The circular form seems the most desirable in a dinner-table; and with respect to setting it out, I would say with the late Mr. Walker, nothing should be placed on it but what is wanted. The great object of meeting round table is to have free and unrestrained communication and hilarity, and these are impeded by plateaus, dormants, and centre-pieces.
I have not said a word of bachelors’ dinners, though of all dinners in the world they are the pleasantest, from the laisser aller and laissez faire style which prevails at them. At bachelors’ parties the age, disposition, and amusing qualities of the guests are more considered than at regular set dinners. Bachelors look for the idem velle and the idem nolle when they play the Amphytrion, and in consequence they succeed. Another reason of the success of bachelors’ entertainments arises from the fact that the dishes are few and simple; and as the dinner is generally given in a small house or chambers, the kitchen is not too far removed from the eating parlour. Everything comes up “screeching hot,” as they say in Ireland, and not lukewarm or soddened, as too often happens at great dinners. Centrepieces, epergnes, and dormants do not generally figure at bachelors’ dinners, and there is an absence of form and ceremony which gives zest. Ladies in general love ceremony and ornaments, and the accessories of epergnes, flowers, and perfumes.
I have not said anything of American dinners. The best of these in private houses are copied from the English and French model, although there is much that is distinctive in the manner of serving and consuming dinners at the great hotels in New York. American turtle soup is excellent; and so is their sturgeon soup. Though I do not agree in Mr. Money’s estimate of the Russian dinners, I quite concur in his valuable suggestion, that dinner chairs at our tables should be made lighter and more flexible in the back and sitting part.
CHAPTER IV.
ON LAYING OUT A TABLE.
The manner of laying out a table is nearly the same in all parts of the United Kingdom: yet there are trifling local peculiarities to which the mistress of a house must attend. A centre ornament, whether it be a dormant, a plateau, an epergne, or a candelabrum, is found so convenient, and contributes so much, in the opinion of some, to the good appearance of the table, that a dinner is seldom or never set out without something of this kind. Of late years people who give dinners give them what is called à la Russe; but if you ask nine out of every ten what they mean by dining à la Russe, they are unable to tell you. All they can say is, that there is nothing on the table but flowers and fruits, that the dishes are carved on the sideboard and handed about to the guests. This fashion still continues, but I never could see any good reason for its introduction. It seems to me exceedingly odd that a a people, like the English, who, for certainly five centuries, have enjoyed a high degree of civilization, should copy the Russians in the system of dinner-giving—a people who, a century ago, were plunged in the deepest barbarism, and who, as yet, are scarcely half civilized. Even now the Russians have not in their language any word which conveys the idea of gentleman, and the title of Prince, so common amongst them, is not much more than a hundred years old. Coats of arms were first borne in Russia only about eighty years ago, and they were then introduced by the German adventurers, with which class Russia still abounds.
In the days of Peter the Great, about a century and a half ago, the Russian Boyars (the only title of nobility, properly speaking, Russian), were so very ignorant that many of them could not write, and so very drunken as to astonish so potent a tippler as Peter himself. When this great reformer knouted his nobles into the luxury of shaving themselves, and the decent habit of wearing nether garments, early in the eighteenth century, they lived chiefly on cabbage soup, and bacon, and sausages, and even these were cooked in Homeric fashion. It is true, great progress has been made in Russia since 1697, and even since 1815, but no sensible Englishman would think of going to Russia to learn to serve a dinner. I spent much time in Russia, somewhat more than thirty years ago, and lived a great deal among Russians of wealth and position; but though there was profusion and a great expenditure on their dinners, there was nothing like elegance or good taste. The earlier Russian cookery of a century ago was adopted from the Dutch and the Germans, and all that is valuable in the later Russian cookery has been adopted from the French and the English kitchens.
It results from serving dinners à la Russe in England that the joints are frequently mangled, and you receive your portion lukewarm or cold. By carving and serving only one dish at a time also the dinner is unnecessarily prolonged to four hours instead of two and a half or three, and many more servants and attendants are necessary. In Russia this is not an important consideration, for domestic service is performed by serfs, who receive merely nominal wages. Another reason against serving dinners à la Russe is, that those costly services of gold and silver plate which nearly every good family in England possesses, are not displayed under the new fashion, which, like crinoline, will have its long reign, and ultimately pass away.
Utility should be the true principle of beauty, at least in affairs of the table, and, above all, in the substantial first course. A very false taste, is, however, often shown in centre ornaments. Strange ill-assorted nosegays, and bouquets of artificial flowers, begin to droop or look faded among hot steams. Ornamental articles of family plate, carved, chased, or merely plain, can never be out of place, however old-fashioned. In desserts, richly-cut glass is ornamental. I am far, also, from proscribing the foliage and moss in which fruits are sometimes seen bedded. The sparkling imitation of frost-work, which is given to preserved fruits and other things, is also exceedingly beautiful; as are many of the trifles belonging to French and Italian confectionary.