Five courses at most (not counting the passing of a dish of candy or after-dinner coffee as a course), or more usually four actual courses, are thought sufficient in the smartest houses. Not even at the Worldlys' or the Gildings' will you ever see a longer menu than:

  1. Fruit, or soup in cups
  2. Eggs
  3. Meat and vegetables
  4. Salad
  5. Dessert

or

  1. Fruit
  2. Soup
  3. Meat and vegetables
  4. Dessert

or

  1. Fruit
  2. Soup
  3. Eggs
  4. Fowl or "tame" game with salad
  5. Dessert

An informal lunch menu is seldom more than four courses and would eliminate either No. 1 or No. 2 or No. 5.

The most popular fruit course is a macédoine or mixture of fresh orange, grape fruit, malaga grapes, banana, and perhaps a peach or a little pineapple; in fact, any sort of fruit cut into very small pieces, with sugar and maraschino, or rum, for flavor—or nothing but sugar—served in special bowl-shaped glasses that fit into long-stemmed and much larger ones, with a space for crushed ice between; or it can just as well be put in champagne or any bowl-shaped glasses, after being kept as cold as possible in the ice-box until sent to the table.

If the first course is grape fruit, it is cut across in half, the sections cut free and all dividing skin and seeds taken out with a sharp vegetable knife, and sugar put in it and left standing for an hour or so. A slice of melon is served plain.

Soup at luncheon, or at a wedding breakfast or a ball supper, is never served in soup plates, but in two-handled cups, and is eaten with a teaspoon or a bouillon spoon. It is limited to a few varieties: either chicken, or clam broth, with a spoonful of whipped cream on top; or bouillon, or green turtle, or strained chicken, or tomato broth; or in summer, cold bouillon or broth.