CHAPTER VI: THE FORMAL DINNER
From the informal dinner in which the family waits on itself, to the formal dinner, at which two waitresses attend to the comfort of the diners, is but a step. Yet it is a serious one for the hostess who gives the latter form of dinner. The cook often requires extra help (dishwashing, etc.); and where a chambermaid is available, she has to be drafted as a second waitress or an extra waitress engaged. There must be a helper on duty in the pantry, for there must be no hitch in any detail of the formal dinner service. So the extra pantry-hand must serve soup and pour coffee, see that there is crushed ice always ready, stack up soiled dishes, open wine bottles (yes, this is still done!) and be prepared to do anything else which will help make the dinner a success.
THE WHAT’S WHAT OF A FORMAL DINNER
The fine damask tablecloth is a feature—though the table is set practically as though for a formal luncheon—and large-size dinner napkins are the rule. The parsnips of circumstance are not buttered at the formal dinner, though the bread and butter plate sometimes shows its face as a serving convenience for bread, celery, olives and radishes. Wineglasses still appear in formal dinners given in private. This provides for quite an array of glassware. At the point of the knives, in the following order stand the water goblet and the iced tea glass or appolinaris glass. The wineglasses (usually no more than three wines are served) are grouped to the right of the water goblet. Their order is that of use. (There are separate glasses for high and low cocktail, sherry, sauterne, claret, champagne, cordials and whiskey.) Each guest has his own nut dish, placed directly before him. Candles are lit and water glasses half-filled a few minutes in advance of the dinner announcement, and the hostess already having arranged place cards before this is done.
THE COURSES
The “initial” course may be placed on the table before dinner is announced or may be served after. If, however, you serve cocktails in the drawing room with the accompanying caviar or lettuce sandwiches, or if you serve a canapé, do not repeat the latter as the opening of the dinner. For instance, you should not serve a Lobster Canapé in the drawing room and a Finnan Haddie Canapé at the dinner table. Fruit cocktails of every kind, and canapés are in order for this commencement of the meal.
A GOOD FRUIT COCKTAIL RECIPE
Mix shredded pineapple, halved strawberries, (fresh, not preserved), with grapefruit pulp, the pulp in a two to one proportion to the pineapple, chill and cover with wine dressing. To be served in champagne glass, with top garnish of a large strawberry for each glass.
The soup course may be preceded by one of fruit, where the cocktail or canapé has been served in the drawing room. Supposing it to be strawberries, the berries will already be waiting in a small plate when the guests take their seats upon entering the dining room. They should be unhulled, large, selected berries, and may be eaten either by hand (dipped in the sugar mound into which they are thrust on the plate) or with the strawberry fork. The serving of a finger bowl with this course is a matter of taste.
When this course has been removed, the soup is served, and the head waitress pours the sherry, while cakes and olives are passed by a second waitress.