapin may have disagreed with you, but not at the feast. Bring the best bit of news and gossip, not scandal, the choicest critique of the last novel, the cream of your correspondence. Be sympathetic, amiable, and agreeable at a feast, else it were better you had stayed away. The last lesson of luxury is the advice to contribute of our very best to the dinners of our friends, while we form our own dinners on the plane of the highest luxury which we can afford, and avoid the greattoo much. Remember that in all countries theAmerican lavish prodigality of feasting, and the expensive garniture of hothouse flowers, are always spoken of as vulgar. How well it will be for us when our splendid array of fish, flesh, and fowl shall have reached the benediction of good cookery; when we know how to serve it, not with barbaric magnificence and repletion, but with a delicate sense of fitness.
Mr. Webster, himself an admirable dinner giver, said of a codfish salad that it was "fit to eat." He afterwards remarked, more gravely,—and it made him unpopular,—that a certain nomination was "not fit to be made."
That led to a discussion of the word "fit." The fitness of things, the right amount, the thing in the right place, whether it be the condiment of a salad or the nomination to the presidency,—this is the thing to consult, to think of in a dinner; let it be "fit to be made."
An American dinner resolves itself into the following formula:—
The oyster is offered first. What can equal the American oyster in all his salt-sea freshness, raw, on the half-shell, a perpetual stimulant to appetite,—with a slice of lemon, and a bit of salt and pepper, added to his own luscious juices, his perfect flavor? The jaded palate, worn with much abuse, revives, and stands, like Oliver, asking for more.
The soup follows. To this great subject we might devote a chapter. What visions of white and brown, clear and thick, fresh beef stock or the maritime delicacies of cray fish and prawn rise before us,—in every colour, from pink or cream to the heavy Venetian red of the mulligatawny or the deep smoke-tints of mock turtle and terrapin! The subject grows too large for mere mention; we must give a chapter to soup.
When we speak of fish we realize that the ocean even is inadequate to hold them all. Have we not trout, salmon, the great fellows from the Great Lakes, and the exclusive ownership of the Spanish mackerel? Have we not the fee simple of terrapin and the exclusive excellence of shad? This subject, again, requires a volume.
The roast! Ah! here we once bowed to our great Mother England, and thought her roast beef better than ours. There are others who think that we have caught up on the roasts. Our beef is very good, our mutton does not equal always the English Southdowns; but we are even improving in the blacknosed woolly brethren who conceal such delicious juices under their warm coats.
A roast saddle of mutton with currant jelly—but let us not linger over this thrilling theme. Our venison is the best in the world.
As for turkeys,—we discovered them, and it is fair to say that, after looking the world over, there is no better bird than a Rhode Island Turkey, particularly if it is sent to you as a present from a friend. Hang him a week, with a truffle in him, and stuff him with chestnuts.
As for chickens—there France has us at a disadvantage. There seems to be a secret of fowl-feeding, or rearing, in France which we have not mastered. Still we can get good chickens in America, and noble capons, but they are very expensive.
Theentrées—here we must go again to those early missionaries to a savage shore, the Delmonicos. They were the high priests of theentrée.
The salads—those daughters of luxury, those delicate expressions, in food, of the art of dress—deserve a separate chapter.
And now thesorbetcools our throats and leads us up to the game.
The American desserts are particularly rich and profuse. Our pies have been laughed at, but they also are fit to eat, especially mince-pie, which is first cousin to an English plum-pudding.
Our puddings are like our Western scenery, heavy but magnificent. Our ices have reached, under our foreign imported artists, the greatest perfection. Our fruit is abundant and highly flavoured. We have not yet perhaps known how to draw the line as to desserts. The greattoo muchprevails.
Do we not make our dinners too long and too heavy? How great an artist would he be who should so graduate a dinner that there would be no to-morrow in it! We eat more like Heliogabalus than like thatgourmetwho took thebeccaficoout of the olive which had been hidden in the pigeon, which had in its turn been warmed in the chicken, which was cooked in the ox, which was roasted whole for the birthday of a king. Thegourmetdiscarded the rest, but ate thebeccafico.
The first duty of a guest who is asked to one of these dinners is to be punctual. Who wishes to sit next to Mr. Many-Courses, when he has been kept waiting for his dinner? Imagine the feelings of an amiable host and hostess who, after taking the trouble to get up an excellent dinner, feel that it is being spoiled by the tardiness of one guest! They are nervously watching Mr. Many-Courses, for hungry animals are frequently snappish, and sometimes dangerous.
The hostess who knows how to invite her guests and to seat them afterwards is a power in the State. She helps to refine, elevate, and purify our great American conglomerate.She has not the Englishman's Bible, "The Peerage," to help her seat her guests; she must trust to her own intelligence to do that. Our great American conglomerate repels all idea of rank, or the precedence idea, which is so well understood in England.
Hereditary distinction we have not, for although there are some families which can claim a grandfather, they are few. A grandfather is of little importance to the men who make themselves. Aristocracy in America is one of talent or money.
Even those more choice intelligences, which in older countries are put on glass pedestals, are not so elevated here as to excite jealousy. We all adore the good diner-out, but somebody would be jealous if he had always the best seat. Therefore the hostess has to contend with much that is puzzling in the seating of her guests; but if she says to herself, "I will place those people near each other who are sympathetic," she will govern her festive board with the intelligence of Elizabeth, and the generosity of Queen Margharita.
She must avoid too many highly scented flowers. People are sometimes weary of the "rapture of roses." Horace says: "Avoid, at an agreeable entertainment, discordant music, and muddy perfume, and poppies mixed with Sardinian honey; they give offence." Which is only another way of saying that some music may be too heavy, and the perfume of flowers too strong.
Remember, young hostess, or old hostess, that your dinner is to be made up of people who have to sit two hours chatting with each other, and that this is of itself a severe ordeal of patience.
Good breeding is said to be the apotheosis of self-restraint,and so is good feeding. Good breeding puts nature under restraint, controls the temper, and refines the speech. Good feeding, unless it is as well governed as it should be, inflames the nose and the temper, and enlarges the girth most unbecomingly. Good breeding is the guardian angel of a woman. Good feeding, that is, conscientious dining, must be the patron saint of a man! A truly well bred and well fed man is quiet in dress, does not talk slang, is not prosy, is never unbecomingly silent, nor is he too garrulous. He is always respectful to everybody, kind to the weak, helpful to the feeble. He may not be an especially lofty character, but good feeding inducts him into the character and duties of a gentleman. He simulates a virtue if he has it not, especially after dinner.Noblesse obligeis his motto, and he feels what is due to himself.
Can we be a thorough-bred, or a thorough-fed, all by ourselves? It is easy enough to learn when and where to leave a card, how to behave at a dinner, how to use a fork, how to receive and how to drop an acquaintance; but what a varied education is that which leads up to good feeding, to becoming a conscientious diner. It is not given to every one, this lofty grace.
A dinner should be a good basis for a mutual understanding. They say that few great enterprises have been conducted without it. People are sure to like each other much better after dining together. It is better to go home from a dinner remembering how clever everybody was, than to go home merely to wonder at the opulence that could compass such a pageant.
A dinner should put every one into his best talking condition. The quips and quirks of excited fancyshould come gracefully, for society well arranged brings about the attrition of wits. If one is comfortable and well-fed—not gorged—he is in his best condition.
The more civilized the world gets, the more difficult it is to amuse it. It is the common complaint of the children of luxury that dinners are dull and society stupid. How can the reformer make society more amusing and less dangerous? Eliminate scandal and back-biting.
The danger and trials and difficulties of dinner-giving are manifold. First, whom shall we ask? Will they come? It is often the fate of the hostess, in the busy season, to invite forty people before she gets twelve. Having got the twelve, she then has perhaps a few days before the dinner to receive the unwelcome news that Jones has a cold, Mrs. Brown has lost a relative, and Miss Malcontent has gone to Washington. The dinner has to be reconstructed; deprived of its original intention it becomes a balloon which has lost ballast. It goes drifting about, and there is no health in it and no purpose. This is especially true also of those dinners which are conducted on debt-paying principles.
How many hard-worked, rich men in America are bored to death by the gilded and over-burdened splendour of their wives' dinners and those to which they are to go. They sit looking at their hands during two or three courses, poor dyspeptics who cannot eat. To relieve them, to bring them into communion with their next neighbour, with whom they have nothing in common, what shall one do? Oh, that depressing cloud which settles over the jaded senses of even the conscientious diner, as he fails to make his neighbour on either side say anything but yes or no!
We must, perhaps, before we give the perfect dinner, renounce the idea that dinner should be on a commercial basis. Of course our social debts must be paid. It is a large subject, like the lighting of a city, the cleaning of the streets, and must be approached carefully, so that the lesser evil may not swamp the greater good. Do not invite twelve people to bore them.
The dinner hour differs in different cities,—from seven to half-past seven, to eight, and eight and a half; all these have their adherents. In London, many a party does not sit down until nine. Hence the necessity of a hearty meal at five o'clock tea. The royalties, all blessed with good appetites, eat eggs on toast, hot scones and other good things at five o'clock tea, and take often anavant goûtalso at seven.
In our country half-past seven is generally the most convenient hour, unless one is going to the play afterward, when seven is better. A dinner should not last more than an hour and a half. But it does last sometimes three hours.
Ladies dress for a large dinner often in low neck and short sleeves, wear their jewels, and altogether their finest things. But now Pompadour waists are allowed. For a small dinner, the Pompadour dress, half-open at the throat, with a few jewels, is in better taste.
Men should be always in full dress,—black coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and white cravat. There is no variation from this dress at a dinner, large or small.
For ladies in delicate health who cannot expose throat or arms, there is always the largest liberty allowed; but the dinner dress must be handsome.
In leaving the house and ordering the carriage, name the earliest hour rather than the latest; it is better tokeep one's coachman waiting than to weary one's hostess. It is quite impossible to say when one will leave, as there may be music, recitations, and so on, after the dinner. It is now quite the fashion, as in London, to ask people in after the dinner.
Everybody should go to a dinner intending to be agreeable.