What to Eat, How to Serve it

by Christine Terhune Herrick

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 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 enjoyed 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 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 housekeeper 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 uncooked 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 comfort 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 for every day in the week, there are often odds and ends that, with a little "doctoring," may be made into excellent substitutes. The meat on the drumstick left from the roast or stewed chicken of last night may be chopped fine, moistened with a little gravy or melted butter, seasoned, and spread on thin slices of buttered bread. The bit of steak that clung to the bone may be minced, and have stirred into it a little Worcestershire sauce and a suspicion of made mustard; while the slice of cold lamb or veal, also minced, may be flavored with curry-powder and softened with melted butter to make filling for sandwiches.

The one or two cold sausages left in the pantry will make an appetizing sandwich when crushed fine with the back of a spoon, and laid between the two sides of a buttered roll or biscuit; while the last spoonful of lobster or chicken salad scraped from the bottom of the dish may be spread on buttered bread for yet another kind of sandwich.

White, Graham, brown, or whole-wheat bread may be used in turn, with an occasional roll or biscuit to still further vary monotony. Egg sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, sweetbread 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 plain hard-boiled eggs, by salads without number, by olives, cheese, and pickles. And for desserts are there not the little dishes already suggested, to say nothing of cake, cookies, 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 almost always popular?