And rich inside, with chocolate like honey;
And she and I the banquet scene completing
With dreamy words, and very pleasant eating."
If all lunches could be as poetic and as simple and as luxurious as this, the hostess would have little trouble in giving a lunch. But, alas! from the slice of cold ham, or chicken, and bread and butter, has grown the grand hunt breakfast, and the ladies' lunch, most delicious of luxurious time-killers. The lunch, therefore, has become in the house of the opulent as elaborate as the dinner.
Twenty years ago in England I had the pleasure of lunching with Lord Houghton, and I well remember the simplicity of that meal. A cup of bouillon, a joint of mutton, roasted, and carved by the host, a tart, some peaches, very fine hot-house fruit, and a glass of sherry was all that was served on a very plain table to twenty guests. But what a company of wits, belles, and beauties we had to eat it! I once lunched with Browning on a much simpler bill of fare. I have lunched at the beautiful house of Sir John Millais on what might have been a good family dinner with us. And I have lunched in Hampton Court, in the apartments of Mr. Beresford, now dead, who was a friend of George the Fourth and an old Tory whipper-in, on a slice of cold meat, a cutlet, a gooseberry tart, and some strawberries as large as tomatoes from the garden which was once Anne Boleyn's.
What a great difference between these lunches and a ladies' lunch in New York, which, laid for twenty-eight people, offers every kind of wine, every luxury of fish, flesh, and fowl, flowers which exhibit the most overwhelming luxury of an extravagant period, fruits and bonbons and bonbonnières, painted fans to carry home, with ribbons on which is painted one's monogram, etc.
I have seen summer wild-flowers in winter at a ladies' lunch, as the last concession to a fancy for what is unusual. The order having been given in September, the facile gardener raised these flowers for this especial lunch. Far more expensive than roses at a dollar apiece is this bringing of May into January. It is impossible to say where luxury should stop; and, if people can afford it, there is no necessity for its stopping. It is only to be regretted that luxury frightens those who might like to give simple lunches.
A lunch-party of ladies should not be crowded, as handsome gowns take up a great deal of room; and therefore a lunch for ten ladies in a moderate house is better than a larger number. As ladies always wear their bonnets the room should not be too hot.
The menu is very much the same as a dinner, excepting the soup. In its place cups of bouillon or of clam juice, boiled with cream and a bit of sherry, are placed before each plate. There follows presumably a plate of lobster croquettes with a rich sauce, filet de bœuf with truffles and mushrooms, sweetbread and green peas, perhaps asparagus or cauliflower.
Then comes sorbet, or Roman punch, much needed to cool the palate and to invigorate the appetite for further delicacies. The Roman punch is now often served in very fanciful frozen shapes of ice, resembling roses, or fruit of various kinds. If a lady is not near a confectioner she should learn to make this herself. It is very easy, if one only compounds it at first with care, Maraschino cordial or fine old Jamaica rum being mixed with water and sugar as for a punch, and well frozen.