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What to Eat :
How to Serve it
BY
CHRISTINE TERHUNE HERRICK
AUTHOR OF “HOUSEKEEPING MADE EASY"
“CRADLE AND NURSERY” ETC.

ΛΑΜΠΑΔΙΑ
EXONTEE
ΑΠΑΔΙΣΟΤΣΙΝ
SE
ΑΛΛΗΛΟΙΣ
Co
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1891


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
760264 A
ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R 1935 L
Copyright, 1891, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rights reserved.


CONTENTS
PAGE
THE DINING-Room . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE ....
MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST .....
THE INVALID's BREAKFAST. ....
A BREAKFAST-PARTY . . . . . . .
FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SPRING ....
FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SUMMER . . ..
FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR AUTUMN . ...
FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR WINTER . . . . .
AT LUNCHEON . . . . . . . . . . . .
A SMALL LUNCHEON ...........
A LARGE LUNCHEON ...........
A STANDING LUNCH ...........
THE LUNCH BASKET .......
FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SPRING . . . . . . . 128
FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SUMMER ...
FAMILY LUNCHES FOR AUTUMN ....... 147
FAMILY LUNCHES FOR WINTER . . . . . . 157
iii


CONTENTS
PAGE
DINNER AT NIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
DINNER AT NOON ............ 173
THE SUNDAY DINNER . .......... 181
THE SMALL DINNER-PARTY ........ 188
A LARGE DINNER ............ 196
FAMILY DINNERS FOR SPRING . . . . . . 204
FAMILY DINNERS FOR SUMMER .......
FAMILY DINNERS FOR AUTUMN .......
FAMILY DINNERS FOR WINTER . . . . . . . 230
WHAT SHALL WE EAT?. . . . . . . . . . 239
THE CHILDREN'S TABLE. ...
THE FAMILY TEA . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
AFTERNOON TEA .....
High TEA .........
SOME HINTS ABOUT SUPPER ........ 279
CHINA AND GLASS . . . . . . . . . . . .
LINEN AND SILVER . ........... 296
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
iv


WHAT TO EAT_HOW TO SERVE IT
day they are all together in this common
rallying-place of the home.
Only in the houses of the wealthy, or of
those possessed of exceptionally large dwell-
ings, is there found a breakfast-room other
than that in which are eaten all the meals of
the family. English mansions frequently
possess both a family and a state dining-
room, and the same custom prevails in some
of the private palaces of our own million-
aires; but in the average American home
one room must do duty for every repast,
whether simple or superb; and in our large
cities this apartment is too likely, alas! to
be situated in the basement.
The immeasurable superiority of a dining-
room built above-ground over one even par-
tially beneath it hardly needs demonstration
-it is more cheerful, more airy, and as a
consequence more healthful, better lighted,
of finer proportions, and more susceptible of
effective decoration and furnishing—the ad-
vantages might be continued ad infinitum.
No one who has ever had the pleasure of us-
ing an up-stairs dining-room can contentedly


THE DINING-ROOM
descend to one below the level of the street.
Apart from every other consideration, such
rooms are very liable to be damp. It is not
uncommon to have carpets grow musty and
mouldy on their floors, or to find a percepti-
ble dampness on their walls. These faults
may be to some extent remedied by a layer
of thick felt paper under the carpet, and by
good fires and constant and thorough venti-
lation.
A few housekeepers express their prefer-
ence for basement dining-rooms because of
the nearness of these to the kitchen, and the
work saved thereby. This is an important
consideration in houses where but one maid
is kept. Her work as cook and waitress is
almost doubled when she has to run up-stairs
to remove the dishes from the dumb-waiter,
and then fly back to her kitchen between the
intervals of waiting on the table. In the
country and in country towns it is the rule
rather than the exception to find the kitchen
in the L, or as an extension, and on the same
floor with the dining-room and parlor, but in
the majority of city houses the apartment


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
in which the family gathers at meal-times is
a little below ground. When this is the case,
and when there is no possibility of convert-
ing the back parlor up-stairs into a dining-
room by introducing a dumb-waiter and pan-
try, or when expediency or want of space
precludes such a change, the best must be
made of existing circumstances, and the ef-
forts redoubled to render the despised base-
ment as pleasant as possible.
The wall-paper must never be dark in a
room like this, which at the best of times is
never too light. Choose instead a creamy
ground well covered with some small figure,
or, better still, an ingrain paper of a solid
color—a soft gray, a pale green, a cream, or
one of those indescribable neutral tints that
make good backgrounds, and furnish well
but not obtrusively.
Unless the room is wainscoted with wood,
a very pretty and inexpensive substitute can
be made of India matting, secured at the top
by a narrow band of wood moulding. The
matting can be washed off with salt and wa-
ter whenever it needs cleansing. An excel-


THE DINING ROOM
lent plan is that of having the walls done in
hard finish, and then painting this. The sur-
face can then be scoured as often as it be-
comes stained or specked, and will always
look neat and fresh. An additional coat of
paint can be put on when the first becomes
worn or faded.
In a rented house the tenants must, of
course, take what they can get, and in many
cases the landlord is unwilling to make
changes. Still, pretty pictures, draperies,
neat furniture, and a well-set table will do
wonders, even for a room that appears un-
promising at the outset.
It never pays to purchase an expensive
carpet for the ordinary dining-room. Some-
thing durable should be selected, like an in-
grain of a mixed color, or with a minute,
closely-set figure. Better still is a rug, an
art square, or a Smyrna rug, neither of
which is high-priced, while either is satis-
factory both in appearance and in wearing
qualities.
The floor should be stained or painted,
for a distance of from two to three feet


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
from the wall all around the room, in a neat
dark color. Borders of wood-carpeting are
handsome and last a long time, but are cost-
ly, and one does not often find hard-wood
floors in a rented house. The rug may be
either laid loosely or tacked down around
the edges.
The draperies in a dining-room should not
be heavy. Not only do such darken the
room, but they catch and retain the odors of
food, and hold constantly in their folds de-
pressing reminders of former feasts. Scrim,
lace, or light Madras or China silk, decorates
the room and softens outlines without im-
peding the entrance of light or air. Shades
are essential, and so should be also window-
screens from the appearance of the first fly
in the spring until the last one has vanished
in the fall.
An open fireplace in a dining-room is un-
surpassed for cheer and comfort there, as it
is everywhere. A screen should always be ·
in readiness to temper the glow and glare
while the family are at meals. The chimney
is a potent aid to ventilation, and helps to


THE DINING-ROOM
disperse those odors that will collect in the
best-ventilated salles à manger, and which
are so appetizing before meals and so un-
pleasant afterwards.
Basement dining-rooms are seldom too
cold. If they are heated by a register or a
stove, or even by a coal fire in the grate, the
constant struggle of the housekeeper is to pre-
vent their becoming uncomfortably warm.
Vicinity to the kitchen has much to do with
this, and is in summer-time a serious draw-
back to comfort. An equable temperature
must be striven for by frequent airing at all
seasons, and during the heated term by shad-
ing the windows, and by keeping, as much
as possible, the doors shut that communicate
with the kitchen. One advantage at least
is possessed by the basement dining-room in
summer. In common with the cellar, or
with any other partially subterranean cham-
ber, it is cooler than one that is above ground
and thus unprotected from the hot air with-
out.
The best method of artificially lighting a
dining-room is hard to decide. Nothing is


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
prettier or pleasanter than candle-light, and
it is preferable to gas or lamps in that it does
not heat a room perceptibly. But candles
are expensive, if enough are used to produce
a respectable illumination, and nothing is
more dismal than eating by a dim light.
Good candles are costly, and cheap ones not
only give a poor light, but drip and smoke
and smell, and are otherwise intolerable. A
new style of candle has recently been intro-
duced which is pierced through its length
with three holes. These tiny pipes are sup-
posed to carry off the melted wax, and their
advocates claim that these candles will not
drip on the outside.
Except on state occasions, candles are
barred out for people of moderate means,
and they must have recourse to lamps or
gas. The light should always be suspended
above the table, except, of course, where
candles and candelabra 'or a tall-stemmed
lamp are used. A side-light does not serve
the purpose of a central one, for some one
must always sit with his back towards it,
and his plate is thus in a perpetual eclipse.


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
slipped over the lower half of the globe. A
pretty fashion is that of fastening a Japan-
ese umbrella, stick upwards, under the chan-
delier, although this darkens the table too
much, unless there is a strong light above it.
If any member of the family suffers from
weak eyes, and is distressed by the light that
is none too brilliant for the others, quaint
paper-screen shades, also of Japanese make,
may be hung on the side of the globe tow-
ards the sufferer. The long pliable wires
attached to these shades permit them to be
twisted at almost any angle. Or the fancy
paper screens which imitate roses, pond-lilies,
sunflowers, and the like may be hung on the
globes.
There has been a good deal of discussion
among furnishers as to what style of picture
should be hung in a dining-room. One de-
clares that the stereotyped paintings and en-
gravings of fruit, fish, and fowl are the only
appropriate works of art for this room; while
another argues that it is enough to see the
food in its prepared condition upon the table,
without being forced to contemplate it in its
10


THE DINING-ROOM
natural state, upon the walls. The wise
course to follow seems to lie between the
two. Really pretty pictures of game birds
or fish, or of fruit or flowers, are undoubted-
ly in their place in a dining-room, but there
is no reason why every other kind of picture
should be excluded. Pastoral or marine
scenes, genre pictures, almost anything ex-
cept family portraits, may fitly be placed
there. Their place is in the library, the sit-
ting-room, or in the large hall, if there be
one.
Nothing should hang in the dining-room
that is not good of its kind. A cheap chro-
mo, a poorly executed drawing or water-
color, or an indifferent photograph annoys
beyond words the unfortunate wight who has
to sit opposite it for an hour or two each
day.
The furniture of a dining-room should be
durable, even if its owners cannot afford to
have it very handsome. Cheap chairs and
table are out of place here. Even those who
cannot afford leather-upholstered chairs and
a heavy mahogany or black-walnut or oak
11


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
dining-table may get solid, durable substi-
tutes. Cane seats for the chairs, and an un-
polished top for the table, are better than
showy — and cheap - elegance. A square
table generally allows more space to those
seated about it than does a round one. Al-
most any amount of money may be expend-
ed upon a sideboard, but a good one may be
purchased at no great outlay. In addition
to this, if space permits, there should be a
table, with a shelf or two above it, to serve
as a dinner-wagon. This is almost a neces-
sity when the vegetables are passed instead
of being placed on the table, and it is also
useful for holding relays of clean plates, etc.
The amount of furniture that is useful and
appropriate in a dining-room is of necessity
limited. Besides the articles already named,
there may be a china press or cabinet, an
easy-chair or two, or even a .sofa. The last
is a boon to an invalid or convalescent, who
grows weary of a long séance in a high,
straight-backed chair. The couch may be
forced to serve a double purpose by being
made in the form of a long box, broad and
12


THE DINING-ROOM
low, covered with cretonne, denim, or any
other durable material, and provided with a
hair mattress on the top. When two or three
square pillows are added to this, behold a
comfortable divan, that will at the same time
be a receptacle for the table-linen. Some
such coffer as this is almost a must-have in a
dining-room, unless the china closet is pro-
vided with drawers.
A wall cabinet for choice pieces of china is
a pretty ornament for a dining-room, and so
is an over-mantel. The latter may consist of
two, three, or more shelves, and should be
solid at the back, as small hooks may then
be screwed in, upon which to hang tea or
coffee cups. These shelves may extend the
full length of the mantel, or occupy only part
of the space. In any case they are excellent
for displaying such pieces of china as one
may not wish to keep concealed in the depths
of a china closet. Nothing very delicate that
will be injured by dust should stand here.
A corner cupboard adds to the beauty of a
room, and may either be bought ready-made,
or built to fit some especial corner. The
13


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
lower part of the cupboard may have a solid
wooden door, while glass doors for the up-
per part permit a view of the glass or silver
stored there.
Blessed is that woman whose house con-
tains a butler's pantry. Too often the fine
china and glass must either be washed in the
kitchen, or else in a dish-pan brought into
the dining-room. When a pantry is lacking,
there should be a butler's tray to hold the
solid dishes. Such a tray may be closed, and
put out of the way when not in use. A
folding screen covered with Japanese pict-
ures, with wall-paper, or with some textile
fabric, may conceal the door to the pantry,
or the slide by which dishes enter the dining-
room, or may cut off the corner in which
stands the butler's tray.
To the woman of quick wit and ready
fingers countless are the opportunities pro-
vided for beautifying her dining-room. She
may drape her mantel and conceal the ugly
marble, using for this stamped Madras, or
silkolene, both of which are pretty and
cheap; she may make covers for her side-
14


THE DINING-ROOM
board, rich with drawn-work and embroid-
ery; she may set a box of growing plants in
the window, and tend them, so that she may
always have a vase of fresh blossoms or of
green sprays for the centre of the table; and
she may expend boundless energy in the
manufacture of doilies, tray-cloths, and the
thousand and one dainty pieces of linen dear
to the housewife's soul.
15


AT THE BREAKFAST - TABLE
TOVERYTHING in reason should be done
U to make the breakfast a tolerably pleas-
ant meal. Very cheerful or jovial it seldom is.
The father is in a hurry to get to his office
or business, and usually buries himself in the
morning paper; the children are burdened
with the thought of approaching school
duties; the mother is silently mapping out
the line of her day's operations, and is disin-
clined to conversation. Add to this that all
are apt to be more or less dominated by the
physical depression of tone and passive dis-
comfort so well known that one judge is
fabled to have refused to ordain capital pun-
ishment for a man convicted of having com-
mitted a murder before breakfast. Until
after that meal, even the best-tempered are
prone to petulance, while those of a taciturn
nature are quiet to the verge of what looks
like sullenness.
16


AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
Here, as everywhere, upon the mother de-
volves the burden of the family well-being.
If her face is cast down and gloomy, its re-
flection is seen in the countenances of all
those about her; while if she is bright and
sunny, there is a perceptible rise in the spir-
itual thermometer. Only by making a posi-
tive duty of cheerfulness is it practicable
sometimes for the mother to conquer the
weariness and languor, the aching head, and
the loathing for food, that are so frequently
a woman's morning portion. The discom-
fort the other members of the family know
is increased tenfold in her case if a restless
child, an ailing baby, or worry over financial
or domestic matters has robbed her of part
of her night's sleep.
A good deal may be done to create an at-
mosphere of pleasantness by due attention
to the condition of the room. Unless it has
been left in spotless order the preceding even-
ing, either the maid or one of the family
must bestow some attention upon it beyond
putting the breakfast on the table. No
crumbs from the last repast should disfigure


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
the carpet; no dust of yesterday's raising
should be thick upon the furniture. The
windows shonld have been open long enough
to change the air of the room; then, in cold
weather, been closed a sufficient length of
time before the entrance of the family to al-
low the atmosphere to become comfortably
warmed. The vase of flowers or the grow-
ing plant that ought to grace the centre of
every table should have a drink of fresh
water, and be ready to do its part in bright-
ening the board. The table should be care-
fully set, the food well cooked, and promptly
served. And, above all, there should be a
sincere and conscientious endeavor on the
part of each member of the household to
sink his own disagreeable feelings, and to
do all in his power to contribute his share
towards the sum total of the family cheerful-
ness. Conversation on pleasant topics should
be encouraged, and the items of morning
news distributed to all, not monopolized by
the one in possession of the paper.
No amount of accustomedness should ever
induce the mistress of the house to condone
18


AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
carelessness on the plea that there is no one
present but the family. Just because it is
“ only home folks,” everything should be at
its brightest. There is no necessity for urg-
ing the parade of pretty china, the prepa-
ration of tempting dishes, when an honored
guest is to be served. Should not even more
pains be taken to have everything attractive
and appetizing when those are to be fed who
have not the charm of novelty to act as
sauce, and to whom the ordinary methods of.
cookery may seem stale and hackneyed ?
The table should always appear at its best
at breakfast-time. A colored cloth is eco-
nomical as well as pretty, for it does not
show every spot or splash with the readiness
of a white cloth. There is a large variety of
these table coverings from which the house-
keeper may make her selections, ranging in
beauty and price from the plain, compara-
tively cheap red cloth with light figures to
the exquisite pieces of fine damask, gorgeous
with embroidery, and with a lace-like border
of drawn-work. For common daily use, the
judicious choice will probably lie somewhere
19


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
between these, either in a buff, a buff and
scarlet, a buff and blue, or one of the beau-
tiful Holbein cloths that come, with the
dozen napkins, at about eight dollars the set.
The ground in these is well covered, and
they have the advantage of being nearly as
pretty on the wrong side as they are on the
right. Another recommendation is that they
wear admirably, one at least within the
writer's knowledge having been in constant
use for between four and five years without
showing a sign of old age, except in the thin-
ning of the fringe, while the body of the
cloth remained without a break. The deli-
cate tints of the worked pattern will fade
with frequent washing, so that blue and pink
would better be avoided, and the preference
given to the scarlets and buffs, which hold
their own well.
The cloth is saved by the use of mats un-
der dishes. Those of straw or wicker-work
are apt to become soiled and stained, and are
not readily cleansed. On the contrary, those
which are knitted, netted, or crocheted may
be washed every week, if necessary. It is
20


AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
almost impossible to find a waitress so care-
ful that once in a while a dish will not be
brought to the table with a black rim on the
bottom, or wet or greasy with something
spilled where it has been standing on the
kitchen-table. Wherever this touches, the
cloth beneath is disfigured, and it is better to
protect it against such misadventures by the
use of mats in the first place than to be
forced to conceal the blemishes afterwards
by “setting the table to humor the spots.”
Worked and fringed doilies are pretty sub-
stitutes for mats, and when there is a cover
of felt on the table under the damask cloth-
as there should always be—they are thick
enough to guard the varnished table-top from
injury from the hot dishes. A carving-cloth
should be spread under the meat-platter, and
will generally by the close of the meal bear
upon its surface eloquent testimony to the
service it has done in saving the table-cloth.
While it is no sign of stinginess not to
have one's best and most fragile china for
constant use, poor judgment is shown when
only plain heavy white ware is employed for
21


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
the family when they are alone. Decorated
porcelain is cheap nowadays, and makes a
table look extremely pretty. Each one of
the household should have his own especial
oatmeal set, either the bowl, plate, and pitch-
er, or one of the deep saucers that come for
this purpose in dark blue and white ware,
with a plate to match, while the cream or
milk may be held for common use in one
good-sized pitcher, to be served by the moth-
er, or passed to each, as may seem best.
Every tea or coffee drinker should have his
own cup and saucer, and in his imagination
his favorite beverage will taste better from
that cup than from any other.
There is little chance to make mistakes in
setting the breakfast-table. The hostess has
the tray before her, and serves the tea, cof-
fee, or chocolate. At the other end of the
table is the principal dish, presided over gen-
erally by the master of the house, while bis-
cuit, bread, muffins, or griddle-cakes and po-
tatoes have their posts at the sides. An oat-
meal set stands at each place, accompanied
by the knife, fork, and spoon, tumbler, nap-
22


AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
kin, butter-plate-unless the oatmeal course
is preceded by one of fruit, when fruit plates,
with fruit napkins and finger-bowls, should
hold the first place.
With the fresh room, the bright cloth, the
shining glass and silver, the vase of flowers,
the appetizing food, one must be either very
dyspeptic or a confirmed pessimist who does
not feel a slight rise of spirits as he takes his
place at the breakfast-table.
23


MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST
TN the majority of the homes where fruit
1 is served for breakfast it appears as a
first course. Countless are the headaches to
which this custom has given rise among those
whose stomachs resent the introduction of
the acid as the earliest nourishment of the
day. The choice should always be given
each eater between beginning with fruit or
reserving it as a final course. When it is
served last it acts as a pleasant neutralizer of
the solid or possibly greasy food that has
been already consumed, and sends one from
the table with what children call “a good
taste" in the mouth.
The habit of eating some cereal for break-
fast is happily becoming almost universal.
There are comparatively few households in
which porridge of one sort or another does
not appear on the breakfast-table, and it is
usually relished by both children and elders.
24


MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST
It need not be always of oatmeal. There
are numerous varieties of cereals in the
market at present, and an occasional change
will prevent any one's wearying of the
wholesome dish. With cracked wheat, cere-
aline, wheat-germ meal, wheatena, wheat,
oat, and Graham flakes, corn-meal mush,
hominy boiled plain, hominy boiled in milk,
and a number of others to choose from, there
is no reason why any one should have occa-
sion to complain of monotony. Cream adds
greatly to the toothsome qualities of any one
of these preparations, and may usually, even
in the city, be procured in sufficient quantities
to allow a modicum for each of the elders.
The healthy appetites of the children rarely
need this encouragement.
The tea should always be made on the
table when it is possible, as by this means
there need be no doubt that the water used
in its concoction is actually boiling. The
“loud-hissing urn” is a decided add tion to
the beauty and brightness of the table, es-
pecially when the “urn” is in the form of a
pretty brass or copper kettle, swinging from


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
one of the tall cranes known as a “five-
o'clock tea.” Some people prefer making
the coffee on the table too, and this is pos-
sible when a Vienna coffee-pot or a French
drip coffee-pot is used. The only trouble is
that the coffee in the latter pot is apt to cool
before it has stood long enough to extract
the full strength of the berry.
The tea-cozy should never be lacking, and
it is not a bad plan to have a similar wadded
cap with which to cover the coffee-pot. One
of the prettiest and best kinds of tea-cozy is
the covered Japanese basket with a thick
stuffed lining, in which the china teapot is
set. These are not costly, and will outwear
the ordinary cozy made of silk, woollen, or
chamois-skin. When the lining of the basket
is worn out, it may easily be renewed.
The substantial part of our American
breakfast is not marked by much variety.
At nearly all of them will be found the steak,
chops, or cutlets, varied once in a while by
fish, a hash, or a stew, semi-occasionally by
a dish of eggs. Potatoes in some form-
stewed, baked, boiled, or fried—are in order,


MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST
and these are flanked by a plate of hot bis-
cuit or muffins, or oftenest by successive in-
stalments of griddle-cakes.
There is no use in adding further to the
diatribes that have been written and spoken
against the American breakfast. Such as it
is, it appears to be here to stay, and it is a
waste of time, breath, and energy to attempt
a radical reform. All onė can hope to do is
possibly to modify it, and lighten its same-
ness by suggesting dishes that may please
the palate and not impair the digestion.
The adoption of the Continental breakfast
has been vainly urged, and it is an open
question whether or not the habit ever sur-
vives transportation. The American climate
and mode of life differ so much from those
of the Continent that other fashions must be
followed here than those which prevail there.
Many families, who during a long foreign
residence have found quite sufficient for their
matutinal meal the coffee or chocolate, the
rolls and butter, possibly supplemented by
fresh eggs or a little marmalade, have con-
scientiously endeavored to pursue the same
27


WHAT TO EAT_HOW TO SERVE IT
custom upon their return to this country.
In not a single case within the writer's cog-
nizance has the attempt proved other than a
failure, recognized as such at the end of a
few months. Autre pays, autres mæurs.
While the children are still young, the en-
tire family usually breakfasts together. The
obligation upon the younger members of
reaching their schools at a given hour forces
them to be on time, although there are homes
in which the wretched practice is observed
of permitting the school boys and girls to
rush in at the last moment and gulp down a
few mouthfuls, hurrying off to their recita-
tions after having thus successfully sown the
seeds of future dyspepsia. As the sons and
daughters grow into manhood and woman-
hood, they drift more and more into un-
punctual habits. The breakfast-table is left
standing well on into the middle of the
morning, and sundry plats are kept hot in
the oven for Mr. Jack or Miss Mamie, who
has been out late the night before. Often
the demands of business require the young
man to be down in season, but there are no
28


MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST
such claims obliging his sister to quit her
couch at a—to her—unseasonable hour. As
a consequence, what should be one of the
family gathering-places becomes little better
than a hotel breakfast-room, where the guests
come and go as suits themselves. Besides all
other considerations, the work of the ser-
vants is increased, and their own duties are
crowded out by the necessity of being in
readiness to serve these tardy ones.
At the first glance it may seem harsh to
exact the prompt appearance at the break-
fast-table of the girl who has danced until
after one o'clock in the morning, and whose
head has not touched her pillow until an
hour or two later. But the habit of self-
indulgence fostered by such concessions, does
the girl no good. Is it any harder for her
to rise betimes than it is for the weary moth-
er, whose domestic cares forbid her lying in
bed? Does not this indolence to a certain
degree unfit the daughter for the duties that
will devolve upon her when she in turn be-
comes a wife and mother?
One sensible matron, who still held the
29


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
reins of family government as firmly when
her children were grown as when they were
first short-coated, always insisted on prompt-
ness at the breakfast-table. “Human beings
are gregarious," she would say, "and they
should eat together. If you are tired and
sleepy, take a nap later in the day, but be on
hand at breakfast-time.” .
Of course there may be exceptions to this
rule, and here the maternal judgment must
appear. More privileges can be allowed to
the delicate, nervous girl, than to the strong,
robust one; but then the former should avoid
late hours and dissipation. An occasional
morning nap does no harm; but there is lit-
tle rhyme or reason in permitting the young,
healthy members of the family to be the lie-
abeds.
Without encouraging any disposition to.
“finicalness” concerning food, special atten-
tion should be paid to individual preferences
in catering for the family breakfast. Chil-
dren are apt to take whims, and these should
not be fostered; but when either a child
or an older person has a decided distaste for
30


. MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST
some article of food, he cannot be forced into
a fondness for it. Better is it to humor his
idiosyncrasies by preparing something that
he will eat. In a private family it may be
out of the question to cook a separate break-
fast for each one, but a little forethought
will enable the housekeeper to so arrange
her menu that every one will have at least
one dish to his or her taste. This is not a
difficult matter, unless there is the unusual
combination of a large family and very dis-
tinct preferences. Generally there is so much
in common that trifling varieties in the bill
of fare will accommodate each person.


THE INVALID'S BREAKFAST
DOR the invalid there is often no possibili-
T ty of the slight stimulus to appetite pro-
duced by the change of air from one room to
another. Breakfast, the hardest meal of the
day to many well people, is doubly difficult
to one who must eat it in the same room where
she has spent the night—perhaps many nights
-of feverish restlessness, that has given her
a detestation of the bed, the bedroom, and
everything connected therewith, chiefest of
all being the disgust with herself, the weary,
distraught being with aching limbs, heavy
head, and ill-tasting mouth.
When feasible, the invalid should be taken
from bed to eat her regular breakfast, previ-
ously strengthening her by a cup of beef-
tea, of chicken or oyster broth, or a glass of
hot milk, or of hot milk and seltzer. First
of all, however, the face and hands should be
sponged off in tepid water and dried quickly,
32


THE, INVALID'S BREAKFAST
and the mouth well rinsed out. Then, re-
freshed and stimulated by this and the warm
draught, a little more elaborate toilet may
be made, always allowing a few moments
for the settling of the stomach after the food
before the dressing begins. A more thorough
bathing, a combing of the hair, a change of
linen, the slipping on of a warm dressing-
gown, and the moving to another couch or
an easy-chair will not be a prolonged piece
of work if the attendant is quick and deft,
and has everything in readiness for bath and
toilet.
A great advantage is gained when the in-
valid can be wheeled or supported into an-
other room, and have a completely changed
air and scene in which to take her meal. But
when this is impracticable the room should
be well aired before the patient is taken out
of bed, and as soon as she is established on
her couch or in her chair, and this placed as
far as possible from the bed, the covers of
this should be stripped off and carried from
the room. Every piece of cast-off linen, every
receptacle containing soiled water, everything
33


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
that recalls the fact that this is a sleeping-
room and that can be removed, should be
banished. A screen should be set between
the patient and the bed, and if the cham-
ber still seems close, she should be bundled
up while another draught of fresh, pure air
is allowed to rush into the room. After
all this, when a table bearing an attrac-
tive breakfast is moved to the invalid's el-
bow, she is usually quite ready to partake
of it.
In many cases it is out of the question for
the patient to leave her bed, and then the
coaxing of the appetite is a more difficult
task. The very fact of being in bed seems
to render eating almost an impossibility to
some people. The woman who complained
petulantly that everything she ate in bed
tasted of the blanket and pillows, only voiced
the sentiments of a multitude of her sisters.
Among some women, breakfast in bed is es-
teemed a luxury; but it is one thing to take
it there from choice, and quite another to be
forced to do so by weakness or ill-health.
Still, with due care, it may be made less dis-
34


THE INVALID'S BREAKFAST
tasteful than would seem practicable at the
first glance.
The preliminary sponging, mouth-washing,
and hot drink should take place in this as in
the other case. Then, after a brief rest, dur-
ing which the windows should have been
opened for a few minutes, and closed long
enough to allow the room to regain a com-
fortable temperature, the task of rearranging
the bed and its occupant should be begun.
Clean linen and pillows should be at hand,
and the patient be sponged off, have her hair
combad, be arrayed in another night-dress,
moved to the other side of the bed, and pro-
vided with a fresh pillow, as expeditiously
yet gently as may be. Then, when the soiled
clothing has been removed, the room been
once more aired and warmed, the patient
may be raised on pillows and her breakfast
brought to her. There is an admirable little
table which may be arranged above the pa-
tient's knees, and is a great comfort to any
one compelled to take her meals in bed for
any length of time.
Nothing should be left untried to render


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
the invalid's breakfast tempting. The tray
should be covered with a spotless cloth, the
china, silver, and glass should be of the best
the house affords, and the same napkin should
never be offered a second time.
The tea or coffee cup and the egg-glass
should be filled with boiling water, that they
may not cool what is put into them. A pretty
little pot should hold the tea or coffee, and
there should be a tiny cream-jug and sugar.
bowl. A vase containing a few flowers, pref-
erably those without a heavy perfume, should
grace the tray, and in the preparation of
the food every evidence should be given of
the loving thoughtfulness that has left un-
sought no means of lightening the discom-
fort of the sufferer. Where there is no bed-
table, there should be another tray, smaller
than that in which the breakfast is brought.
This may then be placed on a stand or chair
beside the bed, while the other holds the cup
or plate upon the patient's lap. A large nap-
kin or clean towel should always protect the
bedclothes from food that may possibly be
spilled upon them, for few things are more
36


THE INVALID'S BREAKFAST
unpleasant to a sick person, especially to
one afflicted with a squeamish stomach,
than the sight of a spot of egg, coffee, or
grease on sheet or spread. When such an
accident occurs, the stained article should
always be promptly exchanged for a fresh.
one.
The meal over, every vestige of food and
every reminder of the repast should be at
once removed, the patient's face and hands
again sponged off, the pillows shaken and
turned, and the invalid's position changed.
Should any odor of food remain, the room
may once more be aired.
Peace and quiet must reign while the in-
valid eats. If visitors are to be admitted it
must not be at that time. Only one or pos-
sibly two members of the family, and those
the quietest ones, may be present, and the
conversation must be pleasant and cheery.
No distressing topics must be broached, no
references except encouraging ones made to
the invalid's state of health. In the deli-
cately balanced condition of nerves which
generally afflicts a sick person, very little
37


WHAT TO EAT— HOW TO SERVE IT
will serve to upset the equilibrium and to
effectually banish appetite.
All that love's ingenuity can suggest
should be done to provide a variety of food
for the invalid. After a little while she usu-
ally tires of what impatient men, under sim-
ilar circumstances, stigmatize as “slops," and
wearies for something more substantial and
appetizing than gruels, broths, and soft toast.
In those cases where solid food is forbidden
by the physician, catering is more difficult,
but often a convalescent is permitted to eat
a greater variety of food than is offered her.
Cream soups, clear soups, broiled birds, a
bit of tenderloin steak, a lamb chop, a tiny
baked omelet, raw, stewed, and roast oys-
ters, broiled and fricasseed chicken, poached
and soft-boiled eggs, a bit of venison, dishes
of rice, sago, and tapioca, jellies, custards,
blanc-manges, fruits, plain ice-cream—there
is almost no end to the dainty menus that
can be arranged. Every meal should be a
surprise; there should be no discussion in
the invalid's presence of what she can eat,
although every reasonable wish she expresses
38


THE INVALID'S BREAKFAST
for any article of food should be gratified, if
feasible. The sick one's lot is hard enough
at the best, and no expedient should be left
untried to ameliorate it.


A BREAKFAST - PARTY
TARGE breakfasts, or déjeûners à la four-
U chette, are not a very common form of
entertainment in this country, and yet they
may be made charming. Unlike luncheons,
where there are usually only women present,
both men and women may be invited to a
breakfast. The hour is usually twelve, al-
though it may be a little earlier or later. One
o'clock is the latest hour which it is advis-
able to set for a breakfast.
The number of guests invited is optional,
but a small party, consisting of from six to
twelve, is pleasanter than a crush. Indeed,
unless one has an exceptionally spacious salle
à manger, it is difficult to accommodate com-
fortably more than a dozen guests, and an
over-crowded table is always unpleasant.
The writer preserves a vivid memory of a
dinner she once attended where fourteen
people were packed about a table of the
40


A BREAKFAST-PARTY
proper size for ten guests. There was hard-
ly room for the waiters to pass the dishes
between the convives. Each one elbowed
his neighbor, and what might have been a
delightful repast became a struggle at close
quarters with the difficulties of getting
through the courses without nudging his
next companion, knocking over his glass, or
materially interfering with his eating.
At a ceremonious breakfast the table
should be spread with a handsome breakfast
or lunch cloth, either of pure white, hem-
stitched or adorned with drawn-work, or one
containing more or less color. If the table
is very handsome, the cloth may be left off.
The floral ornamentation is less formal than
at a dinner. There may be a bowl of flow-
ers in the centre of the table, but quite as
pretty as this are three or four graceful vases
scattered here and there, each holding a few
choice blossoms, and supplemented, if the ta-
ble is large, by a few tiny globes or little
dishes filled with short-stemmed flowers that
look well, massed, like pansies, violets, prim-
roses, etc., mixed with plenty of delicate
41


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
feathery green. If a central ornament for
the table is desired, there is nothing prettier
than a wicker or metal basket filled with
growing ferns, grasses, or lycopodium, with
possibly one or two plants in bloom among
them.
In setting the table for a large breakfast,
a plate, napkin, water-glass, and a butter-
plate holding a tiny pat or ball of butter, are
laid at each place, and a salt-cellar also, if
individual salts are used. At the right of
each plate is the silver butter-knife, and one
other knife; to the left is the fork. The
taste of the hostess must decide the point of
placing more small silver than is needed at
each course by the plates when the table is
first spread. Laying it all at once saves
waiting, but some good authorities ordain
that a waiter should bring in a fresh knife
and fork with each course for each guest,
while others, equally reliable, advocate plac-
ing the knife and fork upon a cold plate in
front of each person at the beginning of
every course. The guest instantly removes
them, and a hot plate is substituted by the


A BREAKFAST-PARTY
waiter for the cold one before the next dish
is passed. This system involves much addi-
tional waiting, and should not be attempted
unless an exceptionally well-trained butler is
in charge.
The little dishes of bonbons, marrons, and
glacé fruits that are always en règle at a
luncheon should not appear on the breakfast-
table. There may, however, be olives, rad-
ishes, and salted almonds placed here and
there.
The first course should consist of fruit.
The plates, holding each its doily, finger-
bowl, fruit-knife, fork, and spoon, may be on
the table when the guests enter the room, or
be put there as soon as they are seated. The
variety of fruit offered must be decided by
the time of year. When they are in season,
nothing could be more delicious than big
strawberries, served uncapped. These may
be passed in a dish, and each guest allowed
to help himself. Sugar into which to dip the
berries may then be served to each. Pret-
tier still is it to place in front of each guest
a plate bearing a tiny decorated basket filled
43


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
with the berries. The sugar may be in tiny
individual sugar-cellars or be passed in a
bowl. Unless the berries are fine large ones,
it is better to serve them hulled, and to eat
them with sugar and cream. In that case
they are eaten from saucers.
Peaches, pears, apricots, nectarines, etc., in
summer, and oranges, apples, mandarins, ba-
nanas, and the like in winter, all add greatly
to the beauty of a breakfast-table when they
are garnished with leaves and heaped upon
a large flat salver, or in a cut-glass bowl, or
an open-work one of china or silver.
After the fruit may come a course of oys-
ters cooked à la poulette, broiled, steamed,
panned, or in croquettes. For these may be
substituted lobster or crab in some form, if
preferred, or both the oysters and the other
inay be served in successive courses. Next
may come some such entrée as sweetbreads
roasted, broiled, fricasseed, or in vol-au-vent
with mushrooms, or chickens may be served
in some such dainty form as pâtés, timbales,
à la marengo, or au suprême. Next are
chops, cutlets, or small beef tenderloins, with
44


A BREAKFAST-PARTY
potatoes in some fanciful style. There should
be no other vegetable. French bread or rolls
must be passed frequently.
The next course may consist of a game
pie, either cold or hot, or of boned fowl, and
may be followed by a salad. The name of
these is legion, but the plain lettuce salad is
better reserved for dinner, and in its stead
at breakfast there may be served something
like tomatoes and lettuce with mayonnaise
dressing, celery mayonnaise garnished with
radishes, and accompanied by crackers and
cheese, or a fruit-salad of oranges, grape
fruit, or pineapple.
The dessert may be of any cold sweets,
and if ices are used they should be of the
punch order—one of the many varieties
known as Roman, Siberian, creole, cardinal,
etc. If crackers and cheese are not served
with the salad, they may be passed at the
close of the breakfast. Brie, Gorgonzola, or
Roquefort may be used.
At a breakfast of ceremony the tea or cof-
fee tray is never placed on the table, but
breakfast coffee or cocoa is served in large
45


WHAT TO EAT— HOW TO SERVE IT
cups after the fruit, and is passed by the but-
ler, instead of being poured by the hostess.
Tea may also be offered. Wines are not
strictly selon les règles at a breakfast, al-
though occasionally claret is served about
the middle of the meal.
The waiting at such a breakfast as this is
about as ceremonious as it would be at a
luncheon. No large dishes are placed on the
table, but everything is passed by the butler
or waitress. Each dish may go the rounds,
and the guests be allowed to help themselves,
or a plate containing a portion may be placed
by the butler in front of each person. The
guest always helps himself to cheese and
hors-d'æuvres, but the ices are served sep-
arately on plates. Bouquets de corsage, bou-
tonnières, cards and menus are not necessary
at a breakfast.
A wedding breakfast is conducted on much
the same line as that described above, except
that there are usually fewer hot and more
cold dishes served, such as salmon, lobster,
or chicken à la mayonnaise, boned turkey
and chicken, pâté-de-foie-gras, jellied tongue


A BREAKFAST-PARTY
and fowl, and a greater variety of such sweets
as creams and jellies. Wines, too, are quite
comme il faut.
The giving of a breakfast need not be a
matter of dread to the hostess who has con-
fidence in her cook and waitress. The menu
suggested may be so modified or increased
as to make it as simple or as elaborate as
preference may dictate. A breakfast is a
pleasant style of entertainment, for, while
both sexes are admitted, as at dinner, there
is not the formality of dress essential at that
meal, the men appearing in morning coats,
and the women in handsome high-necked
and long-sleeved house or calling costumes.
47


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SPRING
W HILE the principal features of the
home breakfast remain essentially the
same throughout the year, variety is gained
by adapting the different articles of food to
the season of the year in which they are
served. A lighter, less carbon - producing
diet is not only more agreeable, but more
healthful, in warm weather than one con-
taining much animal food, while the latter
is preferable and almost necessary in win-
ter. To this consideration is added the em-
inent propriety of making one's bills of fare
seasonable, and thus achieving fitness and
economy.
With the desire to aid the housewife in
her labors, a few selected menus for each
meal and each season will be given, none of
them too costly to be beyond the reach of
people of moderate means, and appended to
48


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SPRING
each bill of fare will be recipes for the prep-
aration of certain dishes. therein mentioned
which may possibly be unfamiliar to the
readers of these chapters.
1.
Oranges.
Cracked Wheat.
Parsley Omelet.
Corn Muffins.
Buttered Potatoes.
Теа.
Coffee.
Parsley Omelet. — Five eggs, two table-
spoonfuls milk, one tablespoonful butter,
one tablespoonful finely minced parsley;
pepper and salt to taste. Beat the whites
and yolks of the eggs separately and very
light; add the milk to the yolks and stir in
the whites, not mixing them in thoroughly,
however; season to taste. Pour into the
omelet pan in which the butter has been
heated, and set over the fire in a moderately
hot spot. Keep the omelet from adhering
to the pan by slipping a knife between them
from time to time. Just before the omelet
is “set,” sprinkle it thickly with the chopped
parsley. When done, fold one half over the
49


WHAT TO EAT— HOW TO SERVE IT
other, slip to a hot dish, and serve at once,
as it falls quickly.
Corn Muffins.—One and a half cups flour,
one and a half cups yellow corn-meal, three
tablespoonfuls sugar, two tablespoonfuls but-
ter, two eggs, one and a half cupfuls milk,
two teaspoonfuls baking powder, half tea-
spoonful salt. Sift the salt and baking-pow-
der with the flour; beat the eggs light; add
the milk, the butter (melted), and the sugar.
Stir in the flour and meal; beat hard, and
bake in muffin-tins.
Buttered Potatoes.-Slice cold boiled po-
tatoes, heat them in a steamer, thence trans-
fer them to a hot dish. Put on them a large
tablespoonful of butter into which have been
worked a teaspoonful of chopped parsley and
a saltspoonful of lemon juice. Set the dish,
covered, over hot water for two minutes, and
serve.
2.
Mandarins.
Cerealine Porridge.
Creamed Cod, with Potatoes. Griddle Muffins.
Coffee.
Chocolate.
Creamed Cod, with Potatoes.- To two cup-
50


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SPRING
fuls of boiled cod, salt or fresh, well picked
to pieces, allow one cupful of mashed potato.
Season to taste. Put into the frying-pan over
the fire with a half-cupful of milk and a large
tablespoonful of butter. Stir and beat con-
stantly while it heats, and soften it by add-
ing to it boiling water at discretion. When
a creamy, smoking mass, transfer it to a
hot dish. If you have drawn butter in the
house, or sauce tartare, or egg sauce left over
from the first appearance of the fish, this
may be used in place of the milk and but-
ter.
Griddle Muffins. — One egg, one table-
spoonful butter, one cupful milk, one tea-
spoonful baking-powder, pinch of salt, flour
enough to make a soft dough. Mix the milk,
beaten egg, and melted butter together; sift
the baking powder and salt into one cupful
of the flour; then add the rest; roll out the
dough as thick as for biscuit, cut into rounds
with a biscuit-cutter, and bake slowly on a
griddle, turning when done on one side. Tear ·
open, and butter while hot.


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SPRING
two eggs. Beat the eggs light, the whites
and yolks separately. Into the latter stir the
milk, the flour, with which has been sifted
the salt and baking-powder, and the butter,
melted. Last, add the whipped whites, and
bake in a quick oven.
4.
Fruit.
Oatmeal Porridge.
Scallop Patties.
Graham Gems.
Baked Potatoes.
Tea
Coffee.
Scallop Patties.-Cook a pint of scallops
in their own liquor for ten minutes. Take
out the scallops and add to the liquor a ta-
blespoonful of butter rubbed smooth with
one of flour, and pepper and salt to taste.
Return the scallops to this sauce, and let it
just come to a boil. Fill scallop-shells with
the mixture, sprinkle fine crumbs over them,
dot with bits of butter, and brown in the
oven. Pass lemon with this.
Graham Gems.- Two cups Graham flour,
two cups milk, two eggs, two teaspoonfuls
butter, two teaspoonfuls sugar, pinch of salt.
53


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
Melt the butter, warm the milk, and stir these
into the unbeaten eggs. Add the flour and
salt, and beat well before baking in heated
gem-pans in a hot oven.
5.
Fruit.
Corn-meal Hasty Pudding.
Broiled Fresh Mackerel. Saratoga Potatoes.
Buttered Toast.
Tea.
Coffee.
Wheat-Germ Meal.
Curried Eggs.
Rice Muffins.
Strawberries and Cream.
Tea.
Cocoa.
Curried Eggs.—One cup good gravy, six
hard-boiled eggs, one teaspoonful curry-pow-
der. Heat the gravy; stir into it the curry-
powder wet up in a little cold gravy or water,
and lay the eggs, each sliced in three, in the
scalding gravy. Set the saucepan at the side
of the stove where it will not boil, and let it
stand ten minutes before sending to table.
Rice Muffins. — One cup boiled rice, two
eggs, two cups flour, one tablespoonful melt-
ed butter, pinch salt, three cups milk. Stir
54


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SPRING
together the milk, eggs, butter, and salt; beat
in the rice and flour; bake quickly.
Fruit.
Graham Porridge.
Broiled Stcak.
Stewed Potatoes.
Omelet Bread.
Coffee.
Cocoa.
Omelet Bread.—Half-cup flour, three eggs,
one tablespoonful melted butter, one tea-
spoonful sugar, pinch of salt, milk enough
to make thick batter. Beat the whites and
yolks of eggs separately, and very light; stir
the butter, flour, milk, salt, sugar, and yolks
together, and add the frothed whites; pour
into a well-greased tin pan, and bake, covered,
on the top of the stove; uncover and brown
in the oven; eat immediately.
- 8.
Fruit.
Wheatena.
Crisped Smoked Beef. Brown Biscuit.
Chopped Potatoes.
Coffee.
Chocolate.
Crisped Smoked Beef. — Boil slices of
smoked beef for five minutes; take them
55


WHAT TO EAT—HOW TO SERVE IT
out, dry, and put into the frying-pan with a
tablespoonful of butter; stir about until crisp,
but not too dry.
Brown Biscuit.—One cup white flour, two
cups Graham flour, two tablespoonfuls lard,
two teaspoonfuls baking-powder, a little salt,
milk enough to make a soft dough. Handle
the dough as little as possible, and bake
quickly.
9.
Hominy boiled in Milk.
Poached Eggs.
Fried Bacon.
Raspberry Shortcake.
Tea.
Cocoa.
Raspberry Shortcake.—Four cups flour, two
cups milk, two tablespoonfuls lard, or lard
and butter, three teaspoonfuls baking-pow-
der, salt, one quart raspberries. Roll out a
little more than half the dough into a sheet
to cover the bottom of a deep biscuit-pan.
Spread the berries thickly on this, sprinkle
with sugar, and of the remaining dough
make a top crust. Bake in a steady oven,
cut into squares, and eat hot with butter and
sugar, or with sugar and cream.
56


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SPRING
10.
Oranges.
Cracked Wheat.
Broiled Chicken.
Saratoga Potatoes.
Boston Brown Bread.
Coffee.
Chocolate.
Boston Brown Bread.— One cup Indian-
meal, one cup rye-meal, half-cup white flour,
one cup milk, half-cup molasses, pinch salt,
one small teaspoonful soda. Sift the meal,
flour, soda, and salt together, work in the milk
and molasses, pour into a well-greased brown-
bread mould, and boil two hours, taking care
that the water in the outer vessel does not
come to the top of the mould. Unless you
have a late breakfast, it is well to cook the
bread the day before, and warm it the next
morning
. 57


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SUMMER
AS the season advances and the warm
weather becomes settled, the preference.
should be given to fish and egg dishes rather
than to those containing meat. For a sultry
morning a breakfast of which fruit makes an
important part is welcome generally to both
palate and digestion.
The many kinds of delicious fresh fish that
may easily be procured should hold a prom-
inent place in summer bills of fare; while
eggs, usually plentiful and cheap at this
season, may be prepared in various tempting
fashions.
Strawberries.
Moulded Cerealine.
Broiled Shad.
New Potatoes.
Rye Gems.
Tea.
Cocoa.
Strawberries. — When served as a
first
58


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SUMMER
course at breakfast, it is better to have
them unhulled, and to eat them with the
fingers, dipping each berry into powdered
sugar.
Moulded Cerealine.---Prepare the cerealine
as usual the day before, and fill small cups
with it. Turn it out the next morning, and
eat cold, with cream.
Rye Gems.— Three cups rye-flour, three
cups milk, three eggs, one tablespoonful
sugar, one tablespoonful butter. Beat hard
and bake quickly.
2.
Red Raspberries.
Oatmeal.
Shad Roes in Ambush.
Potato Croquettes.
Dry Toast.
Radishes.
Теа.
Coffee.
Shad Roes in Ambush.—Two shad roes,
four hard-boiled eggs, one cup milk, one ta-
blespoonful flour, two teaspoonfuls butter;
pepper and salt to taste. Lay the roes in
boiling water, and let them simmer for ten
minutes. Drain this off, pour cold water
upon them, and let them stand in this for
59


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
ten minutes; then take them out, and set
them aside until wanted. Separate the
whites and yolks of the boiled eggs, chop
the whites coarsely, and rub the yolks
through a sieve. Make a white sauce by
heating the milk and thickening it with the
butter and flour rubbed together. Rub the
shad roes to pieces with the back of a spoon,
taking care not to crush the eggs too much.
Stir them into half of the white sauce, sea-
son, let them stand on the fire long enough
to be heated through, and pour into a pud-
ding-dish. Mix the whites of the eggs with
the rest of the sauce, and cover the shad roes
with this; last, strew the powdered yolks
over the top. Cover closely, and set in a hot
oven for three minutes.
3.
Boiled Hominy.
Chicken Mince. Raw Tomatoes.
Green Corn Fritters.
Blackberries and Cream.
Tea.
Cocoa.
Chicken Mince. — From the bones of a
cold roast, boiled, or fricasseed chicken cut
60


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SUMMER
all the meat, and mince it fine with a sharp
knife, chopping with it two hard-boiled
eggs. Stir this into a cup of gravy, or, if
you have none, use instead a cup of white
sauce made as directed in “Shad Roes in
Ambush.” Season to taste, fill a pudding-
dish or scallop-shells with the mixture, and
serve very hot.
Green-Corn Fritters.—Two cupfuls green
corn cut from the cob, two eggs, two table-
spoonfuls milk, one tablespoonful melted but-
ter, flour enough for thin batter. Whip the
eggs light, beat into these the corn and the
other ingredients, adding the flour last of all.
Bake on a griddle.
Black Raspberries.
Wheaten Grits.
Broiled Salt Mackerel, Cream Sauce.
Stewed Potatoes. Graham Pop-Overs.
Broiled Salt Mackerel.—Soak your fish
overnight in cold water, and wipe it dry
before putting it on the gridiron. Broil
over a clear fire, lay on a hot platter, and
pour the sauce over it.
61


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
Cream Sauce. — Make like white sauce
given above, doubling the quantity of
butter, seasoning to taste, and using half
milk, half cream, if you have the latter.
Graham Pop - Overs. — Three eggs, one
and a half cups Graham flour, half cup
white flour, two cups milk, pinch salt.
Beat the eggs very light, whites and
yolks together. Add the milk and salt,
and sift in the flour rather slowly, to pre-
vent lumping. Strain the batter through
a sieve, and fill heated gem-pans. Bake
in a quick oven, and eat immediately.
5.
Coffee.
Melons.
Moulded Oatmeal.
Sardines au gratin. Fresh Eggs, boiled.
Sally-Lunn.
Cocoa.
Sardines au gratin.—Open a box of sar-
dines; take them out carefully and lay them
in a small pie-plate; squeeze a few drops of
a lemon on each fish, sprinkle lightly with
fine crumbs, and brown in the oven.
Sally-Lunn. — Two eggs, two tablespoon-
.
62


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SUMMER
fuls melted butter, one cup milk, pinch salt,
half yeast-cake, two cups flour. Beat the
eggs light; stir in the butter, salt, and milk,
then the flour, and last the yeast cake, dis-
solved. Let it rise at least six hours in a
very well-greased tin; bake, turn out, and
eat hot.
Graham Flakes.
Baked Omelet. Parisian Potatoes.
Quick Biscuit.
Blackberries and Cream.
Coffee.
Cocoa.
Baked Omelet.—Five eggs, half cup milk,
quarter cup fine bread-crumbs, tablespoon-
ful melted butter; pepper and salt to taste.
Soak the crumbs in the milk ten minutes;
beat the eggs very light, the whites and
yolks separately; stir the soaked crumbs,
the milk, the butter, and seasoning into the
yolks, and mix the whites in lightly. Pour
into a well-greased pudding-dish, and bake
in a quick oven. "
Parisian Potatoes. — From peeled and
washed white potatoes scoop out little
balls with the cutter that comes for this
63


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
purpose. Boil them for five minutes, then
put them in the frying-pan with two table-
spoonfuls of melted butter. Stir them
about until every ball is well coated with
the butter, pour into a colander, and set
them in the oven until brown. Sprinkle
with salt and a little minced parsley before
serving.
Quick Biscuit. — Two cups flour, one
tablespoonful mixed lard and butter, one
cup milk, one heaping teaspoonful baking-
powder, pinch salt. Handle little, roll out
and cut quickly, and bake in a steady
oven.
Boiled Rice.
Fried Pickerel. Stewed Potatoes.
Cocoa.
Coffee.
Peach Short-Cake.
Peach Short-Cake.--Make a dough as for
quick biscuit, doubling the materials. Roll
two thirds of the dough into a sheet to fit
the bottom of a baking-pan, spread thickly
with sliced peaches, sprinkle with sugar, and
lay over these a crust made of the remaining
64


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SUMMER
dough. Bake in a steady oven. Split, but-
ter, and eat hot.
* Farina Porridge.
Barbecued Ham. Water-cress.
Butter Cakes.
Huckleberries.
Tea.
Coffee.
Barbecued Ham.—Slice cold boiled corned
or smoked ham. Fry in its own fat, remove
the slices to another dish, and keep hot
while you add to the fat in the pan a tea-
spoonful of white sugar, three dashes of
black pepper, a teaspoonful (scant) of made
mustard, and three tablespoonfuls of vine-
gar. Boil up once, and pour over the
ham.
Butter Cakes. — Prepare a dough as for
quick biscuit, roll it out quarter of an inch
thick, and cut into small rounds. Roll each
of these out until as thin as cookies, prick
with a fork, and bake in a quick oven.
When done, butter well. Leave in the
oven half a minute longer, and send hot
to table.
65


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
Oatmeal.
Omelet with Corn. Deviled Tomatoes.
Cold Bread.
Peaches and Cream.
Iced Tea.
Coffee.
Omelet with Corn.--Prepare as you do
baked omelet; but at the last, before put-
ting into the pan, add a cupful of green corn
cut from the cob. Pour the omelet into a fry-
ing-pan containing two tablespoonfuls of but-
ter, and cook, loosening it constantly from
the bottom with a knife to prevent its scorch-
ing. When done, double over and serve.
Deviled Tomatoes. — Cut fresh tomatoes
into thick slices, broil on a fine wire gridiron
over a clear fire, and when done lay in a
dish, and pour over them a sauce like that
made for barbecued ham, substituting two
tablespoonfuls of olive oil or of melted but-
ter for the ham fat.
66


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SUMMER
10.
Peaches and Pears.
Moulded Hominy.
Broiled Bluefish. Stuffed Potatoes.
Corn-meal Gems.
Теа.
Coffee.
Stuffed Potatoes.—Bake eight large, fine
potatoes until soft; cut off the tops, and
scoop out the contents; add to them one egg
whipped light, two tablespoonfuls melted
butter, half cup milk, pepper and salt. Beat
all together, and return to the skins. Set in
an oven, top upwards, long enough to be-
come well heated, and serve.
Corn-meal Gems.-Three eggs, two cups
milk, two tablespoonfuls butter, two cups
corn-meal, one cup flour, two teaspoonfuls
baking-powder. Work the butter and milk
into the meal, then add the other materials,
the flour last. Have your gem-pans very
hot, and bake half an hour in a hot oven.
67


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR AUTUMN
DURING the early part of the autumn,
and indeed until late in the winter, the
supply of fruit is only less abundant than in
the summer. Melons and peaches go first,
but their place is taken by grapes, pears, ap-
ples, bananas, and, later, mandarins, tanger-
ines, and oranges. Meat now begins to be a
more necessary article in the bill of fare. By
the exercise of a little ingenuity, left-overs
from the dinner of the previous day may be
rendered even more appetizing than they
were in their first estate.
Peaches and Pears.
Oatmeal.
Veal Cutlets à la Maître d'Ilôtel.
Potatoes hashed with Cream.
Quick Sally-Lunn.
Cocoa.
Coffee.
Veal Cutlets à la Maître d'Ilőtel.-Cut veal
68


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR AUTUMN
cutlets into neat pieces, and pound each with
a mallet. Broil over a clear fire, transfer to
a hot dish, and lay on each cutlet a small
piece of maître d'hôtel butter. Set in a hot
corner, covered, for five minutes before send-
ing to table.
Maître d'Hôtel Butter.-Into one cupful
of good butter work a tablespoonful of lem-
on juice and two tablespoonfuls of finely
chopped parsley, with a little salt and white
pepper. Pack into a small jar, cover, and
keep in a cool place. It is useful to put on
chops, steaks, or cutlets, or to mix with po-
tatoes.
Potatoes hashed with Cream.-Chop cold
boiled potatoes fine, and stir them into a
cup of hot milk in which has been melt-
ed two tablespoonfuls of butter. Pepper
and salt to taste. Let the potatoes become
heated through before you serve them. If
you have cream, use this and half as much
butter.
Quick Sally-Lunn.—Three eggs, half cup
butter, one cup milk, three cups flour, two
teaspoonfuls baking-powder, half teaspoon-
69


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
ful salt. Stir the butter, melted, into the
beaten yolks; add the milk, the flour (into
which the baking powder has been sifted),
and the whites last. Bake in one loaf, in
a steady oven.
2.
Cracked Wheat.
Crac Bananas poached Pota
Minced Mutton with Poached Eggs.
Buttered Toast.
Baked Potatoes.
Теа.
Coffee.
Minced Mutton with Poached Eggs. —
Chop cold boiled or roast mutton quite fine.
Put two cupfuls of this into the frying-pan
with half an onion minced, and a half-
cupful of good gravy. If you have none,
use instead a gill of hot water and a lump
of butter the size of an egg. Just before
taking the mince from the fire, stir into
it a tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce
or two tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup.
Heap the mince on small squares of but-
tered toast laid on a hot platter, and place.
a poached egg on top of each mound. Serve
very hot.


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR AUTUMN
3.
Apples.
Wheat Granules.
Soused Mackerel.
Potato Balls.
Quick Wafties.
Cocoa.
Coffee.
Soused Mackerel. — These may be pur-
chased canned at nearly any good grocery,
and make an excellent breakfast dish.
Potato Balls.—To two cupfuls cold mashed
potato add an egg, a teaspoonful of butter, and
salt and pepper to taste. Form with floured
hands into small round or long balls, and fry
in deep fat.
Quick Waffles. — Three cups flour, one
tablespoonful butter, two eggs, two cups
milk, two teaspoonfuls baking-powder, a lit-
tle salt. Beat the eggs light, add the milk,
butter, and salt. Stir in the flour with the
baking-powder last. Grease your waffle-
irons well with a piece of fat pork.
4.
Grapes.
Wheaten Grits.
Broiled Steak with Mushrooms.
Fried Egg-plant.
Unleavened Bread.
Coffee.
Chocolate.


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
Broiled Steak with Mushrooms. — Broil
your steak over a clear fire. Before you put
it on, open a can of mushrooms, take out
half of them, and cut each mushroom in
two. Sauté them in a frying-pan with a lit-
tle butter, unless you have a cup of bouillon
or clear beef soup or gravy at hand. If you
have, let them simmer in this for ten min-
utes, and when you dish your steak, pour
gravy and mushrooms over it. Leave it cov-
ered in the oven five minutes before sending
to table.
Unleavened Bread.—Two cups flour, one
tablespoonful butter, a pinch salt, enough
water to make a dough. Knead this well,
roll out verj thin, cut in rounds with a bis-
cuit cutter, prick with a fork, and bake in a
hot oven.
Pears.
Corn-meal Mush.
Dropped Fish-cakes. Saratoga Potatoes.
Simple Griddle Cakes.
Dropped Fish-cakes.—One cup of salt cod
picked very fine, half cup milk, one table-


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR AUTUMN
spoonful butter, two teaspoonfuls flour, one
egg, pepper to taste. Make a white sauce
of the flour, butter, and milk, stir the fish
into this, add the egg, beaten light, season,
and drop by the spoonful into boiling lard,
as is done with fritters.
Simple Griddle Cakes. — Four cups sour
milk, one small teaspoonful baking-soda,
salt, flour for batter. Stir well and bake
quickly.
6.
Grapes.
Rye-meal Porridge.
Broiled Sausages. Stewed Potatoes.
Wheat-flour Gems.
Broiled Sausages. — Make sausage- meat
into quite thin cakes with the hands, lay
them on a gridiron, and broil them over a
hot fire.
Wheat -flour Gems.-Two cups flour, one
cup milk, one tablespoonful melted butter,
two eggs, saltspoonful salt. Beat the eggs
light, stir in the milk, the butter, the salt.
Sift in the flour, stir briskly, and bake in
gem-pans in a hot oven.
73


WHAT TO EAT_HOW TO SERVE IT
7.
Bananas.
Oatmeal.
Clam Fritters. Boiled Potatoes.
English Muffins.
Tea.
Coffee.
Clam Fritters. — Two dozen clams, one
egg, one cup milk, two small cups flour,
or enough for thin batter, salt and pep-
per. Chop the clams fine, and stir them
into the batter made of the milk, clam
liquor, beaten eggs, and the flour. Season
to taste, and fry by the spoonful in very hot
lard.
English Muffins. — Two cups milk, one
tablespoonful butter, one teaspoonful sugar,
saltspoonful salt, half of a yeast-cake. Four
cups flour, or enough to make a very stiff
batter. Set to rise for about three hours, or
until the batter is like a honeycomb, then
bake on a soapstone griddle in very large
muffin-rings. Make them the day before
they are wanted, and, when ready to use
them, split, toast lightly, butter, and eat
hot.


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR AUTUMN
X
Oranges.
Large Hominy.
Fried Smelts. Moulded Potato.
Hasty Muffins.
Coffee.
Tea.
Moulded Potato.—Press cold mashed po-
tato into small teacups; turn out, brush over
with yolk of egg, put a bit of butter on top
of each, and brown in the oven.
Hasty Muffins.—Two cups flour, two eggs,
one tablespoonful mixed butter and lard,
two teaspoonfuls white sugar, one teaspoon-
ful baking-powder, saltspoonful salt, one cup
milk. Into the eggs, beaten very light, stir
the melted shortening, the sugar, the milk,
and the flour, well mixed with the salt
and baking-powder. Stir well, and bake in
thoroughly greased tins.
9.
Grapes.
Cerealine cooked in Milk.
Egg Timbales with Cheese. Lyonnaise Potatoes.
Wheat Puffs.
Egg Timbales with Cheese.—Six eggs, one


WHAT TO EAT--HOW TO SERVE IT
gill milk, salt and pepper to taste, two table-
spoonfuls grated cheese. Beat the eggs well
without separating the yolks and whites, add
the milk and seasoning, stir in the cheese, and
pour into well-greased little tin pans with
straight sides; set these in a pan of hot wa-
ter, and bake in the oven; when the egg is
firm, turn out on a flat dish, and pour a white
sauce over them.
Lyonnaise Potatoes.--Slice cold boiled po-
tatoes into neat rounds; cut a medium-sized
onion into thin slices, and put it with a good
tablespoonful of butter or bacon dripping
into the frying-pan; when the onion is colored,
add the potatoes, about two cupfuls, and stir
them about until they are a light brown.
Strew with chopped parsley, and serve.
Wheat Puffs—Two cups milk, two eggs,
two cups flour. Beat hard and very smooth,
and bake in greased and heated gem-pans or
earthenware cups. Eat at once.
76


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR WINTER
WORD may be said here anent the cook-
h ing of porridges. There are as many
theories about this apparently simple affair as
there are denominational differences in theo-
logical circles. One housekeeper soaks the
oatmeal overnight; another puts it on when
the fire is made; another fifteen minutes be-
fore breakfast. Mrs. A. soaks hers in cold
water, Mrs. B. uses boiling, while Mrs. C. in-
clines to having the water just hot. One
stirs the porridge frequently; another says it
is ruined if touched with a spoon.
On general principles, one may say that
oatmeal is never the worse for a soaking, al-
though some varieties need it less than oth-
ers; that unless carefully and evenly cooked
it is apt to become lumpy without stirring
or beating; and that the degree of stiffness
to which it should be brought must de-


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
pend upon the taste of those who are to
eat it.
1.
Oranges.
Graham Mush.
Sausage Rolls.
Rye Muffins.
Baked Potatoes.
Tea.
Coffee.
Sausage Rolls.—Make a good pastry by
chopping into two cups of flour four table-
spoonfuls of butter, making this to a paste
with half a cup of ice-water, and rolling out
three times. Have the ingredients and uten-
sils very cold, and handle the paste as little
and as lightly as possible. Cut the pastry
with a sharp knife into strips about three
inches square. On one of these lay cooked
and minced sausage-meat, and cover it with
another square of the same size. Pinch the
edges together, and bake in a moderate oven.
Proceed thus until all the materials are
used.
Rye Muffins.--One cup white flour, two
cups rye flour, two eggs, two teaspoonfuls
baking-powder, one tablespoonful butter, one
tablespoonful sugar, saltspoonful salt, milk
78


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR WINTER
enough for stiff batter. Beat well, and bake
in muffin-tins.
2.
Mandarins.
Boiled Hominy.
Pork Tenderloins.
Apple Sauce.
Crumpets.
Coffee.
Cocoa.
Crumpets. — Two cups milk, three cups
flour, three tablespoonfuls butter, saltspoon-
ful salt, half yeast-cake dissolved in warm
water. Warm the milk; beat in the salted
flour, the melted butter, and the yeast. Let
this sponge stand in a warm place until light.
Bake in greased muffin-rings on a hot grid-
dle, or in muffin-pans in the oven. In either
case fill the pans or rings only half full, as
the crumpets will rise in baking.
- 3.
Oatmeal.
Veal Croquettes. Stewed Potatoes.
Sour-milk Muffins.
Stewed Prunes.
Теа.
Coffee.
Stewed Frunes Coffee.
Veal Croquettes.-One cup cold veal, minced


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
fine; tiny bit of onion, scalded and chopped ;
half teaspoonful parsley; one cup milk, or
half milk, half soup stock; one tablespoon-
ful flour; one tablespoonful butter; pepper
and salt to taste; one egg. Cook the butter
and flour together until they bubble; pour
the milk or milk and stock on them, and stir
until they thicken. Remove from the fire, and
pour upon the beaten egg; then stir in the
meat, seasoned with the onion, parsley, pep-
per, and salt. Set this aside until cold enough
to handle, then form into croquettes between
the floured hands. Roll in egg, and then in
fine cracker crumbs, and drop into boiling
lard. They are better prepared an hour be-
fore frying
In making veal croquettes, oyster liquor
may be used in place of the stock, and a few
oysters chopped with the veal will improve
the flavor.
Sour-milk Muffins. — One egg, two cups
sour milk, half teaspoonful salt, half tea-
spoonful soda dissolved in hot water; flour
to make a stiff batter. Beat hard, and bake
quickly.
80


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR WINTER
4
.
Bananas.
Wheat Flakes.
Apples and Bacon. Loaf Corn Bread
Saratoga Potatoes.
Tea.
Coffee.
Apples and Bacon.-Fry thin slices of ba-
con crisp in its own fat. Take up the bacon
and keep hot while you fry in the fat left in
the pan apples sliced across and cored, but
not peeled. Arrange the apples in the
centre of the dish, the bacon around the
sides.
Loaf Corn Bread. — Two eggs, two cups
milk, two cups corn meal, one cup flour, one
tablespoonful lard, one tablespoonful sugar,
two teaspoonfuls baking-powder, saltspoon-
ful salt. Beat the eggs light, add the melted
lard, the milk, the flour, and meal, sifted with
the baking-powder and salt, and beat very
hard. Bake in a round tin, one with a tube
in the middle, if you have it.


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
6
.
Grapes.
Cerealine.
Broiled Salt Mackerel à la Maitre d'Hótel.
Stewed Potatoes. Risen Muffins.
Теа.
Cocoa.
Broiled Salt Mackerel à la Maître d'Hôtel.-
Soak the mackerel overnight. In the morn-
ing wipe it dry, broil, lay on a hot dish, and
anoint plentifully with maître d'hôtel butter,
made by directions given in the preceding
chapter..
Risen Muffins.—Two cups milk, two eggs,
one tablespoonful lard, one tablespoonful
sugar, saltspoonful salt, half yeast cake dis-
solved in a little warm water, flour enough
for batter. Set a sponge of all the ingredi-
ents except the eggs to rise overnight. In
the morning beat these light, add them to
the batter, and bake the muffins in tins in a
quick oven.
82


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR WINTER
Wheat Germ-Meal Porridge.
Broiled Ham. Canned Pea Pancakes.
Buttered Toast.
Baked Apples.
Cocoa.
Coffee.
Canned Pea Pancakes.—One can of green
pease, one egg, one cup milk, two teaspoon-
fuls melted butter, half cupful flour, half tea-
spoonful baking-powder, salt to taste. Open
the can several hours before it is to be used,
and drain off the liquor. Rinse the pease in
cold water. Mash them with the back of a
spoon, and mix with them the butter and salt.
Make a batter of the egg, the milk, and the
flour, with the baking - powder. Add the
pease, beat well, and bake on a griddle.
Tangerines.
Rice Porridge.
Moulded Eggs.
Ham Toast.
Baked Potatoes.
Теа.
Coffee.
Moulded Eggs.—On the bottom of well-
buttered patty - pans with straight sides
83


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
sprinkle finely minced parsley and a little
pepper and salt. Break an egg into each
pan, set them in a large pan filled with boil-
ing water, and bake until set. Turn out on
a flat dish, and pour a white sauce over
them.
Ham Toast.—To every cupful of chopped
cold boiled ham put a half-teaspoonful of
made mustard, as much butter, and a little
Worcestershire sauce. Trim the crust from
slices of bread, toast and butter them, and
spread them with the chopped ham.
8.
Bananas.
Oatmeal.
Brojled Smoked Salmon. Breakfast Biscuit.
Savory Potatoes.
Cocoa
Coffee.
Breakfast Biscuit.—Two cups milk, half
cake yeast dissolved in warm water, two tea-
spoonfuls white sugar, two tablespoonfuls
lard, one tablespoonfnl butter, saltspoonful
salt, flour for soft dough. Warm the milk,
melt the shortening, and set the sponge over-
night. The next morning roll into a sheet,


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR WINTER
cut out with a biscuit cutter, let them rise
twenty minutes in the pan, and bake.
Savory Potatoes.—Two cupfuls cold pota-
toes sliced, half cup gravy, quarter of an
onion sliced. Heat the gravy in a frying-
pan with the onion, add the potatoes, and
leave them until they are brown, stirring
often. Serve potatoes and gravy together.
9.
Oranges.
Cracked Wheat.
Lyonnaise Tripe. Boiled Potatoes.
Bread-and-milk Cakes.
Tea.
Coffee.
Lyonnaise Tripe.—One pound boiled tripe,
one onion, one tablespoonful butter, one cup-
ful stewed tomatoes, pepper and salt. Brown
the onion in the butter, add the tripe, cut
into neat pieces, add the seasoning. Brown
lightly, add the tomatoes, and, when these
are hot, serve.
Bread-and-milk Cakes.—One cup fine bread
crumbs, two cups milk, one egg, two tea-
spoonfuls melted butter, saltspoonful salt,
two tablespoonfuls flour. Soak the crumbs
85


FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR WINTER
have ready in a pan a tablespoonful of bacon
dripping made very hot, stir into this two
cupfuls of the potatoes, and toss about until
well browned.
87


AT LUNCHEON
DROPERLY treated, luncheon may be the
I pleasantest meal of the day. Simple
or elaborate, as the housekeeper's taste may
dictate, always informal, it is more comfort-
able than the breakfast because less hurried,
more agreeable than the dinner because less
ceremonious.
The table at luncheon may either be set as
for breakfast, with a pretty colored cloth to
cover it; or a prettier way, if one has a table
with a handsome top, is to spread on this a
large luncheon napkin that only partially con-
ceals the polished surface. One or more of
these napkins may be used, according to their
size and the amount of space you wish covered.
A fringed doily or a crocheted or netted mat
may be laid at each place to protect the ta-
ble-top from the heated plate. Other mats
should be laid under the hot dishes of meat,
88


AT LUNCHEON
etc., while a tile or a trivet will hold the
chocolate or teapot.
A writer on household decoration in a re-
cent article in a popular magazine enlarged
upon the charming effect produced by paint-
ing a table-top white, and thus producing a
good background upon which to display old
blue-and-white china. This would doubtless
be extremely pretty, but in the practical
mind the suspicion arises that, by the time
the bare white table had held hot dishes dur-
ing half a dozen meals, its surface would be
marked with yellow rings that would leave
no choice to the housewife but to conceal the
whole of the defaced expanse with a table-
cloth. A good furniture polish, or a simple
mixture of sweet-oil and turpentine, applied
with a piece of flannel, will restore the beauty
of a hard-wood table-top, but it is question-
able if the white paint could be so readily
renovated.
The flowers that should have freshened the
breakfast board must not be lacking at lunch-
eon-time. The table may be spread with a
luncheon set of china, or, if one does not own
89


WHAT TO EAT—AOW TO SERVE IT
this, with the same plates, etc., that are used at
breakfast and at tea. The tea-tray, with its
burden of sugar-bowl, cream-pitcher, tea-
caddy, and dainty cups and saucers, may stand
in front of the mistress of the house, while at
her elbow may be the five-o'clock-tea crane
bearing its kettle of boiling water; or a small-
er hot-water urn in brass, copper, or silver,
with a spirit-lamp under it, may be on the
table near her right hand, with the teapot
beside it. If the small hot-water pot is used,
and the table is bare, a tray should hold the
kettle and stand, lest a drop of blazing alco-
hol should blister the polished surface of the
wood. When cocoa or chocolate is drunk at
luncheon, the paraphernalia of kettle and
spirit-lamp is, of course, unnecessary.
There are some brands of cocoa for which
it is claimed by the manufacturers that they
are excellent when prepared for use by siin-
ply pouring the boiling water on the powder.
So far as the writer's experience has gone,
however, there is not one of them that is not
benefited by being boiled for a few minutes
before serving.
90


AT LUNCHEON
Nearly everything that is to compose the
ordinary luncheon for the family may be put
upon the table at one time. Of course there
must be an exception to this rule when the
first course consists of soup or bouillon; but
even then all the cold dishes may be in place
when the guests are seated. The waiting
need be only of the simplest, unless formality
is desired. Those about the table may help
themselves and one another, while the duties
of the waitress may be confined to passing
the dishes that are on the sideboard, chang-
ing the plates, bringing in hot dishes, etc.
The truth, often reiterated, that women
cook only for men, and that a woman would
never take the trouble to prepare anything
for herself beyond a cup of tea and a slice of
toast, is strongly emphasized by the careless-
ness many of them manifest in the matter of
luncheon. Of course, when there are several
in the family the needs and tastes of others
bave to be consulted; but when the mistress
of the house has to sit down to a solitary
meal, or at best to one that is the nursery
dinner for two or three children whose diet is
91


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
of the simplest, she is apt to let her luncheon
consist of little more than a “cold bite,” and
the-almost-invariable cup of tea. Such a
course must affect the health sooner or later,
and is a species of carelessness of self against
which a woman must guard if she does not
wish to reap its fruits in headaches, dyspep-
sia, and general depression of the system.
Without getting up a troublesome menu, she
may yet devise divers tempting little dishes
which will coax lier appetite. She will feel
happier and work better for a substantial al-
though not heavy meal in the middle of the
day.
Luncheon is pre-eminently the meal at
which to make use of potted meats, sardines,
pâtés, and the like. There are many of these
from which to make a choice. A luncheon is
not to be despised that begins with a cup of
bouillon, or with a plate of soup left over from
last night's dinner, continues with fresh rolls
or biscuit or muffins, or toasted crackers, or
good cold bread — white or brown-cut in
delicate slices, and one of the pâtés put up
by certain French and American companies,


AT LUNCHEON
or a Gotha liver sausage, or a few sardines,
accompanied by a cup of tea or cocoa, and
concludes with some simple sweet, such as
marmalade, jam, or fruit.
But luncheon need not be confined to cold
delicacies that must be bought outright. It
is the time for using up left-overs, for trying
new recipes for side-dishes and entrées, for
the housekeeper to learn for herself and to
teach her cook the daintiest methods of util-
izing those remnants which the uninitiated
might stigmatize as “scraps.” Great is the
variety of styles in which these may be em-
ployed. That bit of cold fish from last even-
ing's dinner may be picked to shreds, stirred
into a white sauce, and baked in a scallop-
shell. Or it may be mixed with half as much
mashed potato, moistened with boiling water
and a little melted butter, and tossed up into
a dish of creamed fish.
The scraps of pastry left from pie-making
and the sausage or two that were spared at
breakfast may compose a sausage-roll, the
cold potato and the fragment of steak may
be turned into a hash, and odd slices of cold
93


WHAT TO EAT_HOW TO SERVE IT
lamb, mutton, or veal are just the thing for
croquettes and fritters. And of the odds and
ends. of poultry what delicious compounds
may be made! Croquettes, scallops, minces,
fritters, filling for pâtés, salad enough for one
or two if eked out with lettuce, and a dozen
other dainty plats. Or a tiny omelet, either
baked or sauté, may be prepared ; and when
one begins to count up the appetizing dishes
which may be made of eggs, the list seems
without an end. Even when several people
are to partake of the meal a variety of little
dishes may take the place of a single large
one for which new material would have to be
purchased. In the cultivation or creation
of a talent as a réchauffeuse true economy
consists.
In some homes luncheon is a quite elabo-
rate affair, and comprises several courses, in-
cluding, perhaps, a soup or bouillon, a meat
course, a salad, and fruit or sweets. In the
majority of establishments owned by people
of moderate means, however, the meal is
simpler, but need be no less delightful. Many
people can eat muffins, griddle-cakes, and
94


AT LUNCHEON
other hot breads at noon with less after-dis-
comfort than at any other season, and dishes
of this sort are usually acceptable on the
luncheon-table. With their help the meal
can hardly fail to be appetizing.
95


A SMALL LUNCHEON
TUNCHEONS are among the most popu-
U lar forms of entertainment that can be
selected, when only a limited number are to
be honored. To these affairs men are seldom
invited, and there are not wanting those
among the sterner sex who do not hesitate to
attribute their banishment to desire on the
women's part for the opportunity to chat un-
interruptedly and unreservedly on those sub-
jects presumed dear to their hearts-dress,
babies, and servants. Other men go so far as
to hint that gossip, and even scandal, engagé
the tongues of these much-maligned women,
while even the most charitable husbands and
brothers cannot refrain from openly express-
ing their pity for the unfortunate ladies de-
barred, for even a limited period, from the
delights of the society of the lords of crea-
tion.
96


A SMALL LUNCHEON
Casting aside the intimations respecting
gossip or scandal as unworthy of notice, and
tracing the animus of the other slurs to their
source, in the overpowering jealousy on the
part of their perpetrators that they are ex-
cluded from the select assemblages they af-
fect to condemn, it may be said in refutation
of the last charge that there are few women
who do not agree in considering a luncheon
among the most delightful of their social ex-
periences. An invitation to one is usually
hailed with joy, and a woman will undergo a
good deal of inconvenience sooner than con-
sent to decline it.
A luncheon is elastic in its nature, and may
be of any size the hostess's fancy or judg-
ment dictates. One woman may invite an-
other to share the meal with her, and to help
form that solitude à deux so delightful to two
congenial souls. In such a case a long and
elaborate menu is out of place, and not in the
best form. What dishes there are should be
wisely selected, perfectly prepared, and care-
fully served; but a multiplication of courses
or viands is unnecessary, and savors of vulgar
97


A SMALL LUNCHEON
expected to be present. In either case fail-
ure to keep the engagement is a grave breach
of etiquette. It may be said, in this connec-
tion, that more of a compliment is implied
by the request to be one of a small and-by
inference-select band than is shown when
the invitations embrace a larger party.
An even number is usually better than an
odd number at a luncheon, unless the table
is a large round one, about which the guests
can gather without leaving an awkward gap
on one side.
The covering for the table may either be a
very pretty luncheon cloth with a little color
about it, or else of plain white. Of course,
should the hostess desire to have any one
tint predominate in her table appointments,
it is better to have the cloth of that shade
or of white. If artificial light is required,
candles give a pleasanter light than anything
else, and one candelabrum of several branch-
es is generally enough for a small table.
Should this not sufficiently illuminate the
room, the gas may be lighted and partially
turned down, or a lamp or two may be placed
760264 A
99


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
on a mantel-shelf or on a bracket. There
should always be flowers in the centre of the
table, preferably a flat or low dish or vase,
for where there are few guests they should
be able to see each others' faces, instead of
being obliged to dodge around a tall orna-
ment that effectually conceals those seated
on one side of the board from those placed
on the other. Bouquets de corsage, while al-
ways pretty, are not essential at a simple
luncheon, nor are cards necessary.
The table should be spread with the dain-
tiest china and silver. At each plate must
be the usual articles_knife, fork, tumbler,
butter-plate, and napkin. A knife and fork
for each course may be laid by every plate,
the knives on the right side, the forks on the
left. A roll or two or three sticks of bread
must lie on each napkin. The usual little
dishes of olives, salted almonds, pea-nuts or
pistachio-nuts, radishes, bonbons, etc., should
stand here and there, and by their color or
sparkle add to the beauty of the repast.
The first course may be either beef or
chicken bouillon. This is served in bouillon-
100


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
of each guest. Rolls, French bread, or bread
and butter are then passed.
The next course in a luncheon of this size
need not be an entrée, although one may be
introduced here. Sweetbreads, chicken cut-
lets, timbales of some sort, a vol-au-vent-any
one of these will answer, but there is no vio-
lation of rules if it is omitted altogether at a
small luncheon. In that case the next course
-the pièce de résistance—may follow the fish
directly, and may consist of French chops
with pease, and potatoes daintily prepared, or
chicken broiled, fried, or cooked in some
attractive fashion, or broiled tenderloins of
beef with mushrooms, or birds.
After this the salad appears, and may be
of chicken, lobster, shrimps, oysters, or to-
matoes, avoiding, of course, any meat or fish
that has appeared earlier in the meal, even
although in another form. The olives should
be passed with this, and, indeed, may have
gone the rounds during and between the
other course, as have the salted nuts and the
radishes.
The salad eaten, the table is cleared and
102


A SMALL LUNCHEON
crumbed, and the dessert brought in-ices in
some pretty form, accompanied by fancy
cakes. Fruit may succeed this, or it may be
omitted, and the final cup of chocolate or cof-
fee served at once. The bonbons now re-
ceive attention, and are usually carried into
the drawing-room by the guests, who, being
women, seem to find almost as much enjoy-
ment in nibbling these as men do in discuss-
ing their post-prandial cigars.
103


A LARGE LUNCHEON.
A MUCH more ceremonious affair than
A that described in the preceding chapter
is the large luncheon, where there are present
anywhere from eight to twenty guests. The
invitations for this are issued at least ten days,
and often three weeks or more, previous to
the date for which the guests are asked, and
should be written, not verbal, except when
given to an intimate friend. The recipient
should reply at once. The hour set is usually
one or half-past one, and the most punctil-
ious promptness should always be observed.
Nothing short of a serious accident or illness
or a death in the family can justify any one
in breaking such an engagement.
“People don't always keep that precept,".
says a woman, decidedly. “I can give more
than one example to the contrary from my
own experience. Here is an instance. I had
104


A LARGE LUNCHEON
a letter not long ago from a friend living out
of town, begging me to fix a time when she
could come and see me. She dreaded mak-
ing the trip into town when it was doubtful
if she would find me at home. I knew she
had few outings, so I wrote and asked her to
lunch with me upon a certain day, adding
that there would be a couple of other old
friends present whom she would be glad to
meet again. The appointed day came, and
was misty and drizzly. It never occurred to
me that the weather would keep any one
housed, and at the lunch hour “the guests
were met, the feast was set'-or, at least,
two of the guests were there--but the one in
whose honor they had been invited failed to
appear. A whole mortal hour did we wait
for that woman. Then in despair we sat
down to a luncheon that had been in no wise
improved by the delay. It was to have been
a partie carrée, and one side of the table
looked wofully blank and bare.”
“But did you not get a satisfactory ex-
planation of your friend's absence ?” queries
an interested listener.
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
“Only a note the next day, stating that as
it had stormed, she had supposed I would
not expect her. It never seemed to occur to
her that she ought at least to have tele-
graphed.”
“I had an experience that equals that,”
chimes in another. “I had promised a young
girl friend a lunch party whenever she should
come to the city. Just before the holidays
she wrote to me that she would be in town
for a week. I was run to death with Christ-
mas preparations and social engagements, but
I sent her a note at once, asking her to fix a
day for her luncheon, and enclosing the list
of guests--most of them old school friends-
whom I would invite to meet her. She re-
plied, setting a day. I went to no end of trou-
ble and expense to get up the most recherché
luncheon I could devise. Just before the ap-
pointed hour one of the guests, who had
promised to call for my young friend and
bring her to my house, brought instead a ver-
bal message that Jennie was not very well,
and would be unable to come. She was ex-
tremely sorry, etc. As I learned from an-
106


A LARGE LUNCHEON
other source that she went to the theatre that
night, I concluded her indisposition, what- .
ever it was, had not been very serious.”
One marvels at the bad habits of good so-
ciety in hearing such tales as these, but they
are unfortunately common. Some persons
appear to be deficient in a sense of good-
breeding, as others are in an eye for color or
an ear for music, and all the maxims in the
world seem inadequate to instil what is miss-
ing.
One general principle may be laid down
for the following of any woman who thinks
of giving a large luncheon-don't undertake
too much. If you cannot afford to engage
the most difficult dishes from a caterer, be
very sure that your cook is equal to prepar-
ing them in a satisfactory manner. Better
have a few things, and have them well done,
than a long menu of indifferently cooked vi-
ands. A large luncheon is no light under-
taking at the best, except to those who have
a practised chef and an expert butler, and a
great deal of personal supervision is required
to make it a success.
107


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
If the number of guests is larger than can
be conveniently accommodated at one table,
two or three smaller ones may be used. One
table is rather prettier, however, as it ad-
mits of concentrating, instead of scattering,
the decoration. The cloth should be white,
or something very handsome in colors. A
centre-piece of velvet or plush or satin, or of
linen, embroidered, painted, done in cut-
work or drawn-work, or ‘something else
equally elegant in material or ornament,
should be laid down the middle of the table.
An exquisite centre-piece may be made of
bolting-cloth, hand-painted and trimmed
with lace. On this a mirror is often placed,
bearing the bowl, basket, or jar of flowers.
Tall candelabra should hold enough can-
dles to light the room well, and each candle
should have its tiny paper or silk shade and
its glass bobèche. If the gas must be used, it
should be shaded. The dishes containing hors
d'æuvres—bonbons, glacé fruits, etc.-must
be many, and their contents of the choicest.
The arrangement of silver, glass, and china
may be the same as at a small luncheon, ex-
108


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
clear ice are often served. The fruit comes
next, and is accompanied by bonbons, glacé
fruits, marrons, and the like. Last are coffee
and chocolate.
Of the following menus, either one is suit-
able for a large luncheon :
1.
Raw Oysters.
Chicken Bouillon.
Creamed Lobster. Crackers or Bread and Butter.
Scalloped Chicken.
Sweetbread Pâtés. Green Pease.
Maraschino Punch.
Fillet of Beef, Mushroom Sauce.
French Fried Potatoes.
Broiled Squabs on Toast. Water-cress.
Chicken Salad.
Strawberries in Wine Jelly, with Whipped Cream.
Nesselrode Pudding Biscuit. Fancy Cakes.
Fruit.
Bonbons.
Coffee, Chocolate.
110


A LARGE LUNCHEON
. 2.
Clams on Ice.
Bouillon.
Halibut Steaks, Cream Sauce. Parisian Potatoes.
Ham Pâtés.
Green Pease.
Stuffed Crabs.
Chicken Cutlets.
Broiled Fillet of Beef, au Maître d'Hôtel. Asparagus.
Roman Punch.
Quail on Toast. Celery Salad.
Fried Mushrooms on Toast, with Sauce à l'Espagnol.
Frozen Pudding Whipped Cream.
Ices.
Fruit.
Coffee. Chocolate.
With either of these menus wine may be
served, although there is not the variety of
these at a ladies' luncheon that there is at a
dinner. Claret may be served with the fish
or first entrée, and drunk during the luncheon,
or brought in with the game, or with the
heaviest meat course. In some cases no
claret is served, and the only wine is the
small glass of sherry offered late in the meal.
111


A STANDING LUNCH.
TOR a long time there was a felt need for
T some form of entertainment that would
be more general in its character than a dinner
or a lunch, less of a full-dress affair than an
evening party, and more elaborate than the
ordinary kettle-drum or afternoon tea. This
want was finally supplied by the introduction
of the standing lunch, which is in reality lit-
tle more than a regular reception, such as
usually takes place in the evening, held in
the afternoon. To this both ladies and gen-
tlemen are invited.
The hours for which the guests are asked
-usually from four to six or seven-preclude
the necessity of full dress. The men usually
wear morning coats, while the women are
arrayed in handsome calling costumes, and
do not remove their bonnets. It may be re-
marked, en passant, that the wearing of the
112


A STANDING LUNCH
hat or bonnet is, or should be, a rule without
exception at a ladies' lunch. Only the host-
ess or those of the company who are guests
in the house appear with their heads un-
covered. The others wear handsome dressy
bonnets, such as they would assume for the
theatre in the evening or for an afternoon
reception.
The hostess who desires to entertain her
friends or to discharge her social obligations
by a standing lunch must issue her invitations
some days in advance of the date fixed. They
should be formal, and are usually engraved,
although they may be written. The former
method is preferable.
At a lunch of this kind, as the name im-
plies, the guests are not to be seated at
one large table, nor even at a number of
small ones. The large dining - room table
and sideboard are set out with a repast con-
sisting of some hot and some cold dishes.
The guests move about the drawing-room,
seating themselves if they have the chance,
as they would at an eveniņg reception, and
are served with plates containing the succes-
113


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
sive courses, either by waiters or by their
escorts. Not only is there less formality in
the conduct of the guests than would be
observed at an ordinary luncheon, but there
is also less precision in the serving of the
refreshments.
For such a lunch the hostess does well
when she provides a number of camp-chairs
in addition to the seats she already has in
her rooms. It is always more agreeable to
eat when one is seated than when standing
and endeavoring to handle a full plate and a
brimming coffee-cup at the same time. Such
an effort is severe even for a man, who has
been obliged to practise it all his life, but it
is doubly distressing to a woman, who is in
constant terror lest an unguarded movement
on her own or her neighbor's part should
cause an upset and a spill that might fatal-
ly damage at least one gown, and possibly
more.
In preparing for a standing lunch, or for
any other large reception, it is prudent for
the hostess to clear her parlors of such break:
ables as statues, tall vases, piano lamps, etc.,
114


A STANDING LUNCH
that rest upon pedestals or easily overturned
stands. These, if not taken from the room,
should be moved into corners where they
will be comparatively safe from injury;
while the largest pieces of furniture, such
as sofas or lounges and big easy-chairs,
should be wheeled back near the wall, so
as not to interfere with the movements
of people through the rooms. Light chairs
should stand about here and there, and
the camp-chairs should be stacked in some
convenient closet or in the corner of the
hall, whence they can be produced at a
moment’s notice when the refreshments are
served.
The floral decorations may be either simple
or ornate, according to the wishes of the
hostess. Mantels banked with flowers,
chandeliers and brackets draped with smilax,
a profusion of roses, and baskets of choice
cut flowers are very beautiful, but the rooms
can be rendered attractive by less costly
means. If there is to be a large number of
guests, the flowers will be unnoticed by
many of them unless judgment be shown in
115


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
the disposition of vases. These should be
placed on the mantels, on brackets, on the
top of the piano, or in some other place
where they will be seen readily, rather
than on low tables, where they are not
only hidden, but are in imminent danger
of being knocked over. Palms or ferns in
pots and other growing plants decorate
pleasingly, and can be engaged for the even-
ing from a florist, if the mistress of the house
neither owns them nor feels inclined to buy
them.
In preparing the dining-room table it
should be drawn out to a size that will per-
mit of its holding without undue crowding
the dishes and plates that will be required
for the lunch. If the refreshments are too
numerous to be accommodated here, the
side-board should be cleared for their re-
ception, and even one or two side-tables
brought in. The table should be spread
with a long white cloth. A bowl or jar or
pot of flowers may be in the centre of the
board. Very elaborate floral arrangements
are unnecessary in the dining-room, unless a
116


A STANDING LUNCH
good many of the guests are expected to
come out here.
At each end of the table and at intervals
along the sides spaces should be left for the
dishes that are to hold the refreshments.
Between these may be the piles of plates and
the napkins. These may either be separate
or arranged together, a napkin being laid on
each plate and all placed in piles, so that
they may be easily distributed. Forks and
spoons should also be close at hand, with the
necessary utensils for serving the different
dishes, that there may not be a hurried search
for a carving knife or fork or a large spoon
just at the last moment, when its presence
might have saved delay and confusion.
The side-table should hold the coffee and
chocolate cups, the wineglasses, goblets, or
tumblers for water, etc. Let it be seen, by
the way, that there is plenty of iced water in
readiness. Many a guest at a large recep-
tion has longed for a drink of it and found it
apparently the hardest thing to get which he
could have selected.
Unless the hostess has a remarkably well-
117


WHAT TO EAT_HOW TO SERVE IT
trained butler, and one or two other servants
who understand waiting, she will be wise if
she engages hired waiters to take charge of
the serving of the dishes, and has her butler
and maids confine their services to passing
plates in the drawing-room. This is pleas-
anter than having the outside helpers wait-
ing on the guests, while their skill and prac-
tice in serving render them most efficient in
the work of filling plates.
The first course of a standing lunch is usu-
ally bouillon, served in cups. When these
have been removed, a plate is brought to each
guest containing oysters in some shape, usu-
ally fricasseed or creamed, and accompanied
possibly by a lobster croquette or a sweet-
bread or mushroom pâté. The third course
may comprise chicken croquettes or rissoles,
accompanied by lettuce or celery salad.
Both with this and the preceding course tiny
square or three-cornered sandwiches of thin
bread and butter, spread with some potted
meat or fish, with sardines, or with lobster'
mayonnaise, may have been passed. After
this course come the sweets--ice-creams or
118


THE LUNCH BASKET.
To many people the lunch basket and its
I contents are quite as important as any
regularly set-out meal of the day—more im-
portant than such occasional luxuries as cere-
monious déjeûners à la fourchette and stand-
ing lunches.
Among this number are not only the
school-children who, five days out of the
week, must carry what the Southern boys
and girls would term a “snack” with them
to school, but also the army of men and wo-
men whose employment takes them to such
a distance from their homes that it is im-
practicable for them to return there for the
midday meal. With these must not be for-
gotten the band of night workers who, in one
capacity or another, have part in making the
morning papers, and who, turning day into
night, find it as essential to take a midnight
· as others do a midday repast.
120


THE LUNCH BASKET
In a less degree interest is felt in the lunch
basket by those young people who regard
the coming of the summer chiefly as the re-
turn of the picnic season. All these desire
to know of something appetizing to supply
their needs, and nearly all agree in condemn-
ing certain articles as stale and hackneyed,
asserting that they are tired to death of
them. Among these are generally ham and
tongue sandwiches.
In making suggestions on this subject, the
first thing to be considered is the basket, and
to begin with, it should be a basket, and not
a close tin box or pail that cannot be sweeten-
ed except by scouring and scalding between
the times of using. A basket, by permitting
the passage of air through its interstices,
prevents the food acquiring a close, musty
taste; and even the basket should have fre-
quent airings and sunnings, and an occasion-
al plunge into hot salt and water, followed
by a rinsing in fresh hot water, and a wiping
and drying in the sun or near the fire.
Only fresh napkins must be used for wrap-
ping about the lunch, and if their use proves
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
too severe a strain upon the linen drawer,
Japanese paper napkins may be substituted,
or even fresh white tissue paper, or druggist's
paper. The daintiness of ribbons to tie the
different parcels is all very pretty, but it is
hardly possible for the hurried house-mother
who has to put up even one lunch a day,
much less when she has two or three to pré-
pare. In order to succeed in making them
even ordinarily attractive, she must take
thought for these lunches as carefully as she
does for the other meals of the day, and
make provision accordingly, not waiting un-
til the last moment, and then hastily gather-
ing up whatever odds and ends she can find,
and hurriedly cramming them all together
into the basket in a manner that savors un-
pleasantly of the bestowal of “ broken vict-
uals” and cold bits upon the beggar at the
kitchen door.
Not until she gives the matter serious
thought does the housewife appreciate what a
variety she can select for the lunch basket of
her boy or girl, or of her husband. Hot
foods are out of the question, of course, and
122


THE LUNCH BASKET
even hot drinks, unless a tiny alcohol “pocket
stove,” filled and ready for lighting, and a
tin or agate-iron cup, accompany the outfit.
In that case, many a hot cup of café au lait
or chocolate, of soup or bouillon, may be en-
joyed by the luncher.
But even when this cannot be managed,
cold coffee and tea are not to be despised,
while cold bouillon is preferred by many to
the hot beef tea. Or, for a change from this,
a small flask of milk or of lemonade may be
carried. In any case the bottle should be a
stout one, and provided with a good stopper,
that no break or leakage may cause the ruin
of the rest of the refection.
China makes the lunch basket too heavy,
and takes up too much room. If a plate is
required, let it be one of the little wooden
butter plates that can be thrown away after
using. It is often possible to procure a glass
from which to drink, but even when it is not,
a flat glass or a collapsing cup may easily be
carried in the pocket; or an ordinary flask,
having a cup fitted to the bottom, may be
purchased and kept for service in the lunch
123


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
basket. A tiny cruet for salt and another
for pepper should also be part of the outfit.
Often it does not seem to occur to the house-
keeper that it is quite practicable to carry a
cup custard, a baked apple or pear, a tiny
mould of jelly or blanc-mange, as well as un-
cooked fruit. While the latter is always
wholesome and generally popular, there are
times when one wants something else. To
paraphrase Miss Woolson's words in“For the
Major," “ A large cold apple on a winter day
is not calculated to arouse enthusiasm."
Other dainties are easily prepared. Every
one who has read “Little Women”—and who
has not read it ?—will remember Meg and Jo
March trudging off to their work on frosty
mornings, each carrying the turnover that
was to compose her lunch, and gaining com-
fort for the cold fingers from its warmth.
A tiny pie baked in a saucer, a small tart,
a diminutive rice or tapioca pudding in a
patty-pan, are not hard to make, and are a
welcome variety at the midday “snack.”
While it might possibly be an expensive
item to provide potted meat for sandwiches
124


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
roll or biscuit to still further vary monotony.
Egg sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, sweet-
bread sandwiches, sardine sandwiches, minced
ham, tongue, ham and chicken, chicken and
bacon sandwiches—their name is legion.
But some one may object, one does not
want all sandwiches. True enough, but they
are the pièce de résistance of the lunch. They
may be supplemented, however, by a piece of
cold fowl, by, once in a while, a broiled bird,
by a few pickled oysters, by deviled and
piain hard - boiled eggs, by salads without
number, by olives, cheese, and pickles. And
for desserts are there not the little dishes al-
ready suggested, to say nothing of cake, cook-
ies, ginger-snaps, apples, oranges, mandarins,
bananas, pears, grapes, and other fruits? For
school children there are such simple dainties
as bread or rolls spread with jam, jelly,
marmalade, or apple-sauce. And are not
crackers and cheese always at hand, and al-
most always popular ?
While all this may at first seem to impose
additional labor upon the housekeeper, she
will soon find, when the habit is once estab-
126


THE LUNCH BASKET
lished of providing regularly for the lunch,
that she feels it no more of a burden than
she does to cater for the other meals of the
day. Let her keep on the alert for new fan-
cies, and they will come to her more rapidly
than she can utilize them.
127


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SPRING
THESE menus for simple home lunches,
I given as were those for breakfasts—ten
for each season-are not designed to serve as
exact guides, but merely as suggestions to
the housekeeper. They may easily be im-
proved upon or altered. To some they will
doubtless appear much too simple, while oth-
ers may condemn them as being too elab-
orate. Certain selected recipes will accom-
pany them.
1.
Baked Cheese Omelet. Toasted Crackers.
Strawberry Jam.
Cocoa.
Baked Cheese Omelet.—Two eggs, two cups
milk, one small cup grated cheese, one small
cup fine bread crumbs, salt and Cayenne pep-
per to taste, one tablespoonful melted but-
ter. Soak the crumbs in the milk, in which
128


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SPRING
you have dissolved a tiny pinch of soda; beat
the eggs light, and add to the bread and
milk; stir in the butter, the seasoning, and,
last of all, the cheese. Bake in a well-greased
pudding-dish, and eat at once, before it falls.
Toasted Crackers.—Split and toast Boston
crackers. Butter them well on the inside,
lay the two halves together, and serve them
in a hot covered dish. They are not nearly
so good when they are cold.
Ham Fritters. Baked Bananas.
Bread-and-Butter.
Ginger Snaps.
Tea.
Ham Fritters. — Two cups minced cold
ham, one egg, half-pint good stock, salt-
spoonful dry mustard, teaspoonful Worcester-
shire sauce, tiny bit of scalded onion (chop-
ped), half-teaspoonful minced parsley, one
tablespoonful butter, one teaspoonful flour.
Heat the stock to boiling, and thicken it with
the butter and flour rubbed together; stir
into it the ham, seasoned with the mustard,
onion, Worcestershire sauce, and parsley ;
9
129


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SPRING
before baking. Watch closely or they will
burn.
- 3.
A Scrap Hash. Rice Bread.
Oranges.
A Scrap Hash.—Two cups cold beef (roast,
boiled, corned, or fresh), one or two cold
sausages, two or three slices cold bacon, one
cup cold potato, four olives, tablespoonful
Worcestershire sauce, a little cold stewed to-
mato (if you have it), half an onion minced
fine, one cup gravy or soup stock, or one cup
boiling water and a tablespoonful of butter.
Heat the gravy or stock to boiling in a fry-
ing-pan; stir into it the other ingredients
chopped fine; simmer for fifteen minutes,
stirring constantly. You can either serve
the hash soft or let it brown on the bottom.
Olla-podrida though it seems, it will be savo-
ry, and will be relished by nearly every one.
Rice Bread. — Two cups milk, two cups
boiled rice, one cup white corn-meal, three
eggs well beaten, two tablespoonfuls butter,
teaspoonful salt. Bake in a hot oven, in
rather shallow pans.
131


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
4.
Liver Toast. Rusk.
Radishes.
Stewed Pie-plant.
Light Cakes.
Liver Toast. — One cupful cold boiled or
stewed liver, half cupful brown gravy of any
sort, enough mustard, salt, pepper, and Wor-
cestershire sauce to season the liver highly,
several squares of buttered toast. Rub the
liver smooth with the back of a spoon, add
the seasoning, heat to boiling with the gravy,
and heap or spread upon the toast. Set
in the oven two minutes before sending to
table.
Rusk.—Two cups milk, two eggs, two and
a half cups flour, half cup butter, one cup
sugar, half a yeast-cake dissolved in warm
water. Set a sponge made of the milk, the
yeast, and part of the flour-enough to make
a good batter. Let this rise all night. In
the morning work in the beaten eggs, the
sugar, butter, and the rest of the flour.
Knead well, and make into balls with the
hands. Set these together in the pan, let
them rise until light, and bake in a steady
132


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SPRING
oven. Just before taking them out brush
the tops with molasses and water.
5.
Panned Oysters.
Lunch Biscuit.
Stewed Prunes.
Ginger Snaps.
Panned Oysters.-Cut small rounds of toast
to fit the bottom of deep, straight-sided patty-
pans. Prettier than these are the little "nap-
pies," or china fire-proof dishes, that come
for this purpose. Moisten each piece of toast
with a spoonful of oyster liquor, lay on it
as many oysters as the pan will easily hold,
sprinkle with pepper and salt, lay a small
piece of butter on top, and set in the oven
for a few minutes until the oysters begin to
crimp. Serve in the pans.
Lunch Biscuit.—Two cups flour, half cup
milk, one egg, one tablespoonful butter, one
tablespoonful baking - powder, saltspoonful
salt. Chop the shortening into the salted
flour, pour in the beaten egg and milk, mak-
ing a soft dough, roll out, cut into rounds, and
bake.
133


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
6.
Deviled Mutton.
Hashed Potatoes.
Hot Loaf Bread.
Orange Marmalade.
Deviled Mutton.—Rub slices of rare mut-
ton with a mixture made as follows: One
teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce, one tea-
spoonful vinegar, one teaspoonful made mus-
tard, tablespoonful melted butter. "Let the
meat lie in this for an hour. Then dip each
slice in a frying batter made as directed in
recipe for “ham fritters,” and fry in deep
fat. Or the deviled meat may simply be
boiled over a clear fire. In either case serve
very hot.
Hot Loaf Bread. - Set a loaf of French
bread in the steamer for fifteen minutes, then
in a hot oven for five minutes. Serve wrapped
in a napkin, and cut on the table.
Caviare Toast.
Cold Meat.
Baked Potatoes.
Strawberries, unhulled.
Caviare Toast.—Buy the Russian caviare,
which comes in small tin cans. Cut your
134


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SPRING
.
bread into neat squares or rounds, removing
the crusts; toast and butter it, spread it with
the caviare, and set it in the oven five min-
utes before serving.
8.
Scalloped Cod.
Oatmeal Gems.
Boiled Potatoes.
Guava Jelly and Crackers.
Scalloped Cod.-Two cupfuls picked cod-
fish, one cupful drawn butter°(with an egg
beaten in it), one teaspoonful minced sour
pickle, one tablespoonful Worcestershire
sauce, fine bread-crumbs. Have the drawn
butter hot, stir the fish into it, add the
pickle and sauce, pour into a buttered bak-
ing-dish, sprinkle with crumbs, dot with bits
of butter, and bake.
Oatmeal Gems. — Two cups of the finest
oatmeal, two cups milk, two eggs, one table-
spoonful butter, one tablespoonful sugar, one
saltspoonful salt.
Bread and Butter.
9.
Scrambled Eggs with Asparagus.
Cheese Biscuit.
Lettuce Salad.
135


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
serving inclined one to feel that there were
many worse fates than being obliged to spend
the summer in town.
1.
Anchovy Toast.
Chicken Salad.
Bread-and-Butter.
Berries and Cream.
Iced Tea.
Anchovy Toast.-Spread crustless slices of
toast first with butter, then with anchovy
paste. Set in the oven five minutes, and
send to table.
Chicken Salad.-Cut into small neat pieces
half the contents of a can of boned chicken
or part of a cold boiled or roast chicken.
Mix this with half as much celery, if you can
get it; if not, arrange it in the midst of crisp
lettuce leaves. Stir into it a French dressing
of two tablespoonfuls of oil, as much vinegar,
and a little pepper and salt, and pour over it
a mayonnaise dressing.
Mayonnaise Dressing.–Into a bowl set in
an outer vessel of cold or iced water place
the yolk of an egg. Be careful that no ves-
tige of the white gets in. Begin whipping
138


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SUMMER
Poached Eggs, with Anchovy Toast.
Sardines.
Boston Brown-Bread.
Water-cress.
Nutmeg Melons.
Poached Eggs, with Anchovy Toast.- Pre-
pare slices of anchovy toast as already de-
scribed, and lay on each slice a poached egg.
Pour over all a cup of drawn butter in which
has been stirred a teaspoonful of chopped
parsley.
Boston Brown-Bread.-Put a loaf of Bos-
ton brown-bread into the inner vessel of a
double boiler, and boiling water in the outer
vessel, and steam the bread until it is hot
through.
Game Pâté. Cold Tongue, sliced.
Bread-and-Butter. Radishes.
Hot Crackers.
Cream Cheese.
Game Pâté.-Several varieties of game
pâtés are put up by French and American
companies, and all are admirable for summer
lunches or teas.
5.
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WHAT TO EAT--HOW TO SERVE IT
6.
Fried Pickerel. New Potatoes.
Brown Bread. .
Celery and Radish Salad.
Fried Pickerel.—These fish are very de-
licious when perfectly fresh. Each fish
should be rolled in flour and fried quickly in
hot dripping. Take them out of the pan as
soon as done. .
Celery and Radish Salad.—Cut the celery
into inch lengths, and toss it up with a
French dressing. Heap it in a bowl, and
arrange half-peeled radishes around the
mound. Pour over all a mayonnaise dress-
ing prepared according to the directions al-
ready given. The combination of the cool
celery and the pungent radishes will be
found very pleasing.
Jellied Tongue.
Fried Bananas.
Asparagus Biscuit.
Peaches and Cream.
Jellied Tongue.—One cup of the liquor in
which the tongue was cooked, two cups good
142


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SUMMER
stock or gravy of any meat except mutton,
half-box of gelatine, one gill cold water, one
cup boiling water, two tablespoonfuls vine-
gar, one glass sherry, a cold boiled tongue,
sliced. Soak the gelatine in the cold water
for two hours. Pour over it the boiling
water, the stock or gravy, and the tongue
liquor, heated. Unless the gravy is highly
seasoned, it is a good plan to boil a bay leaf,
a sprig of parsley, a slice of onion, and a few
sweet herbs in a cup of water, and then to
strain this, and pour it over the gelatine in-
stead of using the plain boiling water. Fla-
vor the jelly with the vinegar, the sherry,
pepper, and salt, if the last is needed. Strain
all through a cloth. When the jelly begins .
to harden, pour a little into a brick-shaped
mould or tin pan with straight sides, first
wetting the mould with cold water. Ar-
range slices of tongue on this. Pour in more
jelly, then place another layer of tongue, and
continue thus until the supply of both is ex-
hausted, making jelly the last layer. Set the
mould on ice until the jelly is hard ; turn it
out and slice on the table. This sounds like
143


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SUMMER
teaspoonful of butter, one of sugar, salt to
taste, and just enough flour to hold the in-
gredients together. Form into croquettes
with floured hands, and fry in deep fat.
9.
Pickled Lambs' Tongues. Egg Salad.
Boiled Corn-Bread.
Loppered Milk.
Egg Salad.—Slice hard-boiled eggs, ar-
range them upon crisp lettuce leaves, and
pour over all a mayonnaise dressing.
Boiled Corn-Bread.—Two cups sour milk,
one cup warm water, one tablespoonful lard,
one tablespoonful molasses, one teaspoonful
soda, one cup flour, two cups corn- meal.
Mix the ingredients, beating well; pour into
a Boston brown-bread mould with a tight
top; set in a pot of water; boil two hours,
and turn out.
10.
Welsh Rabbit. Cold Corned Ham.
Sliced Cucumbers.
Rolls.
Hot Oatmeal Crackers. Cream Cheese.
Welsh Rabbit. — One egg, half-cup milk,
10
145


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
one cup grated cheese; salt, Cayenne, and
made mustard to taste; squares of stale
bread toasted and buttered. Heat the milk
in a double boiler, melt the grated cheese in
this, season, add the egg, and pour the mixt-
ure over the toast. If the rabbit seems too
thin, add more cheese or a few fine bread-
crumbs.
146


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR AUTUMN
1.
Sweetbread Pâtés. Raised Corn-meal Muffins.
Fried Potatoes.
- Jelly Toast.
Sweetbread Pâtés. — Scald and blanch a
pair of sweetbreads; remove bits of skin and
gristle; chop rather coarsely, and stir into a
cupful of white sauce; season to taste. Have
ready pastry shells made hot in the oven, and
fill them with the sweetbreads. Send very
hot to table. A few mushrooms chopped
with the sweetbreads are a pleasant addition.
Raised Corn-meal Muffins. -— Two cups
milk, two cups corn-meal, one tablespoonful
white sugar, one tablespoonful lard, quarter
yeast-cake. Heat the milk to boiling, and
pour it upon the meal. While this is warm,
beat in all the other ingredients except the
lard. Let it rise six hours. Add the lard.
147


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
Fill muffin tins, and let the batter rise
twenty minutes before baking.
Jelly Toast. — Cut stale bread into neat
rounds or squares; fry each slice in boiling
deep fat; spread it thickly with some fruit
jelly, and serve very hot.
2.
Deviled Ham. Sliced Potatoes.
Rye Biscuit.
Crackers and Cheese.
Deviled Ham.—Cut cold boiled corned or
smoked ham into rather thick slices, rub well
with a sauce made as described on page 134
for “ Deviled Mutton,” and broil the ham
over a clear fire.
Sliced Potatoes.-Cut six boiled potatoes
into neat slices, warm them in a steamer,
transfer to a dish, and put on them a table-
spoonful of butter and a teaspoonful of
chopped parsley. Let them stand five min-
utes before serving.
Rye Biscuit.--Two cups rye flour, one cup
white flour, one and a half cups milk, one
tablespoonful sugar, one tablespoonful lard,
one tablespoonful butter, two teaspoonfuls
148


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR AUTUMN
baking-powder, saltspoonful salt. Rub the
shortening into the flour after sifting the
salt and baking-powder with it; add the
sugar and the milk; roll the dough out
quickly, and bake the biscuit in a brisk
oven.
- 3.
Bouillon.
Cold Chicken Pie. Potato Salad.
Cold Bread.
Gingerbread. Cocoa.
Cold Chicken Pie.—Stew a grown chicken
until tender, putting it on in cold water, and
cooking very slowly; arrange the pieces in
a deep pudding dish, laying in with them two
hard-boiled eggs cut into slices ; pour over
all a cupful of the gravy, which should be
well seasoned; cover the pie with a pastry
crust, and bake in a moderate oven. Add
to two cups of the remaining gravy a quarter-
box of gelatine soaked in a little cold water,
a small glassful of sherry, and a tablespoon-
ful of vinegar; when the pie is done, pour
this gravy into it through an opening which
should have been left in the top. Make this
149


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR AUTUMN
canned peaches with sugar, and stew them
gently for half an hour in the syrup thus
made; lay the sliced peaches between the
layers of short-cake, and pour the syrup over
each piece after it is split and buttered.
Broiled Blue-Fish. Baked Potatoes.
Cold Bread.
Corn-meal Griddle-Cakes.
Maple Syrup.
Corn-meal Griddle-Cakes. Two cups corn-
meal, one cup flour, one cup boiling water,
one tablespoonful lard, one tablespoonful
molasses, two cups sour milk, one teaspoon-
ful soda, saltspoonful salt. Scald the corn-
meal; add the shortening, the milk and soda,
the molasses, and the salted flour. Beat
hard.
Meat Loaf. Baked Tomatoes.
Fried Bread.
Hot Cake.
Meat Loaf.-Two pounds raw or under-
done beef or veal, minced fine; quarter-
pound ham, also minced ; two eggs; half-cup
151


WHAT TO EAT— HOW TO SERVE IT
fine bread-crumbs; one tablespoonful melted
butter; pepper, salt, chopped onion, and
herbs for seasoning to taste. Work all the
ingredients well together, and press closely
into a brick-shaped tin. Cover this, set it in
a pan of boiling water, and bake an hour and
a half, taking care that the boiling water
does not cook away. Turn out and slice
when cold.
Fried Bread.—Beat one egg into a cup of
milk; soak in this slices of stale bread from
which the crust has been trimmed. Cook on
a griddle, as you would cakes.
Ilot Cake.—One cup buttermilk, two eggs,
three tablespoonfuls butter, one and a half
cups sugar, half teaspoonful soda, flour for a
good batter (about two heaping cupfuls).
Bake in a loaf, and eat warm.
Broiled Smelts. Hashed Potatoes.
Raised Muffins.
Cerealine Fritters.
Raised Muffins. — Two eggs, two cups
milk, one tablespoonful butter, one table-
spoonful sugar, half yeast-cake, saltspoonful
152


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR AUTUMN
salt. Make a sponge in the early morning,
omitting the eggs; at lunch-time add these,
well beaten, and bake the muffins in a quick
oven.
Cerealine Fritters.—One and a half cups
cerealine, two cups milk, saltspoonful salt.
Cook the cerealine in the milk, beat it up
light, and set it aside to cool in a shallow
pan; cut it into squares or rounds when cold,
and fry in deep fat; sprinkle with powdered
sugar, and put a spoonful of jelly on top of
each just before sending to table.
8.
Stewed Kidneys. Potatoes au Gratin.
Plain Muffins.
Sliced Oranges.
Stewed Kidneys.Soak two kidneys in salt
and water half an hour; take out the core,
and cut the remainder into small pieces.
Brown a tablespoonful of butter and one of
flour together with a quarter of an onion
sliced ; lay the pieces of kidney in this, and
let them cook five minutes. Add a cup of
good gravy; or, if this is lacking, half a cup
of boiling water. Let the kidneys simmer
153


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
in this ten minutes; take out, and serve on
slices of toast, pouring the gravy over and
around them.
Potatoes au Gratin.-Two cupfuls of raw
potatoes cut into dice, half-cup fine bread-
crumbs, two tablespoonfuls butter. Let the
potato dice lie in cold water several hours, -
drain them, season with salt and pepper, and
put them in a well-greased pan; dot them
thickly with bits of butter, sprinkle them
with the crumbs, and add more butter.
Bake, covered, for half an hour; uncover, and
brown.
Plain Muffins.-One egg, two cups milk,
one tablespoonful lard, saltspoonful salt, half
yeast-cake, flour for batter. Set them early
in the morning, and let them rise until noon.
9.
Toasted Bacon. Poached Eggs.
Buttered Toast.
Quick Crullers.
Cream Cheese.
Quick Crullers.—One and a half cups sug-
ar, one cup butter, four eggs, cinnamon and
nutmeg to taste, flour for a stiff dough; roll
154


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR AUTUMN
out, and cut into fancy shapes, and fry in
deep fat.
10.
Creamed Lobster. Thin Bread-and-Butter.
Salad of Cold Lamb.
Crackers and Cheese.
Creamed Lobster.—One cup milk, half-cup
cream, meat of a large lobster, two table-
spoonfuls butter, one tablespoonful flour,
salt and Cayenne pepper to taste, juice of a
lemon. Heat the milk to boiling, and thick-
en with the flour and butter. Mince the
lobster with a sharp knife; never chop it.
Stir it into the milk, and let it become well
heated; add to it the raw cream, stir up
once, and take from the fire; season, add
the lemon juice, and serve in small silver or
china shells.
11.
A Fish “Left Over." Stewed Potatoes.
Rice Cakes.
Roast Spanish Chestnuts.
A Fish “ Left Over.”—The remains of any
cold boiled, broiled, fried, or baked fish; three
hard-boiled eggs, if you have only a half-cup-
ful of fish (two eggs if there is more fish);
155


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
one cup white sauce. Flake the fish, chop
the eggs, heat both in the white sauce, season
to taste, and serve either on toast or with-
out it.
Rice Cakes.—One egg, one cup flour, one
and a half cups cold boiled rice, saltspoonful
salt, three cups milk. If this amount of milk
thins the batter too much, add more flour.
Roast Spanish Chestnuts.-Cut a bit off of
each, and roast them in the oven. Peel, and
eat with butter and salt.
156


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR WINTER
Curried Oysters. Rice Croquettes.
Cold Slaw.
Crackers and Cheese.
Curried Oysters. — Heat to boiling the
liquor from one quart of oysters; lay the
oysters in it, and let them simmer just long
enough to plump them. Take them out with
a skimmer, put them where they will keep
hot, and thicken the liquor by adding to it a
tablespoonful of butter rubbed smooth with
two of browned flour. Into this stir a tea-
spoonful of curry-powder wet up in a little
cold water. Salt and pepper to taste, squeeze
in the juice of a lemon, return the oysters to
the sauce, and serve.
Rice Croquettes. — Two cups cold boiled
rice, one well-beaten egg; one teaspoonful
butter, one teaspoonful sugar, salt to taste.
Work the butter, egg, salt, and sugar into the
157


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
rice, make into croquettes with the floured
hands, and fry in deep fat.
Cold Slaw.-Shred half a fine white cab-
bage, and pour over it a dressing made as
follows: Four tablespoonfuls vinegar, half-
cup milk, one tablespoonful butter, one table-
spoonful sugar, one egg, pepper and salt.
Beat the egg; stir the melted butter, the
milk, salt, pepper, and sugar into this. Put
the vinegar boiling hot into it, a little at a
time. Pour the sauce over the cabbage, and
let it become ice-cold before serving.
Turkey Hash.
Fried Potatoes.
Milk Toast.
Macaroons. Cocoa.
Turkey Hash. -Remove the meat from the
bones of a turkey, and cut it into neat bits;
stir two cups of this into two cups of white
sauce; season to taste. Make the stuffing of
the turkey into neat cakes, fry them, and ar-
range them on the dish around the hash.
Macaroons. — One and a half cups pow-
dered sugar, whites of two eggs, six ounces
almond paste. Beat the whites very stiff ;
158


FAMILY LUNCHES FOR WINTER
add the sugar and the almond paste, the lat-
ter chopped fine. Make into balls with the
fingers, and bake in very well greased pans
in a moderate oven. Take out when they
are a delicate brown, but do not remove
them from the pans until they are perfectly
cold. These little cakes are so delicious and
so easily made that it is strange they are not
more generally manufactured at home.
3.
Jellied Chicken. Hominy Croquettes.
Toasted Muffins.
Orange Cake.
Jellied Chicken.-Cut up a chicken as for
fricassee, and stew until the meat slips from
the bones. Take out the chicken, and cut it
into neat pieces when it has become cold.
Let the gravy simmer half an hour with an
onion sliced, a small bunch of parsley, a couple
of stalks of celery, and a bay-leaf. Strain it,
and return it to the fire with the white and
freshly broken shell of an egg. Let it boil
up, and strain it again, this time through a
cloth. While still hot pour three cups of this
liquor upon a half-box of gelatine which has
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
soaked an hour in one cupful of cold water.
Stir until the gelatine is dissolved, and add
a glass of pale sherry and a couple of table-
spoonfuls of vinegar. Pour part of this jelly
into a wet mould, and when it begins to form
lay in slices of hard-boiled egg and pieces
of the chicken. More jelly follows, and more
chicken, until all are used up. Turn out when
the jelly is perfectly firm.
Hominy Croquettes.—Make as directed for
rice croquettes, using hominy instead of rice.
Toasted Muffins.--Split and toast English
muffins, and butter them on the inside.
Orange Cake.—Two cups sugar, half cup
butter, four eggs, three cups flour, one cup
cold water, one large or two small oranges,
two teaspoonfuls baking-powder. Work the
butter and sugar together; add the yolks of
the eggs, the juice and grated peel of the
orange, the water, the whites, and the flour
with the baking - powder. Bake in small
cakes. If you like, reserve one of the whites
of the eggs, and make an orange icing by
beating with this a cup of powdered sugar
and a little orange juice.
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FAMILY LUNCHES FOR WINTER
Cold Ham.
Celery Salad.
Batter Muffins.
Baked Apples with Cream.
Batter Muffins.—Two cups flour, two cups
milk, two tablespoonfuls butter, three eggs,
the whites and yolks beaten separately; one
heaping teaspoonful baking - powder, salt-
spoonful salt. Put in the whites last of all,
and bake the muffins in a quick oven.
5.
Baked Sausages. Stuffed Potatoes.
Toasted Crackers. Cheese. Olives.
Baked Sausages. — Make small cakes of
sausage-meat, or prick the sausages, if you
use those in skins, before putting them into
the baking-pan. Bake until they are of a
good brown. Take them out and thicken
the fat left in the pan with a tablespoonful
of flour, add a small cup of milk, boil up, and
pour over the sausages in the dish.
6.
Broiled Oysters. Thin Bread-and-Butter.
Cold Chicken.
Raised Waffles.
11
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
Raised Waffles.—One egg, two cups flour,
two cups milk, one tablespoonful butter, salt-
spoonful salt, half yeast cake. Set a sponge
early in the morning, and just before baking
at noon beat in the butter and egg.
7.
Beefsteak.
Baked Sweet Potatocs.
Lunch Cakes.
Chocolate.
Lunch Cakes. — One cup milk, four cups
flour, two tablespoonfuls butter, half-cup
sugar, two eggs, two tablespoonfuls currants,
one teaspoonful baking-powder. Cream the
butter and sugar, and stir them into the
beaten eggs and milk. Add the flour and
baking-powder, and last of all the currants,
washed, dried, and dredged with flour. Roll
out the dough, cut into rounds, and bake in a
moderate oven. "Split, butter, and eat while
hot.
8.
Broiled Sardines on Toast. · Omelet.
Nursery Muffins.
Sugar Cakes. Chocolate.
Broiled Sardines on Toast.-Broil the sar-
dines on a fine wire broiler, lay two on each
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FAMILY LUNCHES FOR WINTER
slice of toast, and squeeze over them a few
drops of lemon juice.
Nursery Muffins. -- Two cups milk, two
cups fine bread - crumbs, one cup flour, salt-
spoonful salt, one egg, one tablespoonful but-
ter, three teaspoonfuls baking-powder. Beat
the egg light, stir in the butter, the bread
soaked in the milk, and the flour and baking-
powder. Bake in a steady oven, greasing the
muffin tins 'well, so that the batter may not
stick to them.
Sugar Cakes.—One cup butter, one cup
sugar, four cups flour, two eggs, one tea-
spoonful vanilla. Cream butter and sugar,
mix with the beaten eggs, add the flour and
the flavoring, roll out very thin, and bake in
a moderate oven, sprinkling the cakes with
granulated sugar just before baking.
9.
Veal Hamburg Steaks.
Light Rolls.
Apple-Sauce.
Jumbles.
Veal Hamburg Steaks.—One pound lean
veal, chopped fine; two teaspoonfuls onion
juice; salt and pepper to taste. Mix all well,
form with the hands into flattened cakes,
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WHAT TO EAT— HOW TO SERVE IT
..
and broil over a clear fire. Lay on each a
half-teaspoonful of maître d'hôtel butter, or a
bit of butter the size of a hickory nut, first
squeezing a few drops of lemon juice on the
meat. Let them stand covered a minute be-
fore serving.
Jumbles.-Half-cup butter, three quarters
of a cup of sugar, one heaping cup flour, two
eggs (the yolks only), two tablespoonfuls
sherry, extract of rose to taste. Beat the
yolks, cream the butter and sugar; mix
these, and add the flour and the flavoring.
Make into round balls with the fingers, and
place them on a well-buttered tin so far
apart that when they flatten they may not
run into each other. Stick a raisin, a slip of
citron, or a blanched almond on top of each.
Bake in a steady oven to a pale yellow. Do
not brown. While still warm, loosen them
from the pan with a sharp knife, as they be-
come very brittle when cold.
10.
Ham and Eggs.
Baked Potatoes.
Graham Biscuit.
Stewed Prunes.
Fancy Cakes.
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
business, and reserving the heartiest repast
for an hour when it can be discussed leisure-
ly and digested peacefully. Mistresses have
learned that there is a gain in keeping the
morning free for house-work, instead of de-
voting most of it to the preparation of the
dinner. The light lunch eaten in most homes
demands much less time in cooking and eat-
ing than does a dinner, and leaves those who
have partaken of it more fit for work than
they would be were their stomachs burdened
with the task of digesting soup, meat, vege-
tables, and dessert.
The late dinner is a more dignified meal
than can possibly be made of a similar repast
eaten at noon. The festal appearance im-
parted by the gleam of candles, lamps, or gas
upon silver, china, and glass cannot be ac-
quired by daylight. The pleasant reunion
around the board of the members of the
family, whose positions and interests have
been divergent since morning, the happy
consciousness that the work of the day is
done, the knowledge that there is no toil
waiting at the door of the dining-room, all
166


DINNER AT NIGHT
bear their share in rendering the meal cheer-
ful and care-free. More ceremony can and
should be preserved at the evening dinner
than is feasible at noon. The orderly se-
quence of courses and careful serving
have a part in adding to the dignity of the
meal.
These suggestions should not frighten the
housekeeper who contemplates introducing
the late dinner in her househoid. Very lit-
tle extra work is involved in bestowing the
touch of state referred to, and, after all, it
consists chiefly in a slight additional care in
waiting and serving, and to these the mis-
tress can readily accustom the maid.
The dinner-table should be spread with a
plain white cloth, under which the sub-cover
of felt or canton flannel must never be lack-
ing. Any one who has observed the thin
and sleazy appearance even handsome dam-
ask presents without this felt under it, and
has noticed the noise the dishes and silver
make when moved about where there is
but the one thickness between them and
the board, will not voluntarily be long with-
167


DINNER AT NIGHT
at each place, although it is usually removed
to make room for a hot one after the family
are seated and the dinner brought on.
The space in front of the hostess is left
free for the soup-tureen, and before the host
is spread the carving-cloth. The carving
knife and fork are laid upon this. At the
corner of the table stand the large salts, if
these are used instead of the individual cel-
lars, and the pepper-cruets. Near them are
the tablespoons. The water - pitcher, or
carafe, the ice bowl, and any relishes in the
shape of jellies, pickles, etc., are all else that
is put on the table at the beginning of the
meal, except the soup tureen and plates.
When the latter have been removed, the
principal meat dish is set in front of the
carver, and a hot plate is laid for each guest.
At family dinners the carver generally does
the helping, although sometimes after the
meat is cut it is passed, and each person al-
lowed to help himself.
The vegetables are next passed by the
waitress, and offered at the left of each
person, and after them the jelly or pickles
169


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
are served. If, before the meat course,
a fish dish or an entrée is offered, it is
passed usually in the same fashion. Next
comes the salad, which is always passed,
after each guest has been supplied with a
clean plate. This course removed, all the
soiled dishes and the small silver are re-
moved, the table is crumbed, and the dessert
is brought in. If fruit succeeds this, a fresh
plate and a finger-bowl are given to each one.
With the fruit comes the coffee.
Of course there are many families in which
the daily menu is simpler than that outlined
above. In large families each added course
means a perceptible increase of cost, and
although the judicious manager who has a
fixed allowance for household expenses may
so dovetail the retrenchment of one day that
it will balance the undue outlay of another,
yet in most instances she will feel that if she
can feed her household well and satisfy them,
without providing them with five or six
courses at an ordinary dinner, more than this
would savor of extravagance. In some
homes soup each day is considered an ex-
170


DINNER AT NIGHT
pensive luxury. So it is when fresh meat
must be purchased to make it, or even when
fresh or canned vegetables have to be bought
for it; but when there are bones or trim-
mings from raw or cooked meats, or vegeta-
bles left over—a half-can of tomatoes, a cup-
ful or two of mashed potato, a saucer of
pease, or other similar remnants—or when
fish and eggs are plentiful, the soup need be
but a small item in the expense, and is really
economical, as, by blunting the edge of the
appetite, it renders the attack upon the next
course less vigorous. There is a large va-
riety of bean, pea, lentil, and cream soups
that are cheap, palatable, and nourishing.
Salad is not a frequent dish in many homes,
but in warm weather it may well be sub-
stituted sometimes for soup and cost little
more. Still that may be a good dinner at
which neither soup nor salad is seen. The
final cup of tea or coffee adds a graceful fin-
ish to a simple dessert, and is generally en-
joyed by the adult members of the family.
A word concerning the dinner toilette may
not be amiss. In England, donning full
171


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
dress for a late dinner is a matter of course.
Not so in America. Our independent citi-
zen usually thinks he honors the home meal
quite enough if he washes the dust of the day
from his hands and face, and brushes his hair
and his coat. Yet there are few homes in
which the mistress does not change her gown
for dinner, or at least brighten or freshen her
attire so as to make it differ decidedly from
that in which she appeared at breakfast.
The question involuntarily suggests itself
why it is easier for a tired woman to dress
than it is for a tired man, and one wonders
if the husband would not find in a change of
toilette the refreshment his wife experiences
from a similar operation. Even without put-
ting on full dress, a man should, at least by
exchanging his office for a house coat, and
assuming fresh collar, cuffs, and cravat, do
his share in giving to the dinner-table the
look of a pleasant social gathering, instead of
a mere stopping-place for food.
172


DINNER AT NOON
TN some homes it seems out of the question
I to have a late dinner. There may be sev-
eral reasons for this. Possibly the mistress
of the house does all her own work, and finds
it easier to dispose of the bulk of her cook-
ing in the morning than later, since she thus
leaves free the afternoon hours for leisure or
social duties. Or she may, if she keeps ser-
vants, live in a neighborhood where late din-
ners are so far the exception that she finds it
impossible to induce her cook to accede to
her desire to change the hour of dinner. Or,
still again, it may seem expedient to dine at
noon, because that hour better suits her hus-
band and children. In any one of these
cases, instead of repining over the inevitable,
she should set herself to work to make the
best of circumstances, and do all in her power
to impart every possible charm to the mid-
day meal.
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
In some parts of the South a one-o'clock
dinner is almost unheard of, while the-to
Northerners—singular hour of two, or half
after two, or three, is chosen. This has the
advantage of giving the children plenty of
leisure for eating, as their schools have closed
by this hour; but the same necessity for
haste is laid upon the head of the house that
must always prevail when a busy man is
obliged to take the time for dinner out of
the most active part of the day. Whenever,
for any reason, the meal must be only an in-
terlude in work, instead of coming at the
close of the day's labors, it should be made
a comparatively simple repast.
There is no doubt that the average Ameri-
can eats too rapidly. No one who has wit-
nessed the feats of deglutition performed by
commercial travellers at a railway station
will cavil at this assertion. It is safe to at-
tribute the national disease of dyspepsia to
this cause fully as much as to the indiges-
tible viands of which the ordinary citizen
makes his chief diet. And this haste is not
confined to the hotel dining-room or the rail-
174


DINNER AT NOON
way eating-house. In private households as
astonishing and disgusting exhibitions of
rapid gorging may be seen as are ever wit-
nessed in public restaurants.
No one who had once beheld the spectacle
could ever forget the fashion in which meals
were conducted in a certain home where
wealth and every evidence of outward re-
finement gave promise of better things. The
father, a man of business from his sixteenth
year, plainly considered eating the duty to
be accomplished at the table, and quite ig-
nored such minor considerations as the inter-
change of thought or observation, or any of
the social features usually connected with the
operation of dining. If he could not quite
equal Napoleon the First, who was said to
have often devoured his entire dinner in six
minutes, he did not fall far behind the great
warrior. Soup, meat, vegetables, dessert,
were swallowed in rapid succession and in
almost utter silence. The slight delay insep-
arable from a change of courses was endured
impatiently. Almost before the last mouth-
ful was down, the eager man would push
175


DINNER AT NOON
and the gastric powers will be benefited by
such simplicity.
Upon this point the house mother must in-
sist. Even if her husband will not conform
to her wishes in this regard, she should re-
quire from servants and children a certain
amount of propriety in serving the meal and
decorum in its discussion. After seeing that
the dinner is punctually served, and that the
courses follow one another promptly, she
should herself set the example of deliberate
eating, and should strive, by the introduction
of interesting subjects, to encourage the pleas-
ant chat that is a potent aid to digestion.
It will cost an effort to do this when she is
weary and harassed by household worries,
but she will enjoy her own meal more if her
mind is, by any agreeable means, distracted
for a little while from her cares.
For the midday dinner the table should
be laid as it is at night, and the waiting
should be performed in the same fashion.
The vegetables should, if possible, be served
from the side, although in a family where
no waitress is employed they may be set
12
177


DINNER AT NOON
be one of the unwritten laws of the home
that no one may come to the table looking
untidy, or in négligé of curl-papers and col-
larless wrappers for the women and shirt
sleeves for the men.
Possibly it may seem strange to many
people to learn that there are classes among
whom it is considered no breach of etiquette
for a man to come to the table not only coat-
less, but even without his collar, cravat, or
vest; this, too, not among farmers alone,
but in cities and in ranks of life much above
those of the ordinary mechanic or common
day laborer. Often in the same families the
wives and daughters will appear well-bred,
and will dress neatly and tastefully them-
selves, even while they seem to perceive noth-
ing shocking in the dishabille of the men of
the house. Perhaps, since those most inter-
ested do not complain, no one else has a right
to criticise; and yet it does seem as though
the regard for appearances and for the small
sweet courtesies of life had some claims.
In most cases where one notes such care-
lessness, it will be found that the trouble
179


WHAT TO EAT_HOW TO SERVE IT
began very far back, when the boys who are
now men were allowed a similar license in
their parents' homes. For the sake of the
families of the future, if for no other reason,
the mothers of the rising generation should
exact appropriate apparel at meals as well
as correct behavior and careful table man-
ners from their growing boys and girls, even
if the children's fathers refuse to conform to
what they deem over-niceness in dress and
demeanor.
180


THE SUNDAY DINNER
M HE “big dinner” of the week is, in most
1 homes, eaten on Sunday. Then the men
of the family are at home for the day, the
children have no claims of school or play to
hurry them through their meals, and there
is a general impression of delightful leisure
which seems favorable to the eating and di-
gestion of an excellent and hearty dinner.
This repast is usually served at midday, in
order that the servants may have the after-
noon and evening to themselves; and it is
not uncommon for the mistress of the house
to prepare the Sunday-evening tea herself.
The old-fashioned idea of always having a
cold dinner on the Sabbath is almost obsolete.
Some people who have been brought up in
the habit clung for a long while to the com-
promise of serving a piece of cold meat at
the Sunday dinner, although the vegetables
181


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
were hot; but even that is changed now, and
there are few homes where as large an array
of smoking viands is not spread upon
“ The day that comes between
The Saturday and Monday”
as is ever offered on any non-religious holi-
day.
The reasons given at the beginning of this
chapter are quite sufficient to account for this
almost universal practice. The good house-
keeper enjoys seeing her culinary handiwork
appreciated, and she generally reserves any
especially tempting bonnes bouches for Sun-
day, when she knows that those for whom
she delights to cater will have the time and
inclination to give her cookery its meed of
attention. Without cavilling at this, one
must at the same time deprecate the amount
of additional work that the Sunday dinner
often involves upon what should be, both
physically and spiritually, a day of rest as
well as of refreshment. A little thought
will often enable the housekeeper to so min-
ify the amount of work to be done on Sunday
182


THE SUNDAY DINNER
that the domestic labors will be perceptibly
lightened, and the dinner in no wise injured.
So much of the preparation for the meal can
be made the day before that the business of
finally getting it ready for the table will seem
comparatively light.
In one family of strong Sabbatarian prin-
ciples the omission of soup from the Sunday
bill of fare was evidently considered a means
of grace. The tureen and ladle always en-
joyed a rest upon the first day of the week,
but by some curious process of ratiocination
no harm was thought of having at dinner a
course of salad which cost as much time to
prepare, and demanded the use and washing
of as many dishes as would have sufficed to
serve the tabooed soup. Yet the hostess
. would always say, with an air of conscious
virtue, “Oh, we never have soup on Sun-
days," as though the non-appearance of that
dish upon the first day of the week was proof
positive of a high order of piety.
In spite of this, the soup course may be
made a very trifling affair. To say nothing
of two or three excellent brands of canned
183


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
soups, which, with a little “doctoring” in the
way of seasoning, may be rendered quite
equal to those freshly made, there are many
soups which can be brought on Saturday
into a state of such complete readiness that
all that is necessary on Sunday is to heat
them for the table. Of these are chicken,
mutton, and veal broths, consommé, Julienne,
ox-tail, mock-turtle, black or white bean and
pea soup_indeed, nearly every soup with a
meat stock. Cream soups, like tomato, celery,
potato, cauliflower, green pea, and corn soups,
are better prepared just before using, and
these may be served on week-days and yet
leave a large variety of potages from which
to make a choice for the Sunday dinner.
Leaving the soup, something should be
said concerning the introduction of entrées,
etc. They are not necessary at a repast so
essentially domestic as the first-day feast.
Even if they are prepared the day before,
their insertion in the bill of fare compels the
use and washing of another set of plates.
The man- servant and maid - servant within
our gates merit a little consideration upon a
184


THE SUNDAY DINNER
day which should bring to them too a modi-
cum of rest. Still, if an entrée is occasionally
desired, there are those which may be made
on Saturday, and will need only warming to
be fit for the table, such as pâtés of various
kinds. For these both pastry shells and fill-
ing may be prepared the day before, so that
simply heating them and putting them to-
gether will comprise the work involved in
getting them ready for the table.
When the meat course is reached it be-
comes less easy to shirk Sunday labor. The
roast may be bound and skewered, the turkey
or chickens trussed for roasting, the bread
crumbed for the stuffing, on Saturday, but
the stuffing must not go in until the last mo-
ment, nor must the meats, to be at their best,
be put into the oven until just in time to per-
mit their being done in season for dinner.
With vegetables, too, much of the excellence
depends upon brisk cooking. Few of them
are, like spinach, benefited by each time of
warming over. Since this heavy work can-
not be avoided, all the housekeeper can do is
to make the rest of the meal as easy as pos-
185


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
sible for herself and her servants. At the
best, there will be enough to do.
If a salad is served, the mayonnaise dress-
ing, if this is used, is no whit injured by
keeping on the ice even for two or three
days. The fish, flesh, or fowl, when such
enter into the composition of the salad, may
be minced the day before, and kept in a cold
place until needed. Or if, as is better at din-
ner, a simple salad of lettuce, celery, or some-
thing of the kind is used, upon which the
hostess bestows an ordinary French dressing
after it is brought to the table, the washing
and picking over of the salad are a trifling
matter.
As to desserts, it is a peculiar taste which
refuses to be satisfied with some one of the
many that can be made in part or entirely
the day before.
The number of cold desserts is legion, and
ranges all the way from ices and frozen
creams through charlottes, jellies, and the
like, to the simple blanc-manges and custards,
to say nothing of preserved or brandied fruit.
Pies of countless kinds there are which can
186


THE SMALL DINNER: PARTY
THERE has been so much written about
1 the giving of dinner-parties that the
manager of a small household may well
shrink in dismay from the labor that obe-
dience to such rules would lay upon her.
When she reads descriptions of tables spread
with the most costly glass, silver, and china,
of courses consisting of delicacies prepared
from intricate directions, and served by three
or four trained servants-her heart sinks with
dismay, and she gives up then and there the
attempt to entertain her friends at dinner.
Such instructions may be of value to those
nouveaux riches who are at a loss how to
conduct a feast where expense is no object.
Even for them it seems as though it would
be easier to consign a big dinner to the charge
of a professional caterer than to drill their
own servants into fitness for preparing and
188


• WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
rather to use their own common-sense and
good judgment, and give dinners in conso-
nance with these.
Of course there are certain rules for setting
the table, directing the proper sequence of
courses, and for the waiting, whose observ-
ance marks familiarity with the etiquette of
dining, and whose absence denotes ignorance;
but these are so simple, so universal, and so
readily learned that once known it is easier
to follow them than to devise new ways.
Among the many advantages of practising
every day the proper methods of serving and
waiting is especially this, that when an emer-
gency of this sort arises, there need be only
an extension of daily customs, not a total de-
parture from ordinary habits.
The etiquette of a small dinner is essentially
the same as that of a large one. Any wom-
an who is sure of her cuisine, and who has
a waitress accustomed to her work, can give
a pretty little dinner, and there is no pleas-
anter way of entertaining a few friends whom
one especially wishes to honor. For a party
of this sort, six is a good number. When
190


THE SMALL DINNER-PARTY
one goes beyond that, the necessity for a
more ceremonious etiquette, a more imposing
bill.of fare, arises, and this the woman who
gives only little dinners wishes to shun.
In setting the table, care must be taken to
avoid the one extreme of over-crowding, and
the other of placing the guests so far apart
that tête-à-tête conversations are difficult. In
as small a company as this the talk is apt to
be general, but occasionally there is an op-
portunity for a duet if the seats are near
enough together to allow two of their occu-
pants to carry on a low-voiced chat without
distracting the attention of the other guests
from their own topics of discussion.
In the arrangement of dishes, knives, forks,
etc., about the same rules are followed that
apply for luncheon - parties. A fork and a
knife for each course, the forks laid at the
left of the plate, the knives at the right, the
soup spoon across the top of the plate—the
usual array of salt - cellar, butter-plate (the
latter is often omitted at dinner), the glasses
for wine and for water, the folded napkin
holding a dinner roll, the card, the menu, the
191


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT.
individual flowers--all are much the same as
at a luncheon. The table-cloth should be of
the heaviest and handsomest damask, the
centre-piece, the floral decorations, the can-
delabra, with their candles and silk shades,
the dishes, containing hors-d'auvres, bonbons,
glacé fruits, etc., differ little from the similar
array on the table at a formal luncheon. The
same general plan is to be followed in serv-
ing the courses. The dinner usually begins
with oysters or clams. Next comes a soup
-consommé, or a cream soup of some really
choice variety. A clear soup is to be pre-
ferred as being light and easily digested, and
since one does not wish to begin the meal by
overloading the stomach, it is better on that
account than a cream soup or a purée.
Fish comes next, and this should be, as
is everything else served at a dinner, either
choice on account of its rarity, or because of
the excellent fashion in which it is cooked.,
A piece of salmon or of baked halibut with
a sauce hollandaise is good, or, in their season,
salmon trout or any other game fish. Pota-
toes in some form are served with this course.
192


THE SMALL DINNER-PARTY
This is succeeded by an entrée, and that in
turn by the principal meat course of the
dinner, usually filet de bouf, accompanied
by one or two fine vegetables. Next comes
Roman punch, then game or poultry, follow-
ed or accompanied by salad, and after that
is the dessert - pastry, ices, creams, fruits,
coffee, etc. As may be seen by comparing
this outline with the directions given for a
luncheon, the two are very much alike. The
chief difference is in the kinds of food. Those
served at a dinner are generally of a more
solid character than those prepared for a
luncheon. The latter consists chiefly of petits
plats.
A small dinner should not last much more
than an hour and a half. It is readily dis-
posed of in that length of time if the cook
has the courses ready promptly, and if the
waitress understands her business. All the
carving should be done off the table. The
plates should be put in front of the guests
from the right side, and removed from the
left. Of course, whatever dish is passed must
be offered from the left side. To prevent
13
193


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
mistakes the hostess should write out a full
list of all the courses, what dishes each com-
prises, and from what china they are to be
served, noting, too, when there is a change
of silver. A copy of this schedule should be
in the hands of the cook, while the butler or
waitress should have a duplicate pinned up
in a convenient place in the butler's pantry,
to serve as a reference in case the memory
of one of them should play false.
While caterers can be found who will sup-
ply almost any dish which may be suggested,
a graceful touch of individuality is imparted
to a dinner if certain plats are prepared at
home. Only, they must be well done, or they
were better omitted altogether. The ices,
biscuit, and Charlottes usually come from
outside, but the entrées and salads, as well as
soup, and the fish, meat, and game, may be
prepared in the house, and be none the worse
on that account.
Coffee is sometimes served in the dining-
room, but quite as often passed in the parlor.
It is never in good tåste to have a large as-
sortment of wines at a small dinner. Claret
194


THE SMALL DINNER-PARTY
and champagne are quite enough, or even
claret alone is sufficient.
When the hostess is ordering her dinner,
she should bear in mind who her guests are
to be, and arrange her bill of fare in accord-
ance with her bill of company. The advis-
ability of this is illustrated in the anecdote
told of an English restaurateur who, on be-
ing ordered to prepare a dinner for twelve
. clergymen, begged respectfully to know if
they were High-Church or Broad-Church,
“for hif ’Igh-Church, they wants more
wine; hif Broad-Church, more wittles.”
It is not worth while to prepare highly
spiced entremets and dishes of mushrooms
and terrapin for guests who would be better
suited with plainer viands; while, on the
other hand, a very simple dinner is not the
thing to set before a company of epicures.
195


A LARGE DINNER
The dining-room, a fine large apartment, is
lighted only by candles; but there are plenty
of these in sconces, in candelabra, in candle-
sticks of odd and pretty designs. Flowers
are all about wherever their use, either singly
or massed, can produce a good effect.
The places at table are marked by plain
white cards, each with the name of a guest
painted on it in gold. The table decorations
are quiet in effect, but in excellent taste.
The cloth, of pure white plain damask, is
covered through the centre with a scarf of
elaborate drawn-work. In place of the tow-
ering épergnes once so fashionable, the floral
ornaments, candelabra, etc., are all low.
Pink roses, white lilacs, and maidenhair ferns
are the flowers used; and these are not ar-
ranged in set form, but are simply massed
in cut-glass bowls, three in number, placed
here and there through the centre of the ta-
ble. The candelabra are also of cut glass,
which is used wherever it is possible, in pref-
erence to silver. A corsage bouquet of the
flowers mentioned above, tied with a wide
pink ribbon, awaits each lady at her place,
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
while a boutonnière lies beside the name card
of each man. The candles are shaded with
alternate pink and white shades, and the sil-
ver and china are of the daintiest and pret-
tiest.
At each place are two large knives and a
smaller one--one of these being supposed to
be for fish, although it is decidedly contre
les règles to use a knife for fish-a small
fork for fish, three large forks, a spoon for
soup, and a small oyster fork. The knives
are at the right, the forks at the left of the
plate, and on the left is also the folded nap-
kin containing the bread. The glasses for
water and wine are on the right. There are
generally four of the latter, for claret, sau-
terne, champagne, and sherry.
A plate holding raw oysters and a piece of
lemon is at each place when the guests enter.
When these have been eaten, soup is served,
a consommé; and this is not brought to the
table in the tureen, but is served from the
side. Next comes the fish-a piece of salmon,
with lobster sauce, it happens to be on this
particular occasion-and it is followed by the
200


A LARGE DINNER
entrées. To save time, three of these are
served at once; but Fidus declines one, deem-
ing it unwise to overload his plate and his
stomach at so early a stage in the proceed-
ings.
After the entrées comes the roast, with one
vegetable; and the sorbet or Roman punch
succeeds this, and precedes the game. Salad,
cheese, and bread-and-butter compose the
next course, and, the table being cleared for
dessert, ices make their appearance. After
these are disposed of come the fruit, bon-
bons, etc.
Wine has, of course, flowed freely during
the repast, but the drinking has been very
moderate, after all, and each guest has felt
at liberty to refuse any of the wines offered.
Sherry has been served with the soup, sau-
terne with the fish, and claret with the roast,
while after the first course or two champagne
has had all seasons for its own. At some
dinners a larger number of wines are served,
but this, so far from being essential, is not
considered strictly good form. Nor have
there been favors given, as one would suppose,
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A LARGE DINNER
As no music or other entertainment be-
yond the dinner has been arranged for the
guests, they remain only about an hour after
the meal is ended, and then make their
acknowledgments and adieux to the host
and hostess, and wend their respective ways
homeward.
203


FAMILY DINNERS FOR SPRING
tiny squares of fried bread laid in your tu-
reen, and serve.
Buttered Sweet Potatoes.—Boil good-sized
sweet potatoes, scrape them, and slice them
lengthwise; butter each piece, lay all in a
pan, and set them in the oven until the but.
ter is well melted into the potatoes.
Peach Brown Betty.--Stew a pound of
evaporated peaches until tender and plump;
place a layer of these in the bottom of a
pudding dish, sprinkle them plentifully with
sugar, and strew them quite thickly with fine
bread-crumbs, scattering a little cinnamon
over this; then arrange another layer of
peaches, more sugar, crumbs, and spice, and
so continue until the dish is full. Just be-
fore adding the last layer, which should be
of crumbs, pour in as much of the liquor in
which the peaches were stewed as the dish
will hold without “floating” the contents.
After the top stratum of crumbs is in place,
dot it with bits of butter; bake it covered
for half an hour in a moderate ovën, uncover
and brown. Eat with hard sauce.
· Hard Sauce. — One tablespoonful butter,
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WHAT TO EAT_HOW TO SERVE IT
one cup powdered sugar, half - teaspoonful
flavoring Cream the butter and sugar to-
gether until very light, flavor, press into a
cup or small mould, turn out, and pass with
the pudding
2.
Boiled Mutton, Sauce Soubise.
Mashed Turnips. Baked Hominy.
Apple Charlotte.
Boiled Mutton, Sauce Soubise. -- In pur-
chasing your mutton, select a fine large leg,
and have it cut in two, in such a way that
the knuckle and the lower part of the leg
will make a good piece for boiling, leaving
the upper part for roasting
Sauce Soubise. Four onions chopped, one
tablespoonful flour, one tablespoonful butter,
one cup of the liquor in which the mutton
was boiled; pepper and salt to taste. Stew
the onions until very tender; drain them, and
rub them through a colander; put the butter
and flour together in a little saucepan, cook
them unth they bubble; add the mutton
liquor, which must have been cooled and
skimmed; stir all together until thick and
206


FAMILY DINNERS FOR SPRING
smooth; add the pepper, salt, and the strain-
ed onions; pass with the boiled mutton. If
properly made, this is a very appetizing sauce.
Baked Hominy.-To two cupfuls of cold
boiled hominy add a tablespoonful of melted
butter, a tablespoonful of white sugar, one
egg beaten, a cupful of milk, and a little salt;
beat all together until light, and bake in a
buttered pudding dish. Serve as a vegetable.
Apple Charlotte. — Two eggs, two cups
milk, half-cup sugar, two cups rather stiff
apple-sauce. Make a boiled custard of the
yolks of the eggs, the milk, and the sugar;
whip the whites of the eggs very light, and
beat them into the apple sauce, which should
have been well sweetened while hot. Heap
the sauce and whites in a dish, and pour the
custard over it. Set in the ice-box, or some
other cold place for half an hour before send-
ing to the table.
3.
Mutton and Rice Broth.
Roast Mutton.
Creamed Parsnips. Mashed Potatoes.
Sponge-Cake Trifle.
Mutton and Rice Broth.—Strain and skim
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
the liquor in which the mutton was boiled;
put it over the fire with two tablespoonfuls
of raw rice, and let it cook about three quar-
ters of an hour, until the rice is soft; stir
into it a cup of boiling milk which has been
thickened with a tablespoonful of flour. Af-
ter this is added to the broth, let it boil up
once, and then serve.
Creamed Parsnips. — Boil and peel pars-
nips; cut them in slices, and, after spreading
each slice with butter, lay in a vegetable
dish, and pour over them a white sauce made
of a cup of boiling milk cooked until thick
with two teaspoonfuls of flour and one of
butter; pepper and salt to taste.
Sponge-Cake Trifle.-Cut a stale sponge-
cake into slices, and pour over each piece
enough sherry to moisten it thoroughly.
Spread the cake with raspberry or straw-
berry jam, and cover all with a pint of
whipped cream, slightly sweetened.
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WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
and flour together; add the seasoning and
the cheese. Drain the spaghetti, put it in a
deep dish, and pour the sauce over it.
Asparagus Salad.—Boil a bunch of aspar-
agus until tender; drain it, and put it on the
ice. When perfectly cold, pour over it a
half-cupful mayonnaise dressing into which
has been stirred a teaspoonful of French
mustard. Canned asparagus may be used
when the fresh is out of season.
5.
Cream Corn Soup.
Stewed Pigeons.
Baked Potatoes.
Fried Bananas.
Apricot Fritters.
Cream Corn Soup.- One can corn, three
cups boiling water, two cups milk, one table-
spoonful butter, two tablespoonfuls flour,
one egg, pepper and salt to taste. Drain the
liquor from the corn, and chop the latter
fine; cook it in the boiling water for an
hour; rub it through the colander, and re-
turn it to the fire. Have the milk hot in a
farina kettle. Thicken it with the flour and
butter; season, and pour a little at a time
210


FAMILY DINNERS FOR SPRING
upon the beaten egg. Stir this in with the
hot corn purée, and serve at once.
Stewed Pigeons.—Cut pigeons in half, place
a layer of salt pork cut in thin strips in the
bottom of a saucepan, and lay the pigeons on
this; sprinkle with a little chopped onion ;
pour over them enough hot water to cover
them, put a closely fitting top on the pot,
and cook them slowly for two hours. Take
out the birds and the pork, and keep them
hot while you thicken the gravy left in the
pot with a little browned flour wet up in cold
water; boil up once, pour over the pigeons,
and serve.
Fried Bananas.-Select firm bananas, peel
them, and slice them lengthwise; dip them in
egg, roll them in very fine cracker-crumbs,
and fry them in deep fat to a light brown.
Serve on a napkin laid in a deep dish.
Apricot Fritters.—Stew evaporated apri-
cots until tender, adding, when half done,
sugar in the proportion of two tablespoon-
fuls to every cupful of juice. When the
apricots are tender, take them out, leaving
the syrup to reduce by boiling until it is
21.1


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
quite thick. Dip each piece of apricot into
a frying batter made of a cup of flour, a ta-
blespoonful of melted butter, a small cup of
warm water, and the white of an egg beaten
light; drop these fritters into boiling deep
fat. When done, lay on a piece of brown
paper in a colander for a few minutes, trans-
fer to a hot dish, and pour the hot syrup
over and around them.
6.
Broiled Shad.
Canned French Pease. New Potatoes.
Lettuce.
Preserved Ginger.
Fancy Cakes.
Canned French Pease. Drain the pease,
and put them in a frying-pan with a table-
spoonful of melted butter smoking hot; toss
the pease about in this until they are heated
through and well coated with the butter;
season with pepper and salt, and serve at
once.
Lettuce.—Dress on the table with a plain
French dressing
212


FAMILY DINNERS FOR SUMMER
Green-Pea Soup.
Roast Shoulder of Veal.
Boiled Potatoes. Asparagus with Eggs.
Cherry Dumplings.
Green-Pea Soup.-One quart shelled pease
cooked until tender, one quart milk, two ta-
blespoonfuls butter, one teaspoonful sugar,
one tablespoonful flour, salt to taste. Press
the pease, after they have been boiled and
drained, through a colander; put them back
on the fire, and stir into them the milk, boil-
ing hot, thickened with the butter and flour
and seasoned with the sugar and salt. Boil
up once, and serve.
Asparagus with Eggs.—One bunch aspar-
agus, two hard-boiled eggs, one cup white
sauce. Boil the asparagus until tender; cut
the stalks into inch lengths, rejecting the
hard woody portions; chop the hard-boiled
213


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
eggs coarsely, and stir with the asparagus
into the white sauce, which must be boiling
hot. Serve at once.
- Cherry Dumplings.—Make a biscuit crust
of two cups of flour, a tablespoonful of but-
ter rubbed into it, a little salt, a teaspoonful
of baking powder, and milk enough to make
a soft dough. Roll out into a sheet a quar-
ter of an inch thick, and cut into squares
about three inches across. Stone the cher-
ries; put a spoonful into the centre of each
square of paste; sprinkle with sugar, fold
the edges across, and pinch them together.
Lay them with the pinched edges downward
in a pan, and bake to a light brown. Eat
with a hard sauce made as directed in the
preceding chapter.
2.
Fish Chowder.
Broiled Lamb Chops. Raw Tomatoes.
Young Onions Stewed.
Strawberry Meringue.
Fish Chowder. – Two pounds fresh fish,
two good-sized potatoes, one cup milk, a
quarter of a pound of salt pork, one onion
214


FAMILY DINNERS FOR SUMMER
minced, one tablespoonful chopped parsley,
enough boiling water to cover all the ingre.
dients after they are in the pot. Cut up the
fish, the pork, and the potatoes (which should
have been peeled and parboiled) into pieces
less than an inch square. Place in a pot or
saucepan first a layer of pork, then one of
fish strewn with onions and parsley, then
one of potatoes ; repeat the layers in this
order until all the materials are used. Pour
in the water, cover closely, and let it cook
slowly a full hour. Split and butter half a
dozen Boston crackers; let them soak in the
cupful of milk over the fire for five minutes;
take them out, and lay them in the tureen,
and pour the chowder over them. Pass
lemon with it.
This chowder is even better the second
day than the first, although there is rarely
much left over.
Strawberry Méringue. — Line a pie - dish
with puff paste, bake this carefully, and then
place in it a thick layer of hulled strawber-
ries; rather small ones are best for this pur-
pose. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar,
215


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
and heap over them a méringue made of the
whites of four eggs whipped stiff with half
a cup of powdered sugar. Just before put-
ting it in stir lightly into it a cupful of the
berries. Set the pie-plate containing the mé-
ringue in the oven long enough to brown
delicately, and eat when perfectly cold.
3.
Asparagus Soup
Boiled Chicken.
Green Pease.
Summer Squash.
Raspberry Pudding.
Asparagus Soup.—Boil a bunch of aspara-
gus until it is very tender. When done, cut
off the green tips, and put them aside, and
rub the stalks in a colander, getting all of
them through that you can. Heat four cups
of milk in a double boiler, add the strained
asparagus to this, and thicken with a table-
spoonful of butter rubbed in one of flour.
Season to taste with salt and pepper, add the
asparagus tops (which should have been kept
hot), and serve..
Raspberry Pudding.-Two cups raspber-
ries (red or black), three cups flour, three
216


FAMILY DINNERS FOR SUMMER
eggs, two cups milk, one tablespoonful but-
ter, two teaspoonfuls baking-powder, salt-
spoonful salt. Beat the eggs very light, and
mix with the butter, melted, and the milk.
Stir into this the flour sifted with the salt
and baking-powder, taking care that the bat-
ter does not lump. Dredge the berries with
flour, add them to the pudding, and boil this
in a plain pudding mould, set in a pot of
boiling water, for three hours. Take care
that the water does not come over the top of
the mould. Serve with hard sauce.
Egg Soup.
Roast Lainb. Mint Sauce.
Beets. Succotash. Green Pease.
Melons.
Egg Soup.—One quart milk, four eggs, one
onion sliced, one tablespoonful flour, one ta-
blespoonful butter, salt and pepper to taste.
Heat the milk to scalding in a double boiler
with the onion. Thicken the milk with the
flour and butter, and season to taste. Poach
the eggs in boiling water, lay them in the
217


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
bottom of the tureen, and strain the soup
upon them. Simple and nutritious.
Mint Sauce.-Four tablespoonfuls vinegar,
one tablespoonful mint chopped very fine,
one tablespoonful white sugar, a very little
salt and pepper. Pour the vinegar upon the
sugar and mint, and let them stand in a cool
place a full hour before using. Add the salt
and pepper just before sending to table.
For the benefit of those who are sometimes
unable to procure the fresh herb, it may be
stated that the dried mint sold in bottles is
an excellent substitute.
5.
Cheese Soup.
Beef à la Mode.
Fried Cucumbers. Cauliflower. Green Corn.
Fresh Fruit.
Cheese Soup. - One egg; a half - cupful
grated cheese ; one onion; two cups milk;
two cups veal, chicken, or other white stock;
one tablespoonful flour; one tablespoonful
butter; pepper and salt to taste. Heat the
milk and stock with the onion. Remove the
latter, and thicken the liquid with the butter
218


FAMILY DINNERS FOR SUMMER
and flour rubbed smooth together. Stir in
the cheese, pour a little of the soup on the
egg beaten light, add this to the soup in the
pot, season, and serve immediately. It is a
good plan to put a tiny pinch of soda into
the milk before adding the cheese.
Beef à la Mode.-Select a good piece of
beef from the round, and “plug" it thickly
with beef suet or with strips of fat salt pork.
Make other incisions into which to crowd a
force-meat made of finely chopped salt pork
mixed with twice the bulk of bread-crumbs,
and seasoned with herbs, allspice, onion, and
vinegar. Fasten the meat securely in shape
with a stout band of cotton cloth, lay it in a
pot, pour over it three cups of boiling wa-
ter, cover closely, and cook slowly for three
hours, or until tender. Turn the meat once.
Thicken the gravy left in the pot with
browned flour, and pass with the meat.
This piece of meat will be as good cold as
it is hot, and makes a welcome pièce de ré-
sistance upon which to rely for lunch or tea.
Fried Cucumbers.—Peel the cucumbers;
slice them lengthwise, making about four
219


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
slices of a cucumber of ordinary size. Lay
them in salt and water for an hour, take out,
drain, and dry. Dip first in beaten egg, then
in cracker-crumbs, and fry as you would egg-
plant.
Boiled Cod. Egg Sauce.
Lima Beans.
Mashed Potatoes.
Tomatoes. Mayonnaise Dressing.
Baked Peach Pudding.
Baked Peach Pudding.—Two cups flour,
one cup milk, one egg, one teaspoonful bak-
ing-powder, one tablespoonful butter, salt-
spoonful Salt, eight medium-sized peaches,
peeled and stoned. Beat the egg with the
milk, stir in the butter, melted, and the flour
sifted with the salt and baking-powder.
Place the peaches in the bottom of a pud-
ding dish, sprinkle them well with sugar,
pour the batter over them, bake the pudding
in a quick oven, and eat it before it has time
to fall. Serve either hard or liquid sauce
with it.
220


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
9.
drop in the reserved clusters cut into small
bits, and serve the soup immediately.
Baked Tomatoes and Corn. — Cut a slice
from the top of each of several large firm
tomatoes; scoop out about two thirds of the
pulp, taking care not to break the sides ; fill
the cavities thus left with green corn, boiled,
cut from the cob, and chopped fine with a
little butter, pepper, and salt; arrange the
tomatoes thus stuffed in a baking-dish, put
a few bits of butter here and there between
them, and bake half an hour. If you have a
half-cupful of good gravy, pour this over
them instead of putting the butter between
them.
Fried Egg-Plant.—Peel and cut the egg-
plant into slices less than half an inch thick
an hour before it is to be cooked ; lay the
slices in salted iced water, with a plate over
them to keep them from floating. Just be-
fore dinner wipe each slice dry, lay it in
beaten egg, and then roll it in salted and
peppered cracker-crumbs. Have ready lard
or really good dripping in a frying-pan, and
fry the slices brown.
222


FAMILY DINNERS FOR AUTUMN
sliced, but not peeled; sprinkle thickly with
sugar, and bake in a steady oven. There
must be no top crust, but a méringue may
be added when the pie is nearly done, and
lightly browned. This pie is very good.
3.
Tomato Soup Maigre.
Baked White-Fish.
Mashed Potatoes. Fried Oyster-Plant.
Rice-and-Pear Pudding.
Tomato Soup Maigre.-Fry a sliced onion
brown in butter or good dripping in the bot-
tom of the soup-pot; pour in the chopped
contents of a can of tomatoes and two cups
of boiling water; stew until tender, rub
through a colander, return to the fire; add a
half-cupful of boiled rice; thicken with a
tablespoonful of butter rubbed smooth with
one of flour; boil up, and serve.
“Baked White-Fish. — Select a good-sized
fish, and stuff it with a dressing of bread-
crumbs well seasoned and moistened with a
little melted butter. Sew the fish up care-
fully; pour a cupful of boiling water over it
after it is laid in the dripping-pan, and bake
15
225


FAMILY DINNERS FOR AUTUMN
colander, return to the fire; add the milk,
thicken, and season.
Méringued Apples.--Eight fine large ap-
ples, peeled, cored, and quartered; two table-
spoonfuls butter, juice of a large lemon, one
cup white sugar, nutmeg to taste, whites of
three eggs, half-cup powdered sugar. Heat
the butter, sugar, lemon juice, and nutmeg
in a double boiler; drop the quartered ap-
ples into this, and let them cook until ten-
der; take them out and lay in a glass dish,
cover with a méringue made of the whites of
the eggs and the powdered sugar, and pass
the syrup from the apples in a little pitcher,
with the meringued fruit.
5
Julienne Soup.
Irish Stew.
Creamed Carrots. Stewed Corn.
Peach-and-Tapioca Pudding.
Peach-and-Tapioca Pudding.–One small
cupful tapioca, one can peaches, half - cup
sugar. Soak the tapioca overnight in three
cupfuls of water; the next day arrange the
canned peaches in a dish, pouring over them
227


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
about a cupful of the liquor from the can;
sprinkle them well with sugar, pour the ta-
pioca on them, and bake until this is clear.
Eat hot with hard sauce.
6.
Salmon Soup.
Mutton Chops.
Baked Onions. Stuffed Egg-Plant.
Cream Rice Pudding.
Salmon Soup.-One can salmon, one cup
bread-crumbs, one quart water, two cups
milk, one teaspoonful butter, pepper and salt
to taste. Pick to pieces the contents of a
can of salmon, removing the bones, bits of
skin, etc.; put over the fire with the water
and seasoning, and cook half an hour; stir in
the butter, the milk, and the crumbs, and
serve. Pass sliced lemon with this.
Stuffed Egg- Plant. — Boil an egg-plant
thirty minutes, cut it in half, and scrape
out the inside ; mash this up with two ta-
blespoonfuls of butter, and pepper and salt
to taste; fill the two halves of the shell,
sprinkle with crumbs, and brown in the
oven.
228


FAMILY DINNERS FOR AUTUMN
Cream Rice Pudding.–Three cups milk,
three tablespoonfuls rice, one cupful sugar,
one teaspoonful vanilla. Wash the rice, put
it with the milk, sugar, and flavoring into a
pan, and bake in a slow oven for three or
four hours. Every time a crust forms on
top, stir it in, until just before taking it from
the oven. Eat cold.
229


FAMILY DINNERS FOR WINTER
1.
Turnip Purée.
Roast Turkey.
Fried Parsnips. Browned Onions.
Mashed Potatoes.
Orange Roly-Poly.
· Turnip Purée.—Eight turnips, one onion,
one stalk celery, four cups water, two cups
milk, one tablespoonful butter, one table-
spoonful flour, pepper and salt to taste.
Peel and cut up the turnips, and put them
over the fire with the onion in the four cups
of water; let them cook until tender, and
then rub them through the colander, and put
them back on the fire. Cook the butter and
flour together in a saucepan; add the milk,
stir into the turnip, season to taste, and
serve.
Browned Onions.—Peel rather small on-
ions, and boil them until tender; drain off
230


FAMILY DINNERS FOR WINTER
the water, and pour over the onions a cup-
ful of soup or gravy; let the onions simmer
in this for ten minutes; then take them out,
and keep them hot while you thicken the
gravy with browned flour. Pour over the
onions just before sending to the table.
Orange Roly-Poly.—Two cups flour, one
and a half cups milk, one tablespoonful but-
ter, one tablespoonful lard, two teaspoonfuls
baking-powder, one saltspoonful salt, four
fair-sized sweet oranges, half-cup sugar. Sift
the baking powder and the salt with the flour;
rub the butter and lard into it; add the milk,
and roll out the dough into a sheet about half
as wide as it is long; spread this with the
oranges peeled, sliced, and seeded; sprinkle
these with sugar; roll up the dough with the
fruit inside, pinching the ends together, that
the juice may not run out; tie the pudding up
in a cloth, allowing it room to swell; drop it
into a pot of boiling water, and boil it stead-
ily for an hour and a half; remove from the
cloth, and lay on a hot dish. Eat with hard
sauce flavored with lemon.
231


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
Turkey Soup.
Roast Pork. Apple-Sauce.
Boiled Potatoes. Stewed Tomatoes.
Chocolate Custards.
Turkey Soup.-Break up the carcass of the
cold turkey after all the meat has been cut
from it, and put it, with bits of skin and
gristle and the stuffing, over the fire in
enough water to cover it; cook gently for
several hours, and then let the soup get cold
on the bones ; strain it off, skim it, and put
it back on the fire. Have ready in a sauce-
pan two cupfuls of milk, thickened with a
tablespoonful of butter and two of flour; stir
this into the turkey liquor, boil up, and serve.
Chocolate Custards.-Four cups milk, four
eggs, one cup sugar, four tablespoonfuls
grated chocolate, two teaspoonfuls vanilla.
Put the chocolate over the fire in a double
boiler with part of the milk, and let it cook
until smooth; add the rest of the milk, and,
when this is hot, pour it upon the sugar
mixed with the beaten yolks of the eggs.
Return to the stove, and cook until the cus-
232


FAMILY DINNERS FOR WINTER
tard begins to thicken; when cool, pour into
glasses or small cups, and heap on the top
of each a méringue made of the whites of
the eggs whipped stiff with a little powdered
sugar.
3.
Oyster Soup
Broiled Steak.
Baked Cabbage. Fried Potatoes.
Cup Puddings.
Oyster Soup.—One quart oysters, two cups
milk, one egg, one tablespoonful butter, pep-
per and salt to taste. Strain the liquor from
the oysters, and bring it to the boiling-point
in one vessel while the milk is heating in an-
other; drop the oysters into the scalding
liquor, and leave them there until they begin
to crimp. Stir the butter into the milk, and
pour this upon the beaten egg; turn this in
with the oysters; cook together one minute,
and serve immediately. Some persons like a
pinch of ground mace added to oyster soup.
Baked Cabbage. — Wash and quarter a
small cabbage; put it on in plenty of boiling
water, and let it boil furiously (uncovered)
233


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
for twenty minutes. By doing this, and
having a cup of vinegar, on the stove at the
same time, you do away with the disagree-
able odor which usually accompanies the
cooking of cabbage. Drain it when done,
and chop it fine; add to it a tablespoonful of
butter, one egg beaten light, a scant half
cupful of milk, and pepper and salt to taste.
Bake in a pudding dish to a good brown.
Cup Puddings.-One cup sugar, two ta-
blespoonfuls butter, one cup milk, two eggs,
two cups flour, two small teaspoonfuls bak-
ing-powder, one saltspoonful salt. Beat the
yolks of the eggs light, and mix with the
creamed butter and sugar; add the milk and
the flour, mixed well with the salt and bak-
ing-powder; bake in small cups or deep pat-
ty-pans, and serve one to each person. Eat
with either hard or liquid sauce.
4.
Corned-Beef Soup.
Stewed Rabbits.
Baked Corn. Fried Sweet Potatoes.
Plain Fruit Pudding.
Corned-Beef Soup.—Heat to boiling with a
234


FAMILY DINNERS FOR WINTER
sliced onion three cups of the liquor in which
a piece of corned beef was boiled ; just before
it begins to bubble drop into it the freshly
broken shell of an egg, boil up once, and
strain. Put the cleared soup back on the
fire, and when it boils again add to it two
cups of milk in which have been dissolved
two tablespoonfuls of flour; pour a little of
this on a beaten egg, and return all to the
fire for a minute before serving..
Baked Corn. — Two cups canned corn
chopped fine, one egg, half-cupful milk, one
tablespoonful butter, pepper and salt to
taste. Beat the egg light, stir this and the
milk into the corn, season, and bake in a
buttered pudding dish until firm.
Plain Fruit Pudding.–One cup molas-
ses, one cup milk, one and a half cups flour,
quarter-cup seeded raisins, quarter-cup cur-
rants washed and dried, quarter-cup shred-
ded citron, one cup suet, one saltspoonful
salt, one small teaspoonful soda. Chop the
suet into the flour, first mixing the latter
with the salt and soda; add the milk and
molasses, and beat thoroughly; dredge the
235


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
fruit and stir it into the pudding; boil in a
brown-bread mould two hours and a half.
Serve hard sauce with it.
Roast Duck.
Canned Green Pease. Boiled Potatoes.
Lettuce.
Crackers and Cheese.
Lemon Tarts.
Canned Green Pease. — Turn the pease
from the can into a colander; pour over
them several quarts of cold water, so as to
rinse the pease thoroughly from the liquor
in which they were canned ; after this, pour
as much boiling water over them, and set the
colander over a pot of boiling water, cover-
ing the pease; let them steam there until
heated through, dish, and put on them a
couple of teaspoonfuls of butter, and pepper
and salt to taste.
Lemon Tarts.—Line small patty-pans with
a good puff paste, and fill them with the
following mixture: Half-cup butter, one
cup granulated sugar, three eggs, juice and
grated rind of a lemon, two tablespoonfuls
236


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
flower tender; tie it in a piece of net before
putting it in the boiling water; cut the clus-
ters apart, and arrange them, stems down-
ward, in a pudding dish ; pour a cup of
drawn butter over them, season with pepper
and salt, sprinkle with fine bread or cracker
crumbs, and bake until of a good brown.
Coffee Jelly.-Two cups clear strong cof-
fee, one cup sugar, one cup boiling water,
half-cup cold water, half-box gelatine. Let
the gelatine soak in the cold water an hour;
stir the sugar into it, and pour over both the
boiling water and the hot coffee; strain into
a mould. When cold, turn out in a glass
dish, and serve with whipped cream.
238


WHAT SHALL WE EAT?
THE cook-book of the olden time gave its
1 recipes with a generous disregard of
cost. Such items as a ham boiled in wine
were not unusual, and the quantities of cost-
ly materials demanded were on a Gargantuan
scale. Even in the average French culinary
manuals economy can hardly be said to be
conspicuous, except by its absence, although
Gallic cooks have a world-wide reputation
for the wonderful results they can produce
by a small expenditure. Even in this day,
when economy is honored and studied, in
the recipes that appear in print as written
by women living in some parts of the South,
there is a call for what to Northern ideas
seems a reckless profusion of eggs, butter,
and cream. The lavishness of these demands
is often quite out of keeping with the com-
mon opinion of the straitened circumstances
supposed to have prevailed of late years in
239


WHAT SHALL WE EAT ?
the successive steps in compounding and
cooking so clearly defined that the wayfar-
ing woman, although a fool, can hardly go
very far wrong; that is, if-and it is a very
big if, too-she does not have to use imper-
fect ingredients to compass a perfect achieve-
ment. Bricks may doubtless be made with
stubble instead of straw, but the children of
Israel found it a rather difficult process.
If, then, to change the figure, the iron be
dull, one must put to it the more strength.
The housekeeper who is compelled by cir-
cumstances to practise rigid economy must
resolutely set herself to the study of cheap
cookery. She may know already how to
roast a “rib cut” of beef, how to broil a por-
terhouse steak, how to broil and fry tender
chickens, but all this knowledge is of com-
paratively little value to her just now. She
must learn instead how to braise, how to
treat a “pot roast”; she must study stews,
perfect herself in the manufacture of minces,
hashes, fricassees, croquettes, fritters; she
must know what vegetables and meats may
be put together in ultilizing “left-overs”;
243


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
she must acquire a thorough knowledge of
soups of all sorts, and of soups maigre in
particular; and she must work in this line
until she is able to set as appetizing if not as
elegant a table on her small means as her
richer neighbor across the way can on a
housekeeping allowance of a double amount.
Of course this involves a great deal of hard
work and of competent vigilance. Even if a
servant is kept, only in rare instances can she
be trusted to undertake this kind of cookery.
Simple cookery, like roasting and boiling, is
seldom successful unless one has the best
materials to work with. But usually the
woman who must economize is wealthier in
time than in anything else, and she must
make it take the place of money. Above
all, she must struggle against the temptation
to yield to weariness or discouragement, and
to satisfy herself with the custom into which
so many of her sisters drift, of cooking tough,
inferior pieces of meat in the easiest way, as
though they were “prime cuts,” and thus en-
dangering the teeth, tempers, and digestions
of her family.
244


WHAT SHALL WE EAT?
A potent aid in making cheap cookery
savory is the judicious use of seasoning. In
some homes knowledge of these seems to be
confined to an acquaintance with pepper,
mustard, onion, and parsley. Little is known
of the variety of even simple herbs, like
thyme, sweet-marjoram, and summer-savory;
and still less of Worcestershire, Harvey's,
anchovy, and chilli sauces, of chutney, of
curry powder, of tarragon vinegar, of bay
leaves, of maître d'hôtel butter, of olives, of
tomato and walnut catsups, or of the careful
employment of spices in small quantities.
The magical improvement wrought by the
addition of a little lemon juice and a wine-
glassful of California sherry (at fifty cents a
quart bottle) is totally unknown.
Of course the first outlay for some of these
commodities may savor of extravagance.
But many of the articles are very cheap, and
even the more costly ones are used in such
small quantities that a supply of any one of
them will last a long time. Moreover, if a
woman's aim is to prepare dishes which
her family will eat and enjoy, she will find
245


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
that the purchase of condiments pays, and
the variety their occasional use gives will
make a change back to simple diet more
agreeable:
246


THE CHILDREN'S TABLE
TN comparatively few American homes
I does the custom prevail of giving the
children their meals apart from their parents.
Domestic arrangements would be sadly com-
plicated were it common in the ordinary
household, as it is in England, to have a
separate breakfast served for the little ones
in their nursery while the seniors discuss their
more elaborate morning repast in their own
salle à manger.
Usually, and wisely, American children eat
at least two of their meals with their par-
ents, and thus have what benefit may be de-
rived from association with older people. It
is only when the father and mother fail to
guard against letting the little ones gradually
assume the reins of government that affairs
reach a point which makes one long to ban-
ish the babies to the nursery, or even further,
247


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
if by such means peace might be secured at
meal-times.
Nowhere does the spoiled child appear to
worse advantage, or make more of a nuisance
of himself, than at the table. His incessant
chatter, the constant interruption his appeals
for attention make in the conversation of
the older people present, his clamorous de-
mands for any article of food which happens
to strike his fancy, his loud protests when
his wishes are denied him, his slovenly (often
disgusting) habits of eating, make the family
meal-times a pandemonium and penance to
the hapless guest upon whom the youngster
has no claims of affection to render his vaga-
ries amusing or interesting.
So long as custom and necessity render it
advisable to have a child at the same table
with his parents, these should fix upon a
plan of action, and adhere to it. Desiring
to have their children looked upon as com-
forts and not as spoil-sports, they should en-
force strict obedience, exact quiet at table,
and inculcate stringently the once-honored
maxim-of late years fallen sadly into disuse
248


THE CHILDREN'S TABLE
and disrepute — that little boys and girls
should be seen and not heard. Remember-
ing how much easier it is to check a habit at
the outset than to break it off after it is fully
formed, the father and mother should watch
their children's table manners, and repress at
once the carelessness and unpleasant tricks
that seem, possibly through original sin, to
come naturally to most little folk. The
correct handling of spoon, fork, and knife
should be taught as soon as they are permit-
ted to use these implements, and slovenliness
should be rebuked and held up as a disgrace.
Not least in importance is it that the father
and mother should, after due consideration,
establish an outline of diet for the young-
sters, and allow no divergence therefrom.
By “an outline of diet” is not meant an
unvarying rotation of viands as wearying
and de-appetizing to the child as it would be
to his elders, but a scheme of nourishment
by which hurtful articles of food will be
eliminated from the bill of fare, and only
wholesome ones admitted. A great deal of
careful thought is often necessary in the for-
249


THE CHILDREN'S TABLE
additional trouble to so regulate the bill of
fare that what makes the lunch of the
“grown-up” may embrace certain articles
that will suit the childish stomachs; or there
may be a little soup reserved from the din-
ner of the evening before, a dish of some
carefully warmed-over vegetable, possibly a
little of last night's meat prepared in a mince
or stew, which will obviate the necessity of
cooking fresh food for the easily pleased
little ones. Often bread and apple-sauce,
stewed fruit, or a small portion of fruit jelly
or marmalade is as acceptable a dessert as
can be provided.
Having eaten these two meals with the
family, it is as well to let the younglings
have their simple tea by themselves before
the family dinner. A dish of soft toast, or a
bowl of bread and milk, or of crackers and
milk, or of rice and milk, and bread and but-
ter, are usually all they ought to have so
soon before their bedtime. They may have
a side table set in the dining-room, or a tray
may be carried to them in the nursery, and
the repast superintended by the mother or
253


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
nurse. Sometimes papa will come home in
time to look in upon his little folks at their
final meal, and to help them to settle it after-
wards by a romp. Knowing no other mode
of life, the children will rarely think of ques-
tioning the judgment that sends them to bed
early after their light supper, instead of per-
mitting them to sit up to a late, heavy, and
indigestible course dinner.
254


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
ting the heavy cookery out of the way in the
morning, instead of being obliged to stand
over a cook-stove through the long blazing
afternoon.
In one way or another, then, there are few
families where the tea-table is not spread at
least once a week, while in many homes it
is a daily institution. It only ceases to be
delightful when it is, through carelessness,
allowed to slip into a groove, and when the
suggestion of making it attractive is put
aside with the excuse, “Oh, anything will do
for tea!"
Some years ago a party of city people
spent a charming summer in a farm-house
high up among the Berkshire hills. The ac-
commodations of the roomy old-fashioned
dwelling were good, the breakfasts and din-
ners excellent, well cooked, and liberal in
provision. But the teas! Night after night
the guests gathered about a teå - table
adorned with plates of cold bread, of butter,
and of cake, pitchers of milk, and occasion-
ally a dish of berries or of stewed fruit. Tea
there was, as a matter of course, but never a
256


THE FAMILY TEA
ers, wafers, or some light bread that is easily
made and not hard to digest. Then there
are galantines, potted meats, jellied fish,
pickled salmon, cottage-cheese, and numer-
ous other little delicacies that are not costly
and yet are good.
· The table for tea should be set much as it .
is for breakfast, with the exception of the
oatmeal sets. All the dishes may be placed
upon the table at once, as they would be at
lunch, and the family may do much of the
passing of plates. The tea is served with
the first course, and the cups and tray may
be removed to make room for the dish of
fruit or simple sweets that generally con-
cludes the meal. The saucers in which these
are served should stand on plates, on which
each guest may lay the cake which is usually
passed at the same time. Hot puddings are
out of place at tea, but instead there may be,
in winter, apple-sauce, stewed prunes, pre-
served ginger, brandied and preserved
peaches, pears or plums, jams or marma-
lades, custards, blanc-manges, jellies, or any-
thing of that sort; while in summer it is
259


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
grassy lawn, which slopes down to the water.
When the eating is over, the maid comes
out, gathers the dishes into a tray, and car-
ries them back to the house, happy in the
thought that there is no supper-table to be
cleared and no dining-room to be brushed up.
Long after the vestiges of the feast have
been removed the family sit there, chatting
pleasantly, watching the sunset and the stars
coming out or the moon rising. By and by
some voice begins a hymn, the others take it
up, and the singing goes on until the early
bedtime comes, and the party turns towards
the house with a restful happiness that is
none the less deep and true because it is hard
to describe or to analyze.
262


AFTERNOON TEA
MONG the many English customs which
A have been introduced into American so-
ciety there is none that sooner attained a
widespread popularity than afternoon tea-
a simple and easy form of entertainment,
that entailed little expense and less trouble
upon the hostess, and supplied a long-felt
want. Soon all over the land teas were the
rage, and in large cities and small villages
alike cards were flying about, bearing upon
them the name of the hostess, and in one cor-
ner, “ Tea at five o'clock” or “ Tea from four
to six,” as the case might be.
With the usual tendency of the citizens of
this great and glorious country to impress
upon the fashions borrowed from other na-
tions the stamp of their own individuality, it
was not long before the stereotyped tea,
bread-and-butter, and cake, which had at first
263


WHAT TO EAT— HOW TO SERVE IT
made up the menu of these entertainments,
began to undergo modifications. First,
chocolate was added, on the plea that many
people do not care for tea. Bouillon came
next, and the use of this served as the basis
of that absurd report, instantly accepted by
foreigners, that the American young women
were so fragile in constitution as to be
obliged to brace themselves up with strong
beef tea at their receptions, in order to enable
them to perform their social duties. With
bouillon came sandwiches; next appeared
salad, and after that oysters, croquettes,
creams, ices, and charlottes followed one an-
other in rapid succession, until the metamor-
phosis of the modest tea into the reception,
with its heavy party supper, was complete.
Part of this change may be attributed to
the display and love of competition which
are numbered among our national character-
istics. But at least a portion of the blame
must fall upon the participants in these en-
tertainments, who, not understanding that a
tea to be a tea must be simple, did not hesi-
tate to grumble at the trifling nature of the
264


WHAT TO EAT— HOW TO SERVE IT
We Americans live too much in the house,
and that, too, in a climate which offers great
facilities for a freer mode of life. A tea on
a lawn or veranda when the air is full of the
perfume of flowers and the country is in its
holiday trim is a delight to all those lucky
enough to be invited to it. For such a ket-
tle-drum, iced tea and lemonade or claret-
cup, sandwiches, and cake may be offered,
with berries or other fruits when these are
in season.
270


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
ferred, these may be laid so as to accommo-
date at each six, or four, or even two, always
taking care in the last case that the right
two are placed together.
If one large table is used, it may be spread
with either a dinner or a tea cloth. Flowers
should be in the middle upon a pretty centre-
piece, and there may be small vases set about
here and there. Individual bouquets are not
at all necessary. The places should be ar-
ranged as usual, with small silver for each
course, and the usual accompaniments of
butter-plates-or of bread-and-butter plates
--salt-cellars, glasses, napkins, etc. If it is
warm weather, the table may be further
beautified by the bowls or baskets of fresh
fruits that are to make part of the dessert,
and, in winter, dishes of cake, of preserved
or brandied fruits, etc., may be on the table.
Should the hostess prefer, however, these
may be placed on the sideboard, thus allow-
ing space for the more substantial viands,
which at a tea are seldom relegated to the
position on the side-table that they would
take at dinner.
272


HIGH TEA
.
At the head of the table sits the hostess,
with the tea-tray in front of her. It by no
means follows, however, because this repast
is called a tea that the Chinese herb should
be en évidence. If the party is composed
chiefly of young people, the chances are
strongly in favor of their preference being
for coffee or chocolate. They may be offered
their choice of these beverages, which the
hostess pours out, the servant passing them
with cream and sugar, that each may add of
these to suit himself. Russian tea may pos-
sibly be offered, but even this is apt to be
less popular than either chocolate or coffee.
Should small tables be used, the hostess
may preside over a tray placed upon one of
them, or, when it seems more convenient,
the cups may be filled outside, and passed to
each with the cream-pitcher and sugar-bowl.
It saves some delay in serving if there are a
cream-pitcher and sugar-bowl on each table.
These little tables may be covered with small
cloths or large napkins, and need have noth-
ing else upon them beyond the necessary
furniture for each place, except, perhaps, a
18
273


HIGH TEA
olate is also served at this stage in the pro-
ceedings.
After this course comes a salad-lettuce
and tomato mayonnaise, or chicken, lobster,
or salmon-fresh plates being served for this,
as a matter of course. Olives and some fan-
cy cheese-Brie, Roquefort, or Gorgonzola-
usually come with the salad. Cheese at this
stage is strongly recommended by the epi-
cure; but it is not essential, except to those
who hold, in the words of the old doggerel,
that
“A dinner (or supper) without cheese
Is like a kiss without a squeeze.”
The table is now cleared, and the dessert
brought in. This may be quite simple, as,
say, preserved or brandied fruit with fancy
cakes; or it may be more elaborate, and com-
prise jelly, charlotte-russe, or fresh fruit of
some kind, and light cakes. Ices are not
strictly en règle, although no canon of taste
is seriously offended if they are offered. It
is better, however, to serve them later in the
evening. Still, they are not essential even
then. Finger- bowls set on doilies laid on
275


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
pretty plates must be passed the last thing
before the guests quit the table.
Of course the menu suggested above may
be altered to suit the season and the taste of
the entertainer. Lobster or crabs, clams or
shrimps, may be substituted for the oysters.
Green pease may accompany chops, or sweet-
breads may be the principal meat dish of
the second course. Roast duck, turkey, or
chicken may be provided if broilers are out
of season, or birds may be served with a let-
tuce or celery salad for the third course.
And when one reflects upon the fancy dishes
which may be prepared for dessert — the
blanc-manges, the jellied fruits, the Spanish
or Bavarian or Hamburg creams, the char-
lottes of divers kinds, the whips, custards,
and syllabubs—the only difficulty that arises
is where to choose.
A pretty notion is to introduce some unex-
pected feature into the high tea which will
appeal to the imaginations of the guests as
well as to their palates. A little ingenuity
will suggest some novelty of this sort. The
literary salad, which has become well known
276


HIGH TEA
in certain localities, may yet be unfamiliar
in others. This is made by cutting a num-
ber of slips of paper, writing on each one a
prose or poetic quotation, and attaching each
strip to a leaf of pale green tissue-paper, cut
and crimped into the fashion of a lettuce
leaf. Different shades of the paper should
be selected, so that the tints may blend as
they do in a veritable head of lettuce. These
leaves are then arranged in a bowl, and at
some point in the meal, usually just before
the dessert, the bowl is passed, and each
guest draws out at random two or three of
the leaves. The endeavor then is to guess
the authorship of the different quotations,
and a prize is usually offered to the one
who guesses the greatest number correctly.
The prize may be the bowl or dish in which
the salad is served. Or, instead of quota-
tions, conundrums may be written on the
slips, and puzzling out their answers usually
affords a great deal of amusement.
A bright young hostess, who was always
bubbling over with new and charming ideas,
hit upon the clever one of having her guests'
277


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
characters told by chirosophy. She obtained
a specimen of the handwriting of each of
those whom she had invited, and sent the
samples to a specialist, who deduced from
each an estimate of the characteristics of its
writer. The verdicts thus obtained were
enclosed each in an envelope bearing the
name of the person whose peculiar bias was
therein described. The envelopes were then
bound with ribbons, tied, and sealed. One
was laid at the place of each guest at the
table, and after providing a fruitful source of
wonder and comment during the early part
of the meal, the seals were broken when the
fruit was passed. Each read aloud the state-
ment contained in her envelope, and it was
curious and amusing to observe with what
accuracy many idiosyncrasies and singular
traits of disposition had been indicated.
278


WHAT TO EAT_HOW TO SERVE IT
dramatic circles, of small dancing classes, of
amateur orchestras, and of a variety of other
similar social organizations, feel a like desire
for food after an evening's busy occupation,
while even in the family the sensible custom
is gaining ground of eating something not
long before retiring—a something which, if
not equal in extent and weight to the late
supper of our English cousins, is yet more
substantial than the caramels and chocolate
creams with which school-girls, and often
their seniors, solace the hunger that is apt to
attack them about bedtime.
When one gives only an occasional recep-
tion or evening party it is taken for granted
that the refreshments will be rather elabo-
rate in their nature. But when the meetings
of a club of any sort are of weekly, fort-
nightly, or even monthly recurrence, the ex-
pense becomes an object. There may be
some members of the body to whom the dis-
bursement of a few dollars more or less is a
matter of trivial moment, but there is very
rarely any club of this sort where there are
not some who would feel seriously the cost
280


SOME HINTS ABOUT SUPPER
of entertaining in a showy fashion. For the
sake of these weak brothers or sisters, a
certain amount of consideration should be
shown, and no display made by the wealthy
ones which would throw into the shade the
simpler entertainment which is all many
can afford to offer. A supper need not be
poor because it is not costly, but it must
make up in daintiness and unusualness for
what it lacks in price.
A chief object to be sought in planning
these suppers is to select something which
can be made ready beforehand, so that the
hostess can enjoy her evening without being
handicapped in her pleasure-seeking by the
thought of possible complications arising in
the preparation of the supper which may re-
quire her absence from the room. Unless
she has a practised cook, she should not at-
tempt dishes of oysters, or of anything of
the kind which demands careful supervision
at the last moment. Instead of this, she
should content herself with chocolate or
coffee and bouillon for the hot items of her
menu, and for the rest take her choice from
281


SOME HINTS ABOUT SUPPER
cuit, or of bread-and-butter, with perhaps a
tin of potted meat, or a few sardines, or a
piece of cheese, or a box of guava jelly, or
a little fruit. Iced water, or milk and Apol-
linaris, or Seltzer are the best beverages to
serve, or, for those who like it, a bottle of
ale or beer.
In the hope of aiding housekeepers who
desire to prepare something a little different
from the stereotyped suppers so common at
evening entertainments, and which usually
consist of oysters, chicken or lobster salad,
sandwiches, ice-cream, and coffee, there are
appended a few recipes for dishes perhaps
less commonly known than those just men-
tioned.
Lobster Salmi. — Two cups boiled lobster
(cut, not chopped, into small pieces), three
eggs (the yolks only), two tablespoonfuls
butter, half a pint of cream, one wineglassful
sherry, one tablespoonful brandy, Cayenne
pepper and salt to taste, one teaspoonful
lemon juice. Put the lobster over the fire in
a double boiler with the butter, wine, brandy,
pepper, and salt ; let it become smoking hot.
283


WHAT TO EAT--HOW TO SERVE IT
It will not injure it to stand covered at the
back of the stove for some time. Just be-
fore it is to be served bring the water in the
outer vessel to the boiling point, and stir into
the scalding hot lobster the beaten yolks of
the eggs and the cream. Let this stand one
minute longer on the fire, remove, add the
lemon juice, and serve at once in small silver
or china shells or in nappies.
French Fish Salad. — Select some firm
white-fish (halibut is excellent for this pur-
pose), and boil. When perfectly cold cut it
into neat slices; on each slice lay a sardine,
and arrange the fish upon and among crisp
lettuce leaves. Prepare a mayonnaise dress-
ing, and into a half-pint of it stir three sar-
dines rubbed smooth with the back of a fork.
Pass the sauce in a pitcher containing a spoon
or small ladle, that each guest may help him-
self.
Lobster Mayonnaise Sandwiches. — Into
half a cupful of finely minced lobster stir
two tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise dressing.
Season to taste with Cayenne pepper and
salt, with a little lemon juice if it seems to
284


SOME HINTS ABOUT SUPPER
cold water for an hour. Pour a little of the
jelly into a brick-shaped mould large enough
to hold the galantine, first wetting the mould
with cold water, and when the jelly forms
lay the galantine on this. Pour the remain-
ing jelly over it, and let it stand in a cold
place until firm. Turn all out of the mould,
and serve garnished with lettuce leaves.
287


CHINA AND GLASS
THAT housekeeper must be a noteworthy
I exception to the majority of the mem-
bers of that honorable body whose heart
does not yearn to possess a goodly store of
china and glass. She may begin her mar-
ried life with the resolve to content herself
with very little, but she will find, in this form
of acquisition as in nearly every other, that
appetite comes with eating, and the more she
has the more she wants. Curiously enough,
she learns also that although she'may get
along very comfortably for a long while
without certain articles, she has not owned
them a month without reaching a state of
mind where she cannot understand how she
ever managed to keep house lacking the new
possessions.
In these days a bride is usually pretty well
supplied with handsome china and glass by
288


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
bit of economy or good management, or else
a memento of some Christmas or holiday,
and all the more valued on that account.
Even when the proud young manager is be-
ginning to view with pride the accumulation
of months, she is sadly liable to find their
ranks lessened some woful day by one of
those accidents which will happen so long
as china and glass are breakable commodi-
ties. The cheese-dish, the berry-bowl, or the
cake-plate has come to grief in Bridget's or
Gretchen's or Dinah's hands.
“Shure, ma'am, it jist slipped out of me
hands as I was a-wipin' it,” or, “It came in
two pieces when I put it into the wather.
Feth an' it must have been cracked before.”
Of course a dish will get broken occasion-
ally. Once in a while one will go to pieces
even under the careful touch of the mistress,
and no hireling can be taught to handle frag-
ile things as carefully as will their owner.
A potent aid in inculcating caution is the
habit of deducting from a servant's wages
the price of the pieces broken. This rule
should not be enforced in the case of a real-
290


CHINA AND GLASS
• ly careful maid, but only with one who
shows a decided tendency to heedlessness.
Even with this penalty there will be chips
and cracks that will prove almost as great a
trial to the mistress as a total fracture. To
the importance of these minor accidents the
average serving-maid seems serenely uncon-
scious.
“Norah, if I treated you as you deserve, I
would take the value of this out of your
wages,” said a mistress, ruefully contemplat-
ing a Limoges chocolate pot, from the lip of
which a triangular fragment had been neatly
chipped.
“Indade, ma’am, an' can't ye use it as
well as iver ye did ?" was the surprised reply.
Without going as far as one woman, who
used to declare she would rather have a piece
of china completely smashed than to see it
cracked, one may safely say that the good
housekeeper never perceives even a trifling
breakage in any piece of her table-ware
without a real pang at heart. To avert
these accidents she is wise if she intrusts to
no hands but her own or those of an excep-
291


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
-
tionally careful maid the cleansing of her
most precious belongings of porcelain and
crystal. Sometimes, however, a woman's
other duties are so pressing that she cannot
spare the time to wash the delicate dishes
which she prides herself upon having in con-
stant use, and then she must simply make up
her mind to be resigned to the losses she
must sustain if she permits her servants to
take entire charge of these breakables.
Without using unsightly stone-ware, it is
yet possible to procure for every-day service
pretty crockery that is less easily broken
than the delicate French china. In purchas-
ing a dinner set which is to do steady duty,
the housewife must be guided by prudential
as well as artistic considerations. She can
find what is known as the English Dresden
and one or two other kinds of china which
combine pretty designs with durability of
material, and are not very expensive.
Often there are included in a dinner set a
full dozen each of tea, breakfast coffee, and
after-dinner coffee cups; and sometimes the
set can be purchased to greater advantage by
292


CHINA AND GLASS
taking them all. Frequently, too, the dealer
will not break the set. Unless either or both
of these conditions should prevail, there is
little gain for the housekeeper in taking the
whole set. Usually she already has a fair
number of cups and saucers, and in any case
she would not need as many as the set com-
prises. By a little search it is often prac-
ticable to pick up a broken set, consisting
of a certain number of plates, vegetable and
meat dishes, and in this day there is no ob-
ligation upon one to have everything to
match. The principal pieces should be alike,
if possible; but the fish, salad, dessert, and
fruit plates may all be of different designs,
and be none the worse on that account.
Her dinner dishes purchased, the young
mistress may congratulate herself. There is
no other equally heavy pull ahead of her in
the line of china. Now she may at her lei-
sure pick up her pretty harlequin set of cups
and saucers, her dessert dishes, her large
cake and bread plates, and her small bread
and butter plates, her fish set, her chocolate-
pot, her bouillon-cups, her nappies, her indi-
293


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
vidual dishes for shirred eggs, for scalloped
fish, oysters, or chicken, and the dozen of
other dainty fancies with which the china
shops are crowded. Her accumulations will
be all the dearer to her because many of
them have been procured at the cost of a lit-
tle personal sacrifice.
When one begins to price cut glass she is
generally wofully discouraged. The cost of
the plainest cut is very high if the glass is
heavy, and a little experience soon teaches
the housekeeper that it is very poor economy
to buy the thin glass for every-day use. It
will often break in washing in spite of the
most careful handling, and a slight blow to
it means fracture. Now that pressed glass
comes in such pretty patterns, it may be
made to do duty for common use, and is sº
attractive that no one need be ashamed to
put it on her table.
“You should see my new glass dish,” said
a young housekeeper, gleefully. “It cost
me just seventy-nine cents, and when you
set it on handsome damask it looks like the
real cut. Of course you can't put two cheap
294


CHINA AND GLASS
things together, but my table-cloths are all
so good that I can afford to set a few imita-
tions on them.”
The advantages of this heavy glass are
seen less in the dishes, large and small, than
in the goblets or tumblers that are in daily
use. Here the havoc is dreadful when the
glass is of the egg-shell species. ' Cheap
though it often is, it does not pay to pur-
chase it when its destruction is merely a
question of a few days or weeks.
295


LINEN AND SILVER
DIVEN at the best, securing a provision of
U table linen is bound to be a heavy ex-
pense. Whatever economies the housekeep-
er may practise by purchasing Japanese or
stout English porcelain, and pressed glass, she
will never find that it pays to buy cheap
damask. It does not look well even at the
first, and it is worse after each washing. No
matter how handsome may be the china, sil-
ver, and glass put upon it, a sleazy damask
will give a cheap appearance to the whole
table.
On the other hand, really good linen pays
by its wearing qualities for the original out-
lay. If it is not allowed to become so dirty
before it is washed that hard rubbing is re-
quired to make it clean, it will last for years.
The first tiny breaks must be carefully
watched for and repaired at once. By such
296


LINEN AND SILVER
precautions even a cloth which is in daily
service may be made to last several years.
Above all, no washing-soda, no bleaching
preparation of any kind, must ever be used
upon it. It may whiten the linen at first,
but the small holes with which the damask
will soon be riddled will tell more plainly
than words the harm the fabric has sustained
from the alkali. Should the linen become
yellow, it may be whitened by being laid on
the grass in the dew or rain first, and after-
wards in the sunshine.
Linen should never be put away damp, as
it is almost certain to mildew. These spots
may sometimes be removed or lessened by
boiling the stained linen in buttermilk, or by
the use of Javelle water, but it is a difficult
and doubtful task.
A young housekeeper does not need a
large supply of table linen at the beginning
of her career. Of course it is very delight-
ful to her to feel that her sideboard drawers
are so thoroughly stocked that they will not
need to be replenished for years to come;
and if she has had a long engagement in
297


LINEN AND SILVER
In this case, of course, a colored cloth must
be used for breakfast and lunch or for break-
fast and tea. If the bare table is used at
lunch, the housekeeper may manage to make
shift with one breakfast cloth, with the ac-
companying dozen napkins. If she can pos-
sibly afford it, however, she should buy two
colored cloths and two dozen colored nap-
kins. For dinner use she must provide two
white cloths with the napkins to match.
These cloths may be about two and a quar-
ter or two and a half yards long. Besides
these, she should have one handsomer white
cloth a little longer, to use when she wishes
to entertain several guests. There is no rea-
son in her purchasing the long table-cloths
that range from twelve to sixteen feet in
length, unless she has a very large dining-
room and anticipates an occasional family
party, which will oblige her to use the table
in its most extended form.
To buy table-cloth damask by the yard is
cheaper than to purchase the cloth in one
piece. The designs are often very pretty,
but the separate cloth is usually more satis-
299


WHAT TO EAT-HOW TO SERVE IT
never pays to buy thin silver, for this bends
and dents easily.
Some people who own solid small silver
lock it up except upon rare occasions, and
use only plated ware when en famille, affirm-
ing that the peace of mind thus gained is
worth more than the luxury of using real
silver. In this matter every one must judge
for herself; but if a vote were taken the
chances are that those who use the solid sil-
ver would testify that its care costs them very
little time or thought. The simple expedient
of counting it two or three times a week is
generally sufficient to insure its safety, and
the duty of carrying it up-stairs at night is
too trifling to deserve mention.
Those who have ever been so fortunate as
to possess plated silver vegetable dishes or a
soup tureen would never willingly use those
of china. Not only do the silver vessels
keep their contents hot, but they are not
breakable, and a dent may be remedied at a
small cost. They are not hard to keep clean.
A plunge into clean scalding water, and a
quick wiping afterwards, whenever they have
302


LINEN AND SILVER
been used, with an occasional rubbing with a
piece of flannel or chamois-skin, will gener-
ally keep them bright.
Whenever silver, solid or plated, needs a
thorough cleaning, electro-silicon may be
used; and after the scouring has been done
with a brush dipped in the powder, the
pieces should be rinsed off in scalding water
containing a little ammonia, and well rubbed
with flannel. Even the most tarnished silver
may be brightened by this means.
303





INDEX
Anchovy toast, 138.
Broth, mutton and rice, 207.
Apples and bacon, 81. Brown Betty, peach, 205.
Apples, meringued, 227. Brown-bread toast, 150.
Apricot fritters, 211.
Butter cakes, 65.
Asparagus biscuit, 144.
Asparagus with eggs, 213. Cabbage, baked, 233.
Cake, hot, 152.
Baked mince, 52.
Cake, orange, 160.
Bananas, baked, 130.
Cakes, bread-and-milk, 85.
Bananas, fried, 211.
Cakes, butter, 65.
Beef à la mode, 219.
Cakes, lunch, 162.
Beef, crisped smoked, 55. Cakes, rice, 156.
Biscuit, breakfast, 84.
Candles, 8.
Biscuit, brown, 56.
Cauliflower, scalloped, 237.
Biscuit, cheese, 136.
Caviare toast, 134.
Biscuit, lunch, 133.
Cerealine fritters, 153.
Biscuit, quick, 64.
Cerealine, moulded, 59.
Biscuit, rye, 148.
Cheese biscuit, 136.
Bread, Boston brown, 54, 141. Cherry dumplings, 214.
Bread, fried, 152.
Chicken, deviled, 140.
Bread, hot loaf, 134.
Chicken, jellied, 159.
Bread omelet, 55.
Chicken mince, 60.
Bread, rice, 131.
Chicken pie, cold, 149.
Bread-and-butter, 130. China, buying, 292, 293.
Breakfast cloth, 19.
Chowder, fish, 214.
Breakfast mats, 20.
Cocoa, 90.
Breakfast menu, 44.
Cod, creamed with potatoes, 50.
Breakfast, wedding, 46. Cod, scalloped, 135.
Brewis, 52.
Cold slaw, 158.
20
305


INDEX
Lobster mayonnaise sand- | Onions, browned, 230.
wiches, 284.
Orange cake, 160.
Lobster salmi, 283.
Orange roly-poly, 231.
Luncheon menu, 100, 110, Oysters, curried, 157.
111.
Oysters, panned, 133.
Macaroons, 158.
Pancakes, canned pea, 83.
Mackerel, salt, broiled, 61. Parsnips, creamed, 208.
Mackerel, salt, broiled, à la Pâté, game, 141.
maître d'hôtel, 82.
| Peach Brown Betty, 205.
Mackerel, soused, 71.
Pease, canned French, 212.
Mayonnaise dressing, 138. Pease, canned green, 236.
Meat loaf, 151.
Pickerel, fried, 142.
Menu for high tea, 274, 275. Pie, sliced peach, 224.
Muffins, batter, 161.
Pigeons, stewed, 211.
Muffins, corn, 50.
Pop-overs, Graham, 62.
Muffins, English, 74.
Porridge, 25.
Muffins, feather, 52.
Potato balls, 71.
Muffins, griddle, 51.
Potato, moulded, 75.
Muffins, hasty, 75.
Potato purée, 226.
Muffins, nursery, 163.
Potatoes au gratin, 154.
Muffins, plain, 154.
Potatoes, buttered, 50.
Muffins, raised, 152.
Potatoes, hashed, 86.
Muffins, raised corn-meal, 147. Potatoes hashed with cream,
Muffins, rice, 54.
69.
Muffins, risen, 82.
Potatoes, Lyonnaise, 76.
Muffins, l'ye, 78.
| Potatoes, Parisian, 62.
Muffins, sour milk, 80.
Potatoes, savory, 85.
Muffins, toasted, 160.
Potatoes, sliced, 148.
Mutton, boiled, 206.
Potatoes, stuffed, 67.
Mutton, deviled, 134.
Pudding, baked peach, 220.
Mutton, minced, with poached Pudding, cream rice, 229.
eggs, 70.
Pudding, peach and tapioca,
· 227.
Omelet, baked, 63.
Pudding, plain fruit, 235.
Omelet, baked chicken, 144. Pudding, raspberry, 216.
Omelet, baked with cheese, Pudding, rice and pear, 226.
128.
Puddings, cup, 204.
Oinelet, bread, 55.
Omelet, parsley, 49.
Rapid eating, 174.
Omelet with coin, 66.
Rice bread, 131.
307


INDEX
Rice cakes, 156.
Silver-plated dishes, 302.
Rice croquettes, 157.
Soup, 171.
Rusk, 132.
Soup, asparagus, 216.
Rye gems, 59.
Soup, black-bean, 237.
Soup, canned, 183.
Salad, 171.
Soup, cauliflower, 221.
Salad, asparagus, 210. Soup, cheese, 218.
Salad, celery and radish, 142. Soup, corned beef, 234.
Salad, chicken, 138.
Soup, egg, 217.
Salad, egg, 145.
Soup, green-corn, 210.
Salad, French fish), 284. Soup, green-pea, 213.
Salad, literary, 276.
Soup, lentil, 204.
Salad, potato, 150.
Soup, oyster, 233.
Sally-Lunn, quick, 69. Soup, salmon, 228.
Sally-Lunn, raised, 62. Soup, tomato, maigre, 225.
Sandwiches, 125, 126, 285. Soup, turkey, 232.
Sandwiches, lobster mayon Soup, veal, 223.
naise, 284.
Spaghetti, creamed, 209.
Sardines au gratin, 62. Spanish chestnuts, roast, 156.
Sardines, broiled, on toast, Sponge-cake trifle, 208.
162.
Standing lunch menu, 118.
Sauce, cream, 62.
Steak, broiled, with mush-
Sauce, hard, 205.
rooms, 72.
Sauce, mint, 218.
Strawberries, 58.
Sauce, soubise, 206.
Strawberry meringue, 215.
Sauce, white, 60.
Sugar cakes, 163.
Sausage, baked, 161.
Supper dishes, 258.
Sausage, broiled, 73.
Sweetbread pâtés, 147.
Sausage rolls, 78.
Sweet potatoes, buttered,
Scallop patties, 53.
205.
• Scallops, fried, 86..
Seasoning, 245.
Table linen, 297, 298.
Setting breakfast-table, 42. Table manners, 248.
Setting dinner-table, 168. Tomatoes, baked, 209.
Shad loes in ambush, 59. Tomatoes, broiled, 140.
Short - cake, canned peach, Tomatoes, deviled, 66.
150.
Tomatoes and corn, baked,
Short-cake, peach, 64.
222.
Short-cake, raspberry, 56. Tongue, jellied, 142.'
Silver, cleaning. 303.
Tripe, Lyonnaise, 85.
Silver, solid, 301.
| Turnip purée, 230,
308





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