CHAPTER VI.
THE TABLE AND SERVICE AT TABLE, HABITS AT TABLE, SERVANTS AND SERVING.
“God may forgive sins, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in Heaven or earth.”—_Hawthorne._
THE TABLE AND SERVICE AT TABLE.
The table looks best when not over-decorated. The housekeeper who cannot make changes in her table decoration finds that a mirror centerpiece is a background that multiplies the beauty of her flowers, fruit, leaves, or whatever may constitute the decoration.
A unique and effective decoration for a luncheon table is made of long, narrow bouquets of white carnations, tied with bows of yellow satin ribbon, and arranged so that the ribbons all meet in the center of the table, while the points are directed towards the guests. The effect is of a great golden-hearted daisy.
A pretty conceit for decorating a dainty table is to cluster a number of small palms together in the center of the table. Around these place small ferns, while beyond the latter arrange yards of smilax so as to conceal the pots. Outside of all have a flat border composed of loose bunches of pinks, roses, and maiden-hair ferns. Tie these with wide pink satin ribbons, a long end of which should extend from each bouquet down to the place of each of the women guests, and have her name painted in gold upon it. Then there should be _boutonnières_ of pink carnations for the men.
Menu cards are not ordinarily used at any but the most formal kind of an entertainment. They are always seen at large functions, men’s public dinners, etc., which are usually given in a hotel or restaurant; but in a private house individual menu cards, whether at a dinner or a luncheon, are exceptional.
When the dinner is large and formal, or even when it numbers only eight or ten, it is wise to have small cards with the names of the guests at each place at the table, and, if the guests are strangers to each other, to have a tray in the men’s dressing-room or hall where they remove their coats and hats with tiny envelopes addressed to each, containing little cards on which is written the name of the dinner partner. The hostess must see that, as soon as two dinner partners are in the receiving room before dinner, they meet each other, and have a chance for a little conversation before the meal is announced; and she should also make a point to introduce each woman before dinner to the man who is to sit on the other side of her.
Introductions are not proper at the table, and at a large dinner it is awkward to introduce all one’s guests to each other before the meal. At a small dinner, of course, it is not necessary to observe all this formality, and the hostess may introduce her guests to each other without much ceremony, when the company numbers only four or six; but with more, each woman should be provided with a partner who escorts her to the table. At a small function there need be but a few minutes of waiting before the guests are all seated. The guest of honor sits at the right of the host.
As to the manner of arranging the table, there is some difference of opinion. However, generally speaking, there should be a napkin, squarely folded, in front of each guest, and at the left of it the forks, _i. e._, a fish fork and a large and a small ordinary fork. At the right of the napkin should be the knives and spoons, a glass, bread-and-butter plate (if used), and a salt cellar; and in the center of the table on an embroidered centerpiece or circular mirror, the floral decorations. At the head of the table, upon an embroidered square, are laid the tea service,—the urn, the cups and saucers, the cream pitcher, sugar bowl, etc.; at the other end are placed the dishes for serving. Scattered about on circular doilies are the dishes of jelly, preserves, pickles (sweet and sour), olives, salted almonds, etc.
Chafing-dishes are used to prepare such dishes as terrapin, oysters, or whatever may be cooked absolutely on the table. A napkin and plate, or tray, is best liked for removing crumbs.
Finger bowls should always follow the last course at formal and informal meals alike, except at breakfast, when, if fruit is the first course, the finger-bowl is put on the table when the covers are laid ready for the fruit course.
Spoon-holders are no longer used, but if one should be fancied it would be better to put the bowl of the spoon in the holder first.
Unless one serves something more than wafers, small cakes, tea, and chocolate on an “at home” day, napkins are not necessary; if, however, there is some dish that will soil the fingers or the lips, then there should be a pile of small napkins on the tea-table.
Tooth-picks should not be put on the table, nor should they be used outside one’s own room.
It is not necessary to fold one’s napkin when only one meal is to be eaten in the house in which one is staying.
The day for tying cakes, sandwiches, etc., with ribbons has passed.
The waitress should stand with a tray in her hand behind the host’s chair to receive each plate as it is filled, passing it to the left of the guest, and waiting for him to remove it. When the hostess is pouring tea or coffee, the maid’s place is by her left side in waiting for the cups. After that she should be on the alert to see when the glasses need filling, or when there is bread, pickles, or anything to be passed. When removing the plates it should be from the right side of the guest, but everything should be offered at the left that the right hand may be used to receive it.
When a dish is passed and there is no maid in attendance, one should help himself and pass it on. If a dish is standing near one, under such circumstances, he may quite properly ask if he may help himself, and do so.
When a plate is passed for a helping, the knife and fork are laid well to the side of the plate, so placed that they will not fall off, and yet not be in the way of the server.
All the appurtenances of each course should be removed before the succeeding one is served. The bread-and-butter plates, however, should be removed before the salad course, as crackers and cheese are passed with this, the salad plate being used to hold all three things.
The salted almonds should be started about the table by the hostess soon after the guests are seated. Some hostesses possess cut-glass or china individual dishes, on which the almonds are placed when the guest helps himself, but it is quite usual for them to be placed on the bread-and-butter plate.
Bonbons should be passed by the maid when the coffee is served, and eaten from the plate from which the finger-bowl and doily have been removed.
It is not important whether tumblers or goblets are used on the dinner-table; each season brings its own custom.
The bread-and-butter plates at a formal dinner serve the purpose only of bread plates, as it is not customary to serve butter on such occasions. If it is used, however, butter should be made into tiny balls, and one or two placed on each bread-and-butter plate.
It is customary to put the vegetables served with the meat on the same plate. The use of individual dishes for vegetables is no longer approved.
Oranges are seldom served at dinner unless they are specially prepared, that is, with the skin taken off, and the sections divided, in which case the fruit is eaten from a fork.
Cheese and crackers of some sort are always served with salad courses.
At a formal dinner bouillon or consommé is usually served in soup-plates. At a supper or luncheon it is oftenest served in cups. The regulation cups are those having handles on each side.
When oysters are served on the half-shell, they are usually placed upon the table before the meal is announced.
It is not customary to serve fruit as a first course at dinner, though at a lunch it is quite proper.
Grape-fruit must be served ice cold. It is served in two ways: either it is cut in halves, midway between the blossom and the stem end, the seeds removed, the pulp loosened with a sharp knife, but served in the natural skin, to be eaten with a spoon; or the pulp and seeds are entirely removed from the skin with a sharp knife, and the edible part only served in deep dessert plates. Pulverized sugar should accompany grape-fruit.
In waiting upon plates, one should never pour gravy on the food, but place it at one side.
The salad course at dinner always succeeds the game course.
After dinner coffee is served in small cups and without cream. In many houses rock-candy, crushed in very small pieces, is used as a substitute for sugar, the claim being made that it gives a purer sweetness.
Cut sugar is served with coffee, and powdered sugar with fruit or oatmeal.
Coffee may be served at the table or in the drawing-room as is best liked. People are not asked if they will have it; it is served to them. Only sugar is offered with black coffee.
HABITS AT TABLE.
Nothing indicates the good breeding of a man so much as his manners at table. There are a thousand little points to be observed, which, although not absolutely necessary, distinctly stamp the refined and well-bred man. A man may pass muster by dressing well, and may sustain himself tolerably in conversation; but, if he is not nearly perfect in table etiquette, dining will betray him.
Any unpleasant peculiarity, abruptness, or coarseness of manner is especially offensive at table. People are more easily disgusted at that time than at any other.
One should never rest the arms upon the table, but keep the left hand, when not in use, lying quietly in the lap.
A man guest should never precede his hostess into or out of the dining-room, but should wait respectfully by the door for her to pass.
A soup-plate should never be tilted for the last spoonful.
The mouth should be kept closed in eating, and as little noise made as possible.
A goblet should be held by the stem, and not by the bowl.
Bread should be broken and not cut before buttering it to eat.
A knife should never be used at table except where one is unable to cut his food with his fork; it should never be used in conveying food to the mouth.
A knife should be held by its handle, and the finger not allowed to extend up on the blade. In eating with a fork it should be held in the right hand.
The fork is generally used with the tines curving upward.
Olives are eaten from the fingers; pickles, from a fork. It is usual to put either a small fork or a long-handled spoon with a small bowl on the dish containing olives or pickles, and one should use it in helping one’s self.
The tips of the fingers are put in the finger-bowls and may then moisten the lips. Both lips and finger tips are dried on the napkin, which is not afterwards folded.
Watermelons are eaten with a fork, and cantaloupes with either a spoon or a fork.
A baked potato should be eaten from the plate after it has been pushed out of its skin by the fork.
Dried beef is eaten with a fork.
Grape seeds may be removed from the mouth with the fingers. The seeds of watermelons should be taken from the fruit with a fork before the fruit is put into the mouth.
Fish bones are taken from the mouth with the fingers. Care, however, is usually taken to leave as few bones as possible in the fish, since the general use of the silver knife with the silver fork has made it easy to separate the bones from the meat.
Bananas are broken with a fork, and a piece is conveyed to the mouth on a fork.
When a servant offers one a dish, he should help himself without taking it from her hand.
When drinking from a cup, the spoon should be left in the saucer, where it also remains when the cup is empty.
It is not proper to eat gravy with bits of bread; instead, it should be regarded as a sauce, and simply eaten on the meat of which it forms a portion.
It is decreed by custom that the small bones of any bird may be taken in the fingers, and the meat eaten from the bone. But this must always be done daintily.
What is known as “layer cake” is eaten from a fork, and in serving it one uses either a pie-knife or a tablespoon and a fork.
Cheese is eaten with a fork.
After-dinner coffee is taken directly from the cup, and not from the spoon.
Crackers should be eaten from the hand, and not be broken into soup.
When bread is passed, one takes a slice as it is cut, and does not break it and leave a portion on the plate. Bread is always eaten from the fingers.
Raw oysters are eaten with a small oyster-fork from the shell. In helping one’s self to salt, the little salt-spoon is used, and the salt is placed on the plate.
When strawberries are served with their stems on, one picks one up by the stem, dips it into the soft sugar at the side of the plate, and eats it from the stem. Bonbons are eaten from the fingers. If a spoon is in the dish from which they are served, then one uses it; if not, the fingers are proper.
An apple or a pear may be held on a fork, and pared with a knife; or it may be quartered, and each quarter held in the fingers, and then pared. Dates are eaten from the fingers.
When one answers “thank you” to an invitation to partake of a certain dish at the table, “yes” is meant.
One should break a small piece of bread off the slice, then butter it and eat it. Only very small children in the nursery bite from a slice of buttered bread.
One need not fear to take the last piece on the plate when it is offered. It would be more impolite to refuse it.
It is very bad form to pile up, or in any way arrange the plates or small dishes put before one, for the benefit of the waiter. She should do her own work, which is to take away the plates without any help.
When one wishes for bread, or anything of that sort, he should simply ask for it, either addressing his request to the servant or, if there is none, to whomever the bread may be nearest, if it is on the table.
Upon leaving the table, and the signal for leaving is given when the hostess rises, one’s napkin should be placed upon the table unfolded, unless one is to remain for another meal.
At a formal dinner party the host should enter the dining-room first and with the lady in whose honor the dinner is given; the hostess goes into the dining-room last with the most important man guest, who should be seated at her right.
Where menus are used they should be placed on the left-hand side, beside the forks. When the dinner is over, at a signal from the hostess, the women rise and retire to the drawing-room, where coffee is usually served, the men remaining in the dining-room for coffee and cigars.
Five o’clock tea may be served in a variety of ways: the hostess may brew it herself in a teapot upon her tea-table in the parlor; she may make it by pouring boiling water over a tea-ball; or it may be served by either a man or maid servant in the dining-room. Its proper accompaniments are sugar, cream, sliced lemon, and either wafers, thin sandwiches, or cake.
It is in better form to have a luncheon served at a large table, especially when the guests do not number more than twenty, than to have small tables. Two o’clock is the fashionable hour for a luncheon; after it is over the guests usually disperse.
A host, in entertaining at a hotel or a restaurant, even if he entertains only one woman, should give the order for the meal himself, and save her the slight embarrassment it may be for her to make her own selection. The most courteous thing is for him to order the meal beforehand, but if the occasion is very informal and he prefers to wait until they are at the table, he should, after he and his guest are seated, hand the menu to her and ask if she has any especial preference, and then, respecting her wishes, give the order himself to the waiter.
If, however, friends happen in, and are asked informally to stay to a meal at a hotel, they may order themselves what they want from the menu, and, if necessary, the host or hostess of the occasion may pay the bill before leaving the dining-room, but the bill should not be paid until the guests have departed.
In giving one’s order for dinner at the hotel, oysters come first, then soup, fish, a roast or a bird, ices, whatever dessert may be desired, and coffee. Very often a woman is well served, when she is alone, by allowing the waiter to arrange a dinner for her.
If the only guest at the family dinner-table is a man, he should not be served until all the ladies of the family have been attended to.
If the hostess is the only woman at the table, she is served first, as a lady is of most importance from a social standpoint, and it is always proper to attend to her wants first. After her the man who is a visitor, or whose age gives him precedence, receives attention.
The guest of honor at a tea arrives a little earlier than the other guests, and remains somewhat later, but at a luncheon or dinner she should appear at the regulation time. One should remove one’s gloves at a luncheon, but the retaining of the hat is entirely a matter of personal taste.
The inconsiderate guest who arrives late for luncheon or dinner is shown immediately into the dining-room, and the hostess does not leave her guests, but simply rises and motions him to a seat when he enters the room.
Ten minutes is the time usually allowed for each course where more than a six-course dinner is served.
The correct and usual way of seating a bridal party at a wedding entertainment is for the groom to sit at one end of the table, and the bride at the other end, the best man on the bride’s right, and the maid of honor or first bridemaid on the groom’s right. The other bridemaids and ushers are placed wherever seems best. As a usual thing, the parents of the bride and groom do not sit at the same table with the immediate bridal party, but at another table, together with the near relatives on both sides, and perhaps the minister who officiated at the wedding and his wife; but if it seems desirable to have the parents at the bridal table, it is perfectly proper to seat them there.
There are certain distinctive features of a bridal table which must be in evidence. One is the wedding or bride’s cake, and this cake should be the central ornament, and should be surrounded with a wreath of roses. The place-cards should have the initials of the bride and groom woven together for decoration, and the souvenirs may be small satin boxes containing wedding cake.
SERVANTS AND SERVING.
There is so much to say upon the subject of servants, notwithstanding so much has already been said, it is difficult to know where to begin. But, in the first place, every woman should remember that servants are, like herself, human, and that in our free America, they are becoming very independent, not to say self-assertive. Thus a house mistress has no small matter to deal with when she demands obedience and respectful attention from girls who are generally ignorant, and often impudent and ill-bred. The greatest strength of the mistress lies in her power to control herself, and while she must demand respectfulness from her servants, she can often avoid a clash with them by using a little tact. If they are treated in a kind, though dignified, manner, unless very degenerate, they will usually respond satisfactorily.
One can speak, with perfect propriety, of the one servant employed as “the maid,” but not as “our girl.”
Servants should be expected to dress neatly, and where there is but one, she should have a clean white apron ready to put on when answering the door-bell, being prepared with a tray to receive the caller’s card. She should also know, before answering the bell, who is in and who is not at home, and what excuse, if any, to make for each one called for.
Servants should never be allowed to call any member of the family from a distance, as from the foot of the stairs, but should go to the one to whom she wishes to speak, and deliver her message.
It is hard to say, under all circumstances, what to expect of a nursery governess, and what should be her privileges. To treat her with the greatest consideration is well worth while; for one is compensated in being able to get an intelligent, ladylike woman who may be trusted to guide her charges wisely. One may ask a governess to sleep in the same room with the children, dress and undress them, eat with them, and teach them, and take the entire charge of them; but, of course, one will provide some attractive place for her to sit during the evening, while the children are asleep in her room. It is also necessary to see that her meals are well cooked and carefully served, and to permit her to be free one afternoon and evening every week. She should be addressed as “Miss Smith,” not by her first name.
It is expedient to supervise the work of the general house-work servant as much as possible; and if it is more convenient for her to go up the front stairs to announce callers, and to go down them to answer the front door, certainly allow her to use the front stairs instead of the back ones on occasions. A waitress or parlor-maid is no more privileged to use the front stairs than a general house-work servant. A nurse may be, with propriety, wherever her charges are allowed.
If a maid is expected to wear a cap, it is usually furnished by the lady of the house.
It is good form to address the servants one knows when entering a house, and to thank them for any attention.
It is unfortunate that the English system of feeing has come into vogue here. But it is quite customary now, for a guest, after a visit, even a short one, to bestow upon a servant a small fee, say, of a dollar.