What to Eat, How to Serve it

by Christine Terhune Herrick

THE SMALL DINNER-PARTY

THERE has been so much written about the giving of dinner-parties that the manager of a small household may well shrink in dismay from the labor that obedience 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 serving such a repast as some of these manuals describe. But there are many women who wish to entertain gracefully, and yet who have neither the means nor the inclination to attempt doing so on a large or costly scale. Possessing plenty of pretty napery, silver, and china, having tolerably good cooks and well-trained waitresses, they feel themselves fairly equipped for giving small dinners, especially when they may order some of the most difficult dainties from outside. They need not be appalled by the list of what are to the majority of them unattainable adjuncts, that are declared by writers on the complete art of dining to be indispensable to a correct dinner. Those who are fitted by circumstances to follow these are few indeed compared with the army of the moderately well-to-do who find such elegance quite beyond their modest means. So let these pluck up heart of grace, and, instead of obeying the quite natural impulse which ensues upon the perusal of the aforesaid discouraging guide-books to entertaining and renouncing their plans of hospitality, resolve rather to use their own common-sense and good judgment, and give dinners in consonance with these.

Of course there are certain rules for setting the table, directing the proper sequence of courses, and for the waiting, whose observance 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 emergency of this sort arises, there need be only an extension of daily customs, not a total departure from ordinary habits.

The etiquette of a small dinner is essentially the same as that of a large one. Any woman 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 pleasanter way of entertaining a few friends whom one especially wishes to honor. For a party of this sort, six is a good number. When 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 opportunity for a duet if the seats are near enough together to allow two of their occupants 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 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 candelabra, with their candles and silk shades, the dishes, containing hors-d'œuvres, 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 serving 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 preferred 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. Potatoes in some form are served with this course. This is succeeded by an entrée, and that in turn by the principal meat course of the dinner, usually filet de bœuf, accompanied by one or two fine vegetables. Next comes Roman punch, then game or poultry, followed 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.