When the course is finished the soiled plates are removed two at a time and after that anything from the table belonging to the course. The soup plates are then brought and set before the hostess if the soup is to be served on the table. The tureen is placed before her, uncovered, and the cover deposited on the serving table. The waitress stands at the left of the person serving, takes each plate as it is ready and places it before a guest. If the soup is served from the pantry or the serving table, the plates are brought two at a time, as for the former course.
With a few changes in detail to be noted below, courses are served as one or other of the two described. This is an outline for serving a course.
- Remove the food of the preceding course.
- Remove the plates.
- Remove relishes, biscuits, etc., belonging especially to that course.
- Remove unused plates and silver belonging especially to that course.
- Bring the plates for or containing the next course.
- Bring the chief dish of the course.
- Serve each person.
- Pass anything which completes the course, like sauce or gravy.
- Pass anything which accompanies the course, like vegetables, or sometimes, a salad.
- See that glasses are filled, and guests supplied with butter.
- Listen for the answer when any one is asked to accept a second helping or consulted about his wishes.
- After an interval, pass a second time anything of which a second helping may be taken, provided there is none of it on the plate.
Detail (a).—It is the custom for the host to serve the fish and do the carving. Perhaps it is a survival from the days when these things were the trophies of his hunting and fishing. The hostess serves the soup, salad and dessert.
Detail (b).—If the family is large the plates for the meat should be put on the serving table and one placed before the carver at a time. The waitress stands beside the carver with the next plate in her hand and puts it before him when she removes the one which is ready to pass. Or if the waitress is too much occupied to do this, three or four plates can be put before the carver, then three or four more.
Detail (c).—A vegetable requiring a separate plate, such as asparagus or corn on the cob, is served after the other vegetables. A plate for it is first put at the left of each place and then the vegetable is passed. Salad, when served with the meat course, is arranged for and passed in the same way.
Detail (d).—Everything to which a guest is to help himself is passed to him from the left side that he may comfortably use his right hand. Things which he has already accepted, like a serving of meat or a cup of coffee, are placed before him by the waitress.
Detail (e).—Some authorities say that the people on one side of the table should be served in the order in which they sit, then the people on the other side in the same order, without regard to sex or precedence. This is well enough for a table full of people of about equal age and importance, but in an ordinary family there are apt to be guests or a grandmother to whom all slight deferences are due. I took a meal with a family not a great while ago at which the two small children were served before the guests and their mother. Extraordinary spectacle!