How to Prepare and Serve a Meal; and Interior Decoration

by Lillian B. Lansdown

CHAPTER VI: THE FORMAL DINNER

From the informal dinner in which the family waits on itself, to the formal dinner, at which two waitresses attend to the comfort of the diners, is but a step. Yet it is a serious one for the hostess who gives the latter form of dinner. The cook often requires extra help (dishwashing, etc.); and where a chambermaid is available, she has to be drafted as a second waitress or an extra waitress engaged. There must be a helper on duty in the pantry, for there must be no hitch in any detail of the formal dinner service. So the extra pantry-hand must serve soup and pour coffee, see that there is crushed ice always ready, stack up soiled dishes, open wine bottles (yes, this is still done!) and be prepared to do anything else which will help make the dinner a success.

THE WHAT’S WHAT OF A FORMAL DINNER

The fine damask tablecloth is a feature—though the table is set practically as though for a formal luncheon—and large-size dinner napkins are the rule. The parsnips of circumstance are not buttered at the formal dinner, though the bread and butter plate sometimes shows its face as a serving convenience for bread, celery, olives and radishes. Wineglasses still appear in formal dinners given in private. This provides for quite an array of glassware. At the point of the knives, in the following order stand the water goblet and the iced tea glass or appolinaris glass. The wineglasses (usually no more than three wines are served) are grouped to the right of the water goblet. Their order is that of use. (There are separate glasses for high and low cocktail, sherry, sauterne, claret, champagne, cordials and whiskey.) Each guest has his own nut dish, placed directly before him. Candles are lit and water glasses half-filled a few minutes in advance of the dinner announcement, and the hostess already having arranged place cards before this is done.

THE COURSES

The “initial” course may be placed on the table before dinner is announced or may be served after. If, however, you serve cocktails in the drawing room with the accompanying caviar or lettuce sandwiches, or if you serve a canapé, do not repeat the latter as the opening of the dinner. For instance, you should not serve a Lobster Canapé in the drawing room and a Finnan Haddie Canapé at the dinner table. Fruit cocktails of every kind, and canapés are in order for this commencement of the meal.

A GOOD FRUIT COCKTAIL RECIPE

Mix shredded pineapple, halved strawberries, (fresh, not preserved), with grapefruit pulp, the pulp in a two to one proportion to the pineapple, chill and cover with wine dressing. To be served in champagne glass, with top garnish of a large strawberry for each glass.

The soup course may be preceded by one of fruit, where the cocktail or canapé has been served in the drawing room. Supposing it to be strawberries, the berries will already be waiting in a small plate when the guests take their seats upon entering the dining room. They should be unhulled, large, selected berries, and may be eaten either by hand (dipped in the sugar mound into which they are thrust on the plate) or with the strawberry fork. The serving of a finger bowl with this course is a matter of taste.

When this course has been removed, the soup is served, and the head waitress pours the sherry, while cakes and olives are passed by a second waitress.

If fish comes next—we will presume the fish to be Shad à la Delmonico, Halibut à la Meniere or Turbans of Flounder—it is passed in the platter, followed by rolls and Cucumber Ribbons, Dressed Cucumbers or Sliced Cucumbers, as the case may be. Then the fish course is taken from the table and we come to the entrée.

If one entrée is the limit it precedes the roast. Where you have two entrées the heavy (meat) entrée comes first, then the lighter (vegetable) one. Let us say we have only Delmonico Tomatoes or Mushroom Croquettes. We would carry on next with our roast fowl or flesh. But if we have Oyster and Mushroom Patties and Roast Ham with Cider Sauce as entrées, the Roast Ham, being the heavier, should be served first.

Our roast—the champagne was poured from the right side with the right hand after the removal of the fish plates—is now due. The entrée plates in turn have been taken away and the warm dinner plates substituted for them. Ah, the roast! What shall it be? There is so much from which to choose. It cannot be too epicurean for a formal dinner. Fillet of Beef Larded with Truffles, with a Brown Mushroom Sauce; Crown of Lamb (crowned with Green Peas and surrounded by Fried Potato Balls); Roast Turkey with Truffle Gravy; Venison Saddle, Chateaubriand of Beef, Sirloin Steak, there is no lack of choice.

When both roast and game are served, a frozen punch is supposed to draw the line of demarcation between them, and the salad enters with the game instead of being counted as an individual course.

While one waitress passes the roast, another follows with the potatoes. Other vegetables and rolls then come in order and, if the nut dishes of any of the guests are empty, they are refilled.

When more than a single meat course is served at a formal dinner, the sorbets and frozen punches should be dropped. In such a case they are only permissible at an especially large official dinner, a banquet or a large hotel spread.

After dinner plates have been taken away the salad (already arranged on the plate, the fork on the right hand side) is served from the right, and sandwiches are passed. The variety of possible salads has already been alluded to in the consideration of the formal luncheon, hence nothing need be added here on that head.

With the emptied salad plate are removed peppers and salts (on tray) and the table crumbed, the ice cream plate (as at the formal luncheon) is placed. The ice cream mold is passed with the mold already cut, but retaining its shape, to facilitate the guest’s helping himself. Together with the ice cream, the accompanying small cakes are passed.

The appearance of the finger bowl service follows the removal of the dessert plates. The finger bowl should be approximately one-fourth full of luke-warm water (never cold) and garnished. The dessert plate is removed with the left hand, the plate, finger bowl, and doily served with the left. The passing of the bonbons concludes the actual service at the table.

Coffee, as already mentioned, is poured by the hostess in the drawing room and, after the waitress has collected and removed the coffee service (and cups and saucers) she may, in the event that cordials are served, return with the cordial service, which the hostess pours and the waitress serves as in the case of the coffee.

If the ladies only retire to the drawing room, one waitress serves them there with coffee, while another remains in the dining room. Here she passes cigars and cigarettes on a tray, together with a lighted candle or matches, and then serves coffee and cordials or brandy and soda.

It is good form for the waitress to serve carbonated water in apollinaris glasses in the drawing room about an hour after the conclusion of the dinner.

THREE FORMAL DINNER MENUS

1. Grapefruit. Chicken Consommé with Oysters. Bread Sticks (served like roll in napkin). Deviled Crabs. Chicken Mousse with Sauterne Jelly. Saddle of Mutton. White Potato Croquettes. Carrots and Turnips a la Poulette. Currant Mint Sorbet. Mushrooms au Casserole. Roast Grouse, Bread Sauce. Watercress Salad. Willard Soufflé. Strawberry Ice Cream. Salted Almonds. Bonbons. Crackers and Cheese. Black Coffee.

2. Oyster Cocktail. Saltines. Mushroom and Sage Soup. Dinner Braids. Lobster Chops. Cucumber Boats. Sauce Tartare. Swedish Timbales with Calf’s Brains. Larded Fillet of Beef with Truffles. Brown Mushroom Sauce, Potato Rings. Flageolets. Buttered Carrots. Asparagus Jelly with Pistachio Bisque. Ice Cream. Cream Sponge Balls. Salted Almonds. Bonbons. Water Thins. Neufchâtel Cheese. Black Coffee. (From “A Book of Good Dinners for My Friend”: Fannie Merrit Farmer.)

3. Cocktails. Caviar Sandwiches. Selected Strawberries. Mock Bouillon. Olives. Sherry. Rolled Cassava Cakes. Turbans of Flounder. Dressed Cucumbers. Rolls. Delmonico Tomatoes. Roasted Incubator Chickens. Chantilly Asparagus Potatoes. Buttered Asparagus Tips. Champagne. Grapefruit and Alligator Pear Salad, Paprika Crackers. Montrose Pudding. Small Cakes. Coffee. Cordials. (From “Table Service,” Lucy G. Allen).