Four plates of hors d’œuvres.
Four plates of dried fruits.
Four plates of fresh fruit, according to the season.
Four large dishes—a whole duck, sharks’ fins, swallows’ nests, and some kind of meat.
Four middle-sized dishes—poultry, shell-fish, and meat.
Four small dishes or bowls, containing mushrooms, morels, which we call ears of the forest, rice of the immortals, which is the name we give to a kind of mushroom, and the tender sprouts of the bamboo.
Four large dishes, containing fish, sea-stars, and mutton.
These last four dishes finish the repast. As a rule, nobody touches them, and their appearance on the table is the signal for rising. The price of ceremonial dinners rarely exceeds twenty dollars, or four pounds, for eight persons. The list of dishes is a much larger one, and includes two roasts, which are served at the middle of the dinner, together with little pieces of bread cooked in the bain-marie.
A servant, armed with a very sharp carving-knife, removes the skin of the roast, be it wild duck, goose, or sucking pig, and serves each guest with a little in a saucer. At the same time, another servant hands each guest a small cup, into which he pours rice brandy. I forgot to say that the table is cleared before the roasts are served, just as in Paris before coffee is brought on to table. Pastry is always served at our dinners, and is brought on between the courses. With salt pastry, containing meat, a cup of chicken broth is served, whilst with sweet pastry almond milk is handed round. I must add that dinner always begins with hors d’œuvres including fruit, and ends with a bowl of rice, which may be eaten or not, according to the tastes of the guests. Tea is served immediately after dinner, and at the same time each guest receives a napkin dipped in hot water.
The diners sit at a square table, two on each side. The first and third face the second and fourth, the sixth and the fifth face the courtyard, to which the seventh and eighth turn their backs. The eighth is always the master of the house, whose special function it is to fill the glasses of his guests with wine. When there are more than eight, several tables are used. If four tables are needed, the third and fourth are near the courtyard, whilst the first and second are near the drawing-room. Hors d’œuvres include, besides fruit, ham, gizzards, grated meat grilled, dried shrimps, and preserved eggs. The latter, thanks to their coating of lime, will keep for an indefinite period; after twenty-five years they are exquisite to the taste, having undergone a kind of transformation, the result of which is that the yellows have become a kind of dark brown in colour, and the whites, also brown, resemble meat jelly. I once made some European friends of mine taste some of these eggs, as well as other Chinese dishes, and they were delighted with them, all prejudice apart.