Old-fashioned butlers sometimes carve in the pantry, but in the most modern service all carving is done by the cook. Cold meats are, in the English service, put whole on the sideboard and the family and guests cut off what they choose themselves. In America cold meat is more often sliced and laid on a platter garnished with finely chopped meat jelly and water cress or parsley.
The "Stag" Or "Bachelor" Dinner
A man's dinner is sometimes called a "stag" or a "bachelor" dinner; and as its name implies, is a dinner given by a man and for men only. A man's dinner is usually given to celebrate an occasion of welcome or farewell. The best-known bachelor dinner is the one given by the groom just before his wedding. Other dinners are more apt to be given by one man (or a group of men) in honor of a noted citizen who has returned from a long absence, or who is about to embark on an expedition or a foreign mission. Or a young man may give a dinner in honor of a friend's twenty-first birthday; or an older man may give a dinner merely because he has a quantity of game which he has shot and wants to share with his especial friends.
Nearly always a man's dinner is given at the host's club or his bachelor quarters or in a private room in a hotel. But if a man chooses to give a stag dinner in his own house, his wife (or his mother) should not appear. For a wife to come downstairs and receive the guests for him, can not be too strongly condemned as out of place. Such a maneuver on her part, instead of impressing his guests with her own grace and beauty, is far more likely to make them think what a "poor worm" her husband must be, to allow himself to be hen-pecked. And for a mother to appear at a son's dinner is, if anything, worse. An essential piece of advice to every woman is: No matter how much you may want to say "How do you do" to your husband's or your son's friends—don't!
CHAPTER XV
DINNER GIVING WITH LIMITED EQUIPMENT
The Service Problem