Part 49

Mash two quarts of strawberries to a pulp, pour over them three quarts of water and the juice of two lemons. Stand in a cool place for four hours, strain, and stir into the liquid a pound and a half of granulated sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, strain again, and set in a cold place until wanted. Serve in tumblers of crushed ice.

Sarsaparilla wine

To one gallon of water add one pound of sarsaparilla leaves and stems, two pounds of sugar, one-quarter of a pound of raisins, and one lemon. As the fruit contains a natural ferment, it will undergo that process spontaneously, without the use of yeast. Let it stand five days, strain and bottle. If you have not the herb, omit the sugar, and use in its place a gallon of sarsaparilla syrup.

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(Purchase a “shaker” for compounding drinks in which cracked ice forms an important factor. This shaker consists simply of a thick glass tumbler, over which is turned, upside-down, a larger cup of tin. This cup fits tightly over the glass, and the contents of the tumbler may be vigorously shaken until thoroughly mixed and foamy.)

Iced orange juice

Make a syrup of a cupful of sugar and three-quarters of a cupful of water boiled together for ten minutes, then set aside until cold. Mix a half-pint of orange juice and a gill of lemon juice, and sweeten abundantly with the cold syrup. In sweetening this beverage, remember that the ice is still to be added, and that this, in melting, will dilute the syrup and thus render the drink more acid. Fill tumblers to the brim with finely-cracked ice and pour the orange mixture upon it. This is a refreshing beverage.

Milk shake

Have ready some sugar syrup made according to the directions in the recipe for iced orange juice. Sweeten a half-pint of unskimmed milk with the syrup; flavor with a half teaspoonful of vanilla extract; turn into the glass of your shaker, and add enough crushed ice to fill the glass to the brim. Shake long and hard before pouring into a chilled tumbler.

Koumiss

Dissolve a third of a yeast-cake in a gill of warm milk and add two teaspoonfuls of granulated sugar. Have ready scalded a beer bottle with a patent fastener. If you have not this, use an ordinary bottle with a straight cork, and soak the cork for half an hour to swell it. Fill the bottle three-quarters full of fresh milk, heated until just blood-warm, and pour in the yeast-mixture. Shake hard for two minutes, and cork tightly. If you use an ordinary cork, cord or wire it down. Set the bottle in the warm kitchen for six hours, or until the contents begin to “work” and foam. Then set in the ice-chest until needed. As one yeast-cake will make three bottles of koumiss it is quite as easy to make that quantity at once as it is to prepare one bottle of the stimulating and nourishing beverage.

Blackberry cordial

(Contributed)

Warm and squeeze the berries; add to one pint of juice one pint of sugar, one-half ounce of powdered cinnamon, one-fourth ounce of mace, two teaspoonfuls of cloves. Boil all together for one-fourth of an hour; strain the syrup, and to each pint add a glass of French brandy. Two or three doses of a tablespoonful or less will check any slight diarrhea.

It will arrest dysentery if given in season, and is a pleasant and safe remedy.

Raspberry cordial

(Contributed)

Sweeten the berries a little sweeter than for table use, and let them stand over night. In the morning lay in a hair sieve over a bowl; let them remain until evening, so as to thoroughly drain; then put the juice into a thick flannel bag; let it drain over night, being careful not to squeeze it, as it takes out the brightness and clearness. Do all this in a cool cellar or it may sour. To two pints of juice add one pint of French brandy and sweeten to taste.

Toast water

(Contributed)

Toast a pint of bread crusts very brown; pour cold water over them, let them stand for an hour, strain, and add cream and sugar to taste. The nourishment in the bread is easily absorbed when taken in the liquid form.

Slippery-elm tea

(Contributed)

Pour one cupful of boiling water over one teaspoonful of slippery-elm bark. When cold, strain, and add lemon juice and sugar to taste. This is very soothing in case of inflammation of the mucous membrane of the throat.

Apple tea

(Contributed)

Roast two large sour apples and pour boiling water over them. When cold, pour off the water, strain, and sweeten to taste.

Flaxseed tea

(Contributed)

Pour a pint of boiling water over an ounce of flaxseed and a little licorice-root, and let it stand where it will keep warm but not cook, for four hours. Strain through a piece of linen and make fresh every day. This is an excellent drink for a fever patient who has a cough.

Flaxseed lemonade

(Contributed)

Over four tablespoonfuls of flaxseed pour one quart of boiling water and let it steep three hours. Strain, sweeten to taste, and add the juice of two lemons. If too thick, add more water. This is very soothing in colds.

Egg-nogg

(Contributed)

Beat until very light, the yolk of one egg and a teaspoonful of sugar; then add the white of the egg beaten to a stiff froth. Stir well together, pour into a glass, and add a teaspoonful of rum or brandy and as much milk as the glass will hold. It will give more nourishment if whipped cream is used instead of milk.

Serve with grated nutmeg over the top.

FORMAL BREAKFASTS AND LUNCHEONS

The social breakfast is becoming more and more of a function. Not the early morning breakfast, where the tempers of the eaters are not always under perfect control, but a later and more leisurely meal, to which guests are asked and where much the same laws of convention apply that are observed at a luncheon. In fact, the breakfast resembles a luncheon in most respects. Here, as at luncheon, the hardwood table is bare except for a handsome white square, and for doilies under the dishes and plates. The table is spread as for luncheon, the knives at the right, the edges turned towards the plate, the tumbler near the points of these, the spoon laid by the knife, the forks at the left, and beyond them the napkin, a piece of bread folded in it. At the left also stands the bread and butter plate.

At the breakfast, however, there is a little less formality than at the luncheon, as there are also fewer and less elaborate courses. For, although the breakfast is usually served at twelve or half after—only a little earlier than the ordinary mid-day meal—it is regarded as less conventional in nearly every respect.

Soup is not served at the formal breakfast any more than it would be at the family meal known by that name. The whole bill of fare is rather an amplification of the common breakfast than a variation from it. For that reason sweets are out of place to conclude it unless one wishes to introduce the English fashion of having a pot of marmalade and toast brought in to wind up the repast.

Following this preamble are given a couple of menus that may serve as suggestions for the hostess who wishes to entertain at breakfast. It is an especially charming way of gathering one’s friends about one in the warm days when heavy dinners are out of the question and even late luncheons come at the hour when long sitting at meals is likely to be a weariness to the flesh. The summer breakfast may be served as early as eleven, or even as ten o’clock, while that of the late winter mornings may be held back until the noon hour:

BREAKFAST MENU. I

Fresh Strawberries Tomato Omelet French Rolls Broiled Chicken French Fried Potatoes Coffee in large cups Grapefruit Salad Crackers Cream Cheese

BREAKFAST MENU. II

Iced Orange Juice Poached Eggs with Asparagus Tips Toast Lamb Chops Green Peas English Muffins Coffee in large cups Cream Tomato Salad Wafers Brie or Roquefort Cheese

Either of these menus may be adapted to any season. For example, if the breakfast be a spring or summer function, the strawberries may be served—large strawberries, unhulled, to be dipped in sugar and eaten with the fingers, in the fashion that we have imported from England. If the berries are not in season, however, the orange juice, made so cold as to be almost frappé, and served in small punch-glasses, may take their place. Either the berries or the orange juice should be on the table when the guests take their seats. Nothing else should be there then, except the regular furniture of the table, the glass or bowl of flowers in the center of the board, the piece of bread laid in the napkin and the butter ball or tiny print on the bread and butter plate. _Hors d’oeuvres_ are out of place on the breakfast table, unless you have radishes, which are decorative as well as appetizing.

When the fruit has been eaten and has gone, the omelet may come in. This should appear whole. A Spanish omelet, with the rich yellow of the eggs, the red of the tomatoes and the green of the peppers, is too pretty a thing to be cut before the guests have had a chance to see it in all its beauty. It may be passed to each guest, or, better still, served by the host or hostess. In putting down a plate in front of any one the waitress should approach on the right side, just as, when she is passing a dish from which the guest is to serve himself, she should offer it on the left. In the case of the eggs, which are usually prepared in individual dishes, she should put a plate in front of the guest, standing on his right side as she does so. A small doily may be laid under each nappy. The toast may be either dry or buttered. The rolls should have been put in the oven long enough to become heated.

For the third course of the meal rather large breakfast plates should be used, and these must be well heated. The chicken may be passed or carved on the table; the chops should be passed. So should be the potatoes and peas. The hostess should serve the coffee at this point, having the equipage in front of her at the head of the table as she would at a family breakfast. The cream and sugar may be passed that each guest may add the “trimmings” to his coffee to suit himself.

Either the grapefruit salad or the cream tomato salad is feasible at almost any time of year. With it are served the crackers and cheese—on the same plate. This concludes the meal, unless, as I have said, you wish to introduce the jam-pot and hot toast. But in most cases the guests will have had all they want by this time.

At a breakfast the guests may be both men and women—provided one is able to find enough disengaged men to make a fair sprinkling. The breakfast should not be too large a gathering. Not less than four, not more than eight, is a good rule.

At the luncheon, on the contrary, there may be any number that the table can accommodate, and men are usually barred. The luncheon differs from the breakfast, too, in being a more formal function. Never at a luncheon could a guest rise from the table to wait on herself or some one else, as may be done at a breakfast, without risking the proprieties of the occasion. The table is set in the same way, but the linen should be, if possible, more elaborate. More embroidery, or richer lace, is permissible on the cloth and center-piece, and color may be admitted more freely than at the breakfast. The flowers may be more and loftier, and at an elaborate luncheon a corsage bouquet for each guest, or at least a fine flower laid at each place is _en régle_. There may be place-cards also, and even favors, although these are by no means necessary, or in most cases, desirable. On the table, as well as the necessary plenishing, are small dishes of salted almonds, olives, radishes and bonbons. Wine may be served also, if one wishes it, and the glitter of the wine-glasses adds to the beauty of the table. If artificial light be preferred, there may be candles with colored shades that harmonize with the tint of the flowers, and the china should be as much in keeping with this chosen shade as possible. The luncheon, where only one color is prominent, is much more artistic than that where there is a confusion of hues.

The accompanying luncheon menus may, like those given for the breakfast, serve as suggestions to the hostess on the lookout for a harmonious bill of fare:

LUNCHEON MENU. I

Oyster Cocktails Cream of Pea Soup Salmon Cutlets Duchesse Potatoes Broiled Chicken Green Peppers Stuffed with Rice Lettuce Salad Crackers Camembert Cheese Orange Mousse Small Cakes Coffee

LUNCHEON MENU. II

Fruit Frappé Little Neck Clams Chicken Bouillon Baked Bluefish Broiled Tomatoes Sweetbreads in Timbales Stuffed Lamb Chops and Mushrooms Green Peas Cucumber Salad Crackers Crême Gervais Cheese Café Parfait Coffee

The oyster cocktails or the fruit frappé should be on the table when the guests enter the room, the hostess leading the way with the guest of honor. No formal order is necessary in the entrance of the rest of the company. After this first course the plates are changed in the usual fashion, taking from the right and replacing from the same side. The soup is served in bouillon cups. In neither luncheon is anything carved on the table, although occasionally, when a crown of lamb or whole chickens are served, or even fillet of beef, the hostess carves. But she should not attempt this unless she has a very poor carver in the kitchen or is remarkably deft at it herself.

The table is not crumbed until after the salad course, and the work is always done with a napkin. The silver crumb-knife is altogether out of favor at present. At this stage, too, all the _hors d’oeuvres_ are removed except the bonbons. These are often taken into the drawing-room after the luncheon for the guests to nibble while they chat for the prescribed time before taking their departure. Often the coffee, too, is served in the drawing-room.

When wine is served at a ladies’ luncheon it is usually some light wine, like Sauterne. Only one wine is necessary, although occasionally sherry is offered with the fish. If a liquor is served afterwards it is generally crême de menthe, poured into tiny glasses, first filled to the brim with crushed ice. It is said to be an excellent digestive.

CONCERNING DINNER GIVING

The formal dinner is the most dignified function in the social calendar. Even a big luncheon is less stately, and, by comparison, breakfasts, afternoon teas and evening parties are mere child’s play.

A dinner is the one meal with which liberties can not be taken. Yet there are rash souls who have attempted it and have even introduced at a dinner a course cooked in a chafing-dish. Such efforts may meet with the approval of a few youthful and frivolous souls, but they can only shock those who have a proper appreciation of the esthetics and ethics of gastronomy.

All this applies to the formal dinner, to which guests are invited long in advance and where the staid succession of courses can be compared only to the progress of the units of the solar system. One can understand the dismay of these when a comet darts across their established orbits. Such is the effect produced upon the graduate diner-out when variations are attempted in the solemn dinner of state.

But there is another sort of a dinner—The Little Dinner. It would never claim capitals on its own account, but they are bestowed willingly by those who have fallen victims to its charms. At the little dinner the bill of company is considered as well as the bill of fare, and neither is chosen without deep thought. No chances are taken when there can be but four or six or eight to sit down to the table and where the courses are few enough to demand perfection in each.

As a matter of course, this can not be managed without labor. The hostess must give close attention to every item on the menu. She must see that her table is all it should be in appearance and that there is no chance for any hitch in the proceedings. For while not so tremendous an affair as the many-coursed dinner, the little dinner still has a dignity all its own and with this one may not trifle.

The table should be spread with the finest and whitest of damask over the “silence cloth” that is now indispensable in every well-regulated household. More and more the fancy is growing to have the center-pieces at a dinner, of pure white, with no touch of color. That may be supplied by the flowers, the china, the candle shades. The center-piece may be of linen, rich in embroidery or heavy with lace, but all must be colorless.

The flowers that are in the center of the table may be in a rather low receptacle, so as not to interfere with the conversation or glances of the guests seated opposite one another. The candelabra, or dinner lamps, may stand at the corners of the table. Here and there may be little dishes in silver, cut glass or rare china, holding such _hors d’oeuvres_ as salted nuts, radishes, olives and the like, and bonbons. Except for carafes of water there should be nothing else on the table besides the furniture of the individual covers.

This is substantially the same as at a luncheon. The service plate, the knives on the right, the forks on the left,—one for each course,—the soup spoon laid with the knives, the water glass and wine glasses to the right, the napkin, a piece of bread folded in it, to the left. There is no butter used at a dinner and the bread and butter plate is therefore not needed. Always space enough should be allowed between the places to prevent crowding.

Of the menus that follow two are for the little dinner. The third is for a rather more elaborate function, and the fourth may serve as an outline for one of the big dinners that every one has occasion to give once in a while.

DINNER MENU. I (FOR VERY LITTLE DINNER)

Anchovy Toast Cream of Asparagus Soup Roast of Lamb Green Peas Browned New Potatoes Lettuce Salad Crackers Brie Cheese Olives Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream Coffee

DINNER MENU. II

Little Neck Clams Consommé à la Royale Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce Roast Capon Rice and Green Peppers Creamed Spinach Shrimp Salad Crackers Roquefort Cheese Stuffed Olives Pistachio Ice Cream Coffee

DINNER MENU. III

Raw Oysters Cream of Celery Soup Baked Shad French Fried Potatoes Sliced Cucumbers Broiled Sweetbreads Fillet of Beef, Mushroom Sauce Tomato Farcies Rice Croquettes Asparagus Salad Olives Radishes Strawberry Mousse Crackers Camembert Cheese Coffee

DINNER MENU. IV

Caviar on Toast Raw Oysters or Clams Consommé Baked Halibut Stuffed Tomatoes Parisienne Potatoes Mushrooms on Toast Spring Lamb, Mint Sauce Green Peas Sweetbread Croquettes Sherbet Roast Duck, with Olive Sauce Crab Salad Nesselrode Pudding Fancy Cakes Coffee Celery Crackers Gorgonzola and Roquefort Cheese

For the little dinner as for the big the service is essentially the same. The appetizer, or the oysters with which the meal begins, should be on the table when the guests come into the room, the host leading the way with the guest of honor, the other guests following the couple, and the hostess bringing up the rear with the man to whom she wishes to show especial attention.

The service plate, which is on the table under that containing the appetizer, is left there until after the soup has been eaten. In fact the guest should never be left without a plate in front of him. As soon as one that has been used is taken away the service plate should be restored, to be in turn taken away when the next plate from which he is to eat is put before him.

The serving should all be done from the right, as has been directed in the chapter on luncheons, and the dishes passed on the left side. The soup may be served by the hostess at a little dinner, but always at the large dinner and often, too, at the smaller function the plates are filled by the servant in the pantry and placed before the guests. The entrées are passed. The roast is rarely carved on the table, even at a small dinner. The carving is done outside and the dish passed that each guest may serve himself. The day when the portion of each guest was put on his plate in the pantry and then put before him has unhappily passed. Unhappily, because it simplified matters for both the guest and the waitress.

In changing the plates, more than one plate should never be taken at a time. It is a favorite trick with lazy or unskilled waitresses to take off as much as can be carried. Sometimes they even go to the point of piling up all the various pieces that belong to one cover. This should not be permitted. Let there be an assumption of abundant service, even when this is lacking.

The salad may be dressed on the table if preferred, and this is often done at the little dinner. In that case the small basin in which the dressing is to be mixed is put before the hostess, together with the flasks of oil and vinegar, the salt and pepper and the fork with which the stirring is to be done. If chives or garlic is to be used, it should be in the bowl when this is brought in. The dressing may either be passed to each guest, or, better still, poured upon the salad in the dish, and this then passed.

When it comes to the ices the method of procedure is changed a little. The individual ices may be placed on the plates from which they are to be eaten and these then put in front of the guests.

The coffee may be served either at the table or in the drawing-room. The latter is always done, when the men are to be left behind to smoke. Under these circumstances there is usually cognac provided for them, while a liqueur of a milder type is offered to the women in the drawing-room. When all go out together they may either have the cordial—maraschino, chartreuse, benedictine, or whatever it may be, before leaving the table or in the drawing-room.

The service of wines is, in a way, a question by itself. It is not necessary to have more than one wine at a little dinner—a good claret, or sauterne, or Rhine wine. Poor champagne is one of the most wretched of beverages, and it takes a rich man to supply a really good article. If champagne is served, however, it should be ice cold, and may be poured after the fish. With the soup, sherry may be served, and claret with the entrées. If one has a number of wines, the white should be offered with the fish.

But, as I have said, a number of wines is not necessary except for a very large or formal affair. In fact, the use of wines is entirely optional. If they are to be used at all, however, it should be in the correct fashion, white wines chilled, claret the temperature of the room. The waitress should have a napkin pinned around the neck of the bottle and should stand on the right when she fills the glasses. She should watch these to see that they are not allowed to become empty.

One caution to the hostess, a caution which may perhaps be unnecessary. Never attempt a dinner unless you are sure of your waitress. An inexperienced maid or man has it in her power to ruin the best cooked dinner. No dinner, no matter what its perfections in other respects, can be satisfactory to the guests when the hostess is uneasy or annoyed about the conduct of the courses, the serving of the food.

Temperatures at which wines should be served

Claret should be served warm—not warmer than eighty nor colder than sixty-five degrees.

Bordeaux and burgundy should be served at a temperature of about seventy degrees.

Chablis and other white wines should be served at forty-five degrees.

Port at fifty-five degrees.

Sauterne and other white claret, fifty degrees.

Sherry is best at forty degrees.

Madeira should be at sixty-five degrees.