The time element is a very important point to be considered in serving food and requires careful calculation. Custards as a rule are better served quite cold, and should be cooked a sufficient length of time before the meal to allow for cooling. Baked potatoes are delicious and easily digested when cooked just right and promptly served, but what is more unappetizing than a baked potato that has remained after cooking in a slow oven till it was soggy and half cold?
Tea is another article that is spoiled if prepared too long before it is served, and this list might be multiplied indefinitely. There is no question but that this lack of forethought in calculating the time that should elapse between cooking and serving of food is responsible for many insipid, unattractive, indigestible meals in hospitals. When so much of the food has to be prepared in bulk, the problem is much more difficult than in dealing with an individual patient, and only goes to show the necessity of having not only first class facilities for prompt serving, but first class trained brains to calculate and first class hands to handle it if the best results are desired.
If the one in charge has had personal experience in dealing with invalids, many little touches will suggest themselves to her that will tend to make the invalid’s
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in advance of the meal and allowed to stand in water. Even a dish of bread and milk may be made a dainty meal if the bread is cut in half-inch dice and piled lightly on a plate. Milk toast may be accepted as a delightful treat if a little thought is given to its preparation and serving. As for all toast the bread should be thoroughly and evenly browned before a moderate coal fire. The toast, cut in neat squares, with the crust removed, may then be placed in a deep saucer (the daintiest and prettiest the establishment affords) and covered with a small plate which with the saucer should first be heated. When the tray cover is spread, set on it a small knife and fork and teaspoon, a little silver teapot of hot milk, a ball of butter and a salt shaker. If the patient is able to butter his own toast and pour over it the hot milk he will enjoy doing it.
When a single dish is to be served use a small round tray or a large plate covered with a doily rather than the regular tray used for meals. Avoid putting so many dishes on a tray that it will seem crowded. It is better to use a second tray for serving dessert or fruit than to pile too much on one tray and have it lack in order and neatness.
Cracked cups or china and broken-nosed teapots are distinctly out of place on any invalid’s tray and in these days of inexpensive dishes are inexcusable in any hospital. Special care should be used to avoid filling cups and glasses to the brim. When this is done, it is impossible to avoid an overflow if it has to be carried any distance, the neat appearance is spoiled, a portion of the contents is lost and it is difficult for the patient to handle without spilling.
A nurse who has an eye for harmonious effects in colors will not be guilty of setting a tray with a green cup and saucer and an old fashioned blue plate. A sense of the fitness of things will also keep her from placing together a cup and saucer that were never intended for each other. Such blunders in setting a tray are indicative either of ignorance or carelessness.
It is always a mistake to leave food beside a patient any length of time after the patient has had time to eat it. If he has no desire for it when it is first presented, the chances are small that the desire will come if the food is allowed to stay in sight. Besides the exposure to the floating dust made up of the undesirable elements of a sick room will render the food unfit for use at another time. Food substances are the soil in which bacteria flourish.
A spray of maiden hair fern or any of the dainty green effects is always suitable for decoration, as are many flowers. The use of flowers on a tray should be restricted to a single blossom with a touch of green, or a full bloom flower of the dainty varieties. Large bouquets on an invalid’s tray are in bad taste, as are many flowers that elsewhere would be appreciated.