To continue the Mayfair banquet, the salad was followed by a soufflée à la Noel (which reminded some of the more imaginative of our party of the festive season), some cheese straws, and the customary ices, coffee, and liqueurs. On the whole, not a bad meal; but what would old Father Christmas have said thereto? What would my revered progenitor have remarked, had he been allowed to revisit the glimpses of the moon? He did not love our lively neighbours; and, upon the only occasion on which he was inveigled across the Channel, took especial care to recross it the very next day, lest, through circumstances not under his own control, he might come to be “buried amongst these d——d French!”
The following menu may give some idea as to how
Royalty
entertains its guests. Said menu, as will be seen, is comparatively simple, and many of the dishes are French only in name:—
Huîtres
——
Consommé aux œufs pochés
Bisque d’écrevisses
——
Turbot, sauce d’homard
Fillets de saumon à l’Indienne
——
Vol-au-vent Financière
Mauviettes sur le Nid
——
Selle de mouton de Galles rotie
Poulardes à l’Estragon
——
Faisans
Bécassines sur croûte
——
Chouxfleur au gratin
——
Plum Pudding
Bavarois aux abricots
——
Glace à la Mocha
Truly a pattern dinner, this; and ’twould be sheer impertinence to comment thereon, beyond remarking that English dishes should, in common fairness, be called by English names.
Her Imperial Majesty the Tsaritza, on the night of her arrival at Darmstadt, in October 1896, sat down, together with her august husband, to the following simple meal:—
Consommé de Volaille Cronstades d’écrevisses
——
Filet de Turbot à la Joinville
——
Cimier de Chevreuil
[A haunch of Roebuck is far to be desired above
the same quarter of the red deer].
——
Terrine de Perdreaux
——
Ponche Royale
——
Poularde de Metz
——
Choux de Bruxelles
——
Bavarois aux Abricots
——
Glaces Panachées