I would here compare society to a series of intersecting circles; each one is a circle of its own, and they all unite in making what is known as general society. Meeting people at a large ball is no evidence of their being received in the smaller circles. What the French call the petit comité of good society is the inmost circle of all, but, naturally, it is confined to a very few. Meeting a person constantly at dinner, at the most exclusive houses, should be sufficient evidence to you that he or she is received everywhere, and if you find people persistently excluded from the best houses at dinners, you may be satisfied that there is some good reason for it.
When you introduce a man into the sanctuary of your own family, it is supposed by a fiction to be the greatest compliment you can pay him; but do not be misled by this, for there is nothing more trying to the guest than to be the one outsider. A friend of mine invariably refuses such invitations. “Why,” said he, “my dinner at home is sufficiently good; I am called out with my wife,—both of us compelled to don our best attire, order the carriage, and go to see and be with, whom? A family whose members are not particularly interesting to us.” Men with whom you are only on a business footing you should dine at your Club, and not inflict them on your family.
COOKS AND CATERING.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Some practical Questions answered—Difference between Men and Women Cooks—Swedish Women the cleanest and most economical—My bills with a Chef—My bills with a Woman Cook—Hints on Marketing—I have done my own Buying for forty years—Mme. Rothschild personally supervises her famous Dinners—Menu of an old-fashioned Southern Dinner—Success of an Impromptu Banquet.
Twenty years ago there were not over three chefs in private families in this city. It is now the exception not to find a man of fashion keeping a first-class chef or a famous cordon bleu. In the last six years Swedish women cooks have come over here, and are excellent, and by some supposed to be better than chefs. No woman, in my opinion, can give as finished a dinner as a man. There is always a something in the dinner which has escaped her. It is like German and Italian opera,—there is a finish to the Italian that the Germans can never get. But Swedish cooks deserve special mention; they are really wonderful—cleanliness itself. That is where the French chef fails. He must have scullions tracking his very footsteps to keep things clean, while the Swedish woman does her work without making dirt. These women get nearly as large wages as the men,—sixty dollars a month and a scullion maid. What a contrast to living in France! I had the best chef in Pau in 1856 for twenty-five dollars, and the scullion received three dollars a month.
The question is often asked, What is the difference in expense to a household between a chef or a woman cook? This question is only learned by experience, which teaches me that with a woman, my butcher’s bill would be $250 to $275 a month; with a chef, $450 to $500. Grocer’s bill, with woman cook, say, $75; with a chef, $125. This does not include entertaining. For a dinner of twelve or fourteen one’s marketing is easily sixty dollars, without the foie gras or fruit. An A1 chef’s wages is $100 a month; he takes ten per cent. commission on the butcher, grocer, baker, and milkman’s bill. If he does not get it directly, he gets it indirectly. In other words, besides his wages, he counts on these commissions. I speak now of the ablest and best; others not quite so capable take five per cent.
Always remember that the Frenchman is a creature of impulses, and works for two things, glory and money. An everyday dinner wearies him, but a dinner privé, a special dinner, oh, this calls forth his talent, which shows that the custom some have of calling in and employing a chef to cook them a special dinner is correct. If you do not keep a chef out of respect for your purse or your health, it is a good plan to know of an “artist” whom you can employ on special occasions, with the express agreement that he submits the list of what he wants, and lets you make the purchases, for these gentry like to make a little economie, which always benefits themselves, and such economie gives you poor material for him to work upon, instead of good.