Although the chafing-dish is especially adapted to the needs of the bachelor, man or maid, its use should not be relegated entirely to the homeless or the Bohemian. In the sick-room, at the luncheon-table, on Sunday night, it is most serviceable and wellnigh indispensable; it always suggests hearty welcome and good cheer.
While it is out of place, at any ceremonial meal, as a means of cooking, even on such occasions a lobster Newburgh or other dish that needs be served piping hot to be eaten at its best may be brought on in individual chafing-dishes. These are supplied with hot-water pans and lamps. At a chafing-dish supper each guest can prepare his own rarebit.
Any operation in cooking that can be performed on the kitchen range may be successfully carried out on the chafing-dish, provided one be skilled in its use. But as the dining-room is usually chosen as the site in which to test its possibilities, here it were well to confine one's efforts to such dishes as will not give rise to too much disorder. Sautéing and frying it were better to reserve for the range and a well-ventilated kitchen.
Alcohol is most commonly used in the lamp of the chafing-dish; and, on account of its cheapness, one is often advised to buy wood alcohol. But in large markets, where many fowl are singed daily over an alcohol flame, the marketmen will tell you that the very best article is none too good for their purpose. It does not smoke, wastes less rapidly, and in the end will prove quite as economical.
Course at Formal Dinner served in Individual Chafing-Dishes.
See [page 157]
Are Midnight Suppers Hygienic?
| "Being no further enemy to you |
| Than the constraint of hospitable zeal." |
In regard to the chafing-dish and its most prominent use, some one may fittingly ask: Is it hygienic to eat at midnight? Can one keep one's health and eat late suppers? As in all things pertaining to food, no set rules can be given to meet every case; much depends upon constitutional traits, individual habits and idiosyncrasies. One may practise what another cannot attempt. As a rule, however, people who eat a hearty dinner, after the work of the day is done, do not need to eat again until the following breakfast hour.