It is customary to put the vegetables served with the meat on the same plate. The use of individual dishes for vegetables is no longer approved.
Oranges are seldom served at dinner unless they are specially prepared, that is, with the skin taken off, and the sections divided, in which case the fruit is eaten from a fork.
Cheese and crackers of some sort are always served with salad courses.
At a formal dinner bouillon or consommé is usually served in soup-plates. At a supper or luncheon it is oftenest served in cups. The regulation cups are those having handles on each side.
When oysters are served on the half-shell, they are usually placed upon the table before the meal is announced.
It is not customary to serve fruit as a first course at dinner, though at a lunch it is quite proper.
Grape-fruit must be served ice cold. It is served in two ways: either it is cut in halves, midway between the blossom and the stem end, the seeds removed, the pulp loosened with a sharp knife, but served in the natural skin, to be eaten with a spoon; or the pulp and seeds are entirely removed from the skin with a sharp knife, and the edible part only served in deep dessert plates. Pulverized sugar should accompany grape-fruit.
In waiting upon plates, one should never pour gravy on the food, but place it at one side.
The salad course at dinner always succeeds the game course.
After dinner coffee is served in small cups and without cream. In many houses rock-candy, crushed in very small pieces, is used as a substitute for sugar, the claim being made that it gives a purer sweetness.