Soup.
Soup is generally served alone; however, pickles and crackers are a pleasant accompaniment for oyster-soup, and many serve grated cheese with macaroni and vermicelli soups. A pea or bean soup (without bread croutons) at one end of the table, with a neat square piece of boiled pork on a platter at the other end, is sometimes seen. When a ladleful of the soup is put in the soup-plate by the hostess, the butler passes it to the host, who cuts off a thin wafer-slice of the pork, and places it in the soup. The thin pork can be cut with the spoon. Hot boiled rice is served with gumbo soup. Well-boiled rice, with each grain distinct, is served in a dish by the side of the soup-tureen. The hostess first puts a ladleful of soup into the soup-plate, then a spoonful of the rice in the centre. This is much better than cooking the rice with the soup.
Sometimes little squares (two inches square) of thin slices of brown bread (buttered) are served with soup at handsome dinners. It is a French custom. Cold slaw may be served at the same time with soup, and eaten with the soup or just after the soup-plates are removed.
Fish.
The only vegetable to be served with fish is the plain boiled potato. It may be cut into little round balls an inch in diameter, and served in little piles as a garnish around the fish, or it may be the flaky, full-sized potato, served in another dish. Some stuff a fish with seasoned mashed potatoes, then serve around it little cakes of mashed potatoes, rolled in egg and bread-crumbs and fried. Cucumbers, and sometimes noodles, are served with fish.
Beef.
Almost any vegetable may be served with beef. If potato is not served with fish, it generally accompanies the beef, either as a bed of smooth mashed potatoes around the beef, or à la neige, or as fried potato-balls (à la Parisienne), or, in fact, cooked in any of the myriad different ways. At dinner companies, beef is generally served with a mushroom-sauce. However, as any and all vegetables are suitable for beef, it is only a matter of convenience which to choose. Horse-radish is a favorite beef accompaniment.
Corned Beef
should be served with carrots, turnips, parsnips, cabbage, or pickles around it.