Part 5

After this the salad appears, and may be of chicken, lobster, shrimps, oysters, or tomatoes, avoiding, of course, any meat or fish that has appeared earlier in the meal, even although in another form. The olives should be passed with this, and, indeed, may have gone the rounds during and between the other course, as have the salted nuts and the radishes.

The salad eaten, the table is cleared and crumbed, and the dessert brought in—ices in some pretty form, accompanied by fancy cakes. Fruit may succeed this, or it may be omitted, and the final cup of chocolate or coffee served at once. The bonbons now receive attention, and are usually carried into the drawing-room by the guests, who, being women, seem to find almost as much enjoyment in nibbling these as men do in discussing their post-prandial cigars.

A LARGE LUNCHEON.

A much more ceremonious affair than that described in the preceding chapter is the large luncheon, where there are present anywhere from eight to twenty guests. The invitations for this are issued at least ten days, and often three weeks or more, previous to the date for which the guests are asked, and should be written, not verbal, except when given to an intimate friend. The recipient should reply at once. The hour set is usually one or half-past one, and the most punctilious promptness should always be observed. Nothing short of a serious accident or illness or a death in the family can justify any one in breaking such an engagement.

"People don't always keep that precept," says a woman, decidedly. "I can give more than one example to the contrary from my own experience. Here is an instance. I had a letter not long ago from a friend living out of town, begging me to fix a time when she could come and see me. She dreaded making the trip into town when it was doubtful if she would find me at home. I knew she had few outings, so I wrote and asked her to lunch with me upon a certain day, adding that there would be a couple of other old friends present whom she would be glad to meet again. The appointed day came, and was misty and drizzly. It never occurred to me that the weather would keep any one housed, and at the lunch hour 'the guests were met, the feast was set'—or, at least, two of the guests were there—but the one in whose honor they had been invited failed to appear. A whole mortal hour did we wait for that woman. Then in despair we sat down to a luncheon that had been in no ways improved by the delay. It was to have been a _partie carrée_, and one side of the table looked wofully blank and bare."

"But did you not get a satisfactory explanation of your friend's absence?" queries an interested listener.

"Only a note the next day, stating that as it had stormed, she had supposed I would not expect her. It never seemed to occur to her that she ought at least to have telegraphed."

"I had an experience that equals that," chimes in another. "I had promised a young girl friend a lunch party whenever she should come to the city. Just before the holidays she wrote to me that she would be in town for a week. I was run to death with Christmas preparations and social engagements, but I sent her a note at once, asking her to fix a day for her luncheon, and enclosing the list of guests—most of them old school friends—whom I would invite to meet her. She replied, setting a day. I went to no end of trouble and expense to get up the most _recherché_ luncheon I could devise. Just before the appointed hour one of the guests, who had promised to call for my young friend and bring her to my house, brought instead a verbal message that Jennie 'was not very well, and would be unable to come. She was extremely sorry,' etc. As I learned from another source that she went to the theatre that night, I concluded her indisposition, whatever it was, had not been very serious."

One marvels at the bad habits of good society in hearing such tales as these, but they are unfortunately common. Some persons appear to be deficient in a sense of good-breeding, as others are in an eye for color or an ear for music, and all the maxims in the world seem inadequate to instil what is missing.

One general principle may be laid down for the following of any woman who thinks of giving a large luncheon—_don't undertake too much_. If you cannot afford to engage the most difficult dishes from a caterer, be very sure that your cook is equal to preparing them in a satisfactory manner. Better have a few things, and have them well done, than a long _menu_ of indifferently cooked viands. A large luncheon is no light undertaking at the best, except to those who have a practised _chef_ and an expert butler, and a great deal of personal supervision is required to make it a success.

If the number of guests is larger than can be conveniently accommodated at one table, two or three smaller ones may be used. One table is rather prettier, however, as it admits of concentrating, instead of scattering, the decoration. The cloth should be white, or something very handsome in colors. A centre-piece of velvet or plush or satin, or of linen, embroidered, painted, done in cut-work or drawn-work, or something else equally elegant in material or ornament, should be laid down the middle of the table. An exquisite centre-piece may be made of bolting-cloth, hand-painted and trimmed with lace. On this a mirror is often placed, bearing the bowl, basket, or jar of flowers.

Tall candelabra should hold enough candles to light the room well, and each candle should have its tiny paper or silk shade and its glass _bobèche_. If the gas must be used, it should be shaded. The dishes containing _hors d'œuvres_—bonbons, _glacé_ fruits, etc.—must be many, and their contents of the choicest.

The arrangement of silver, glass, and china may be the same as at a small luncheon, except that the amount of silver at each place must be increased. The bread sticks on every napkin must be tied with a narrow ribbon matching the broad one that ties the _bouquet de corsage_ provided for the guest. Cards bearing the names of the guests indicate their seats, and may be either hand-painted or plain. Favors are often given, and should be placed on the table before the luncheon is announced.

Oyster or Little Neck clams compose the first course, and are followed by bouillon. Fish succeeds this; then comes one _entrée_, and sometimes two. Next is a dish of meat, with one or more vegetables, and then the Roman punch appears.

After this, game comes, and then salad. The table then being cleared, pastry in some form, or Charlottes or jellies are brought in, and this course in turn is succeeded by ices in pretty or fanciful shapes. An attractive caprice is that of ices or cream in the form of fruits heaped up in and rolling out of a basket of clear ice or spun sugar placed on a salver. Ices in small goblets or tumblers of clear ice are often served. The fruit comes next, and is accompanied by bonbons, _glacé_ fruits, _marrons_, and the like. Last are coffee and chocolate.

Of the following _menus_, either one is suitable for a large luncheon:

1.

Raw Oysters. Chicken Bouillon. Creamed Lobster. Crackers or Bread and Butter. Scalloped Chicken. Sweetbread Pâtés. Green Pease. Maraschino Punch. Fillet of Beef, Mushroom Sauce. French Fried Potatoes. Broiled Squabs on Toast. Water-cress. Chicken Salad. Strawberries in Wine Jelly, with Whipped Cream. Nesselrode Pudding. Biscuit. Fancy Cakes. Fruit. Bonbons. Coffee. Chocolate.

2.

Clams on Ice. Bouillon. Halibut Steaks, Cream Sauce. Parisian Potatoes. Ham Pâtés. Green Pease. Stuffed Crabs. Chicken Cutlets. Broiled Fillet of Beef, au Maître d'Hôtel. Asparagus. Roman Punch. Quail on Toast. Celery Salad. Fried Mushrooms on Toast, with Sauce à l'Espagnol. Frozen Pudding. Whipped Cream. Ices. Fruit. Coffee. Chocolate.

With either of these _menus_ wine may be served, although there is not the variety of these at a ladies' luncheon that there is at a dinner. Claret may be served with the fish or first _entrée_, and drunk during the luncheon, or brought in with the game, or with the heaviest meat course. In some cases no claret is served, and the only wine is the small glass of sherry offered late in the meal.

A STANDING LUNCH.

For a long time there was a felt need for some form of entertainment that would be more general in its character than a dinner or a lunch, less of a full-dress affair than an evening party, and more elaborate than the ordinary kettle-drum or afternoon tea. This want was finally supplied by the introduction of the standing lunch, which is in reality little more than a regular reception, such as usually takes place in the evening, held in the afternoon. To this both ladies and gentlemen are invited.

The hours for which the guests are asked—usually from four to six or seven—preclude the necessity of full dress. The men usually wear morning coats, while the women are arrayed in handsome calling costumes, and do not remove their bonnets. It may be remarked, _en passant_, that the wearing of the hat or bonnet is, or should be, a rule without exception at a ladies' lunch. Only the hostess or those of the company who are guests in the house appear with their heads uncovered. The others wear handsome dressy bonnets, such as they would assume for the theatre in the evening or for an afternoon reception.

The hostess who desires to entertain her friends or to discharge her social obligations by a standing lunch must issue her invitations some days in advance of the date fixed. They should be formal, and are usually engraved, although they may be written. The former method is preferable.

At a lunch of this kind, as the name implies, the guests are not to be seated at one large table, nor even at a number of small ones. The large dining-room table and sideboard are set out with a repast consisting of some hot and some cold dishes. The guests move about the drawing-room, seating themselves if they have the chance, as they would at an evening reception, and are served with plates containing the successive courses, either by waiters or by their escorts. Not only is there less formality in the conduct of the guests than would be observed at an ordinary luncheon, but there is also less precision in the serving of the refreshments.

For such a lunch the hostess does well when she provides a number of camp-chairs in addition to the seats she already has in her rooms. It is always more agreeable to eat when one is seated than when standing and endeavoring to handle a full plate and a brimming coffee-cup at the same time. Such an effort is severe even for a man, who has been obliged to practise it all his life, but it is doubly distressing to a woman, who is in constant terror lest an unguarded movement on her own or her neighbor's part should cause an upset and a spill that might fatally damage at least one gown, and possibly more.

In preparing for a standing lunch, or for any other large reception, it is prudent for the hostess to clear her parlors of such breakables as statues, tall vases, piano lamps, etc., that rest upon pedestals or easily overturned stands. These, if not taken from the room, should be moved into corners where they will be comparatively safe from injury; while the largest pieces of furniture, such as sofas or lounges and big easy-chairs, should be wheeled back near the wall, so as not to interfere with the movements of people through the rooms. Light chairs should stand about here and there, and the camp-chairs should be stacked in some convenient closet or in the corner of the hall, whence they can be produced at a moment's notice when the refreshments are served.

The floral decorations may be either simple or ornate, according to the wishes of the hostess. Mantels banked with flowers, chandeliers and brackets draped with smilax, a profusion of roses, and baskets of choice cut flowers are very beautiful, but the rooms can be rendered attractive by less costly means. If there is to be a large number of guests, the flowers will be unnoticed by many of them unless judgment be shown in the disposition of vases. These should be placed on the mantels, on brackets, on the top of the piano, or in some other place where they will be seen readily, rather than on low tables, where they are not only hidden, but are in imminent danger of being knocked over. Palms or ferns in pots and other growing plants decorate pleasingly, and can be engaged for the evening from a florist, if the mistress of the house neither owns them nor feels inclined to buy them.

In preparing the dining-room table it should be drawn out to a size that will permit of its holding without undue crowding the dishes and plates that will be required for the lunch. If the refreshments are too numerous to be accommodated here, the sideboard should be cleared for their reception, and even one or two side-tables brought in. The table should be spread with a long white cloth. A bowl or jar or pot of flowers may be in the centre of the board. Very elaborate floral arrangements are unnecessary in the dining-room, unless a good many of the guests are expected to come out here.

At each end of the table and at intervals along the sides spaces should be left for the dishes that are to hold the refreshments. Between these may be the piles of plates and the napkins. These may either be separate or arranged together, a napkin being laid on each plate and all placed in piles, so that they may be easily distributed. Forks and spoons should also be close at hand, with the necessary utensils for serving the different dishes, that there may not be a hurried search for a carving knife or fork or a large spoon just at the last moment, when its presence might have saved delay and confusion.

The side-table should hold the coffee and chocolate cups, the wineglasses, goblets, or tumblers for water, etc. Let it be seen, by the way, that there is plenty of iced water in readiness. Many a guest at a large reception has longed for a drink of it and found it apparently the hardest thing to get which he could have selected.

Unless the hostess has a remarkably well-trained butler, and one or two other servants who understand waiting, she will be wise if she engages hired waiters to take charge of the serving of the dishes, and has her butler and maids confine their services to passing plates in the drawing-room. This is pleasanter than having the outside helpers waiting on the guests, while their skill and practice in serving render them most efficient in the work of filling plates.

The first course of a standing lunch is usually bouillon, served in cups. When these have been removed, a plate is brought to each guest containing oysters in some shape, usually fricasseed or creamed, and accompanied possibly by a lobster croquette or a sweetbread or mushroom _pâté_. The third course may comprise chicken croquettes or rissoles, accompanied by lettuce or celery salad. Both with this and the preceding course tiny square or three-cornered sandwiches of thin bread and butter, spread with some potted meat or fish, with sardines, or with lobster mayonnaise, may have been passed. After this course come the sweets—ice-creams or ices in small shapes, biscuit in paper cases, and fancy cakes—followed by coffee or chocolate. Nothing must be served that cannot be easily eaten with a fork or spoon. Light wines or a bowl of punch are always in order.

THE LUNCH BASKET.

To many people the lunch basket and its contents are quite as important as any regularly set-out meal of the day—more important than such occasional luxuries as ceremonious _déjeûners à la fourchette_ and standing lunches.

Among this number are not only the school-children who, five days out of the week, must carry what the Southern boys and girls would term a "snack" with them to school, but also the army of men and women whose employment takes them to such a distance from their homes that it is impracticable for them to return there for the midday meal. With these must not be forgotten the band of night workers who, in one capacity or another, have part in making the morning papers, and who, turning day into night, find it as essential to take a midnight as others do a midday repast.

In a less degree interest is felt in the lunch basket by those young people who regard the coming of the summer chiefly as the return of the picnic season. All these desire to know of something appetizing to supply their needs, and nearly all agree in condemning certain articles as stale and hackneyed, asserting that they are tired to death of them. Among these are generally ham and tongue sandwiches.

In making suggestions on this subject, the first thing to be considered is the basket, and to begin with, it _should_ be a basket, and not a close tin box or pail that cannot be sweetened except by scouring and scalding between the times of using. A basket, by permitting the passage of air through its interstices, prevents the food acquiring a close, musty taste; and even the basket should have frequent airings and sunnings, and an occasional plunge into hot salt and water, followed by a rinsing in fresh hot water, and a wiping and drying in the sun or near the fire.

Only fresh napkins must be used for wrapping about the lunch, and if their use proves too severe a strain upon the linen drawer, Japanese paper napkins may be substituted, or even fresh white tissue-paper, or druggist's paper. The daintiness of ribbons to tie the different parcels is all very pretty, but it is hardly possible for the hurried house-mother who has to put up even one lunch a day, much less when she has two or three to prepare. In order to succeed in making them even ordinarily attractive, she must take thought for these lunches as carefully as she does for the other meals of the day, and make provision accordingly, not waiting until the last moment, and then hastily gathering up whatever odds and ends she can find, and hurriedly cramming them all together into the basket in a manner that savors unpleasantly of the bestowal of "broken victuals" and cold bits upon the beggar at the kitchen door.

Not until she gives the matter serious thought does the housewife appreciate what a variety she can select for the lunch basket of her boy or girl, or of her husband. Hot foods are out of the question, of course, and even hot drinks, unless a tiny alcohol "pocket stove," filled and ready for lighting, and a tin or agate-iron cup, accompany the outfit. In that case, many a hot cup of _café au lait_ or chocolate, of soup or bouillon, may be enjoyed by the luncher.

But even when this cannot be managed, cold coffee and tea are not to be despised, while cold bouillon is preferred by many to the hot beef tea. Or, for a change from this, a small flask of milk or of lemonade may be carried. In any case the bottle should be a stout one, and provided with a good stopper, that no break or leakage may cause the ruin of the rest of the refection.

China makes the lunch basket too heavy, and takes up too much room. If a plate is required, let it be one of the little wooden butter plates that can be thrown away after using. It is often possible to procure a glass from which to drink, but even when it is not, a flat glass or a collapsing cup may easily be carried in the pocket; or an ordinary flask, having a cup fitted to the bottom, may be purchased and kept for service in the lunch basket. A tiny cruet for salt and another for pepper should also be part of the outfit.

Often it does not seem to occur to the housekeeper that it is quite practicable to carry a cup custard, a baked apple or pear, a tiny mould of jelly or blanc-mange, as well as uncooked fruit. While the latter is always wholesome and generally popular, there are times when one wants something else. To paraphrase Miss Woolson's words in "For the Major," "A large cold apple on a winter day is not calculated to arouse enthusiasm."

Other dainties are easily prepared. Every one who has read "Little Women"—and who has not read it?—will remember Meg and Jo March trudging off to their work on frosty mornings, each carrying the turnover that was to compose her lunch, and gaining comfort for the cold fingers from its warmth.

A tiny pie baked in a saucer, a small tart, a diminutive rice or tapioca pudding in a patty-pan, are not hard to make, and are a welcome variety at the midday "snack."

While it might possibly be an expensive item to provide potted meat for sandwiches for every day in the week, there are often odds and ends that, with a little "doctoring," may be made into excellent substitutes. The meat on the drumstick left from the roast or stewed chicken of last night may be chopped fine, moistened with a little gravy or melted butter, seasoned, and spread on thin slices of buttered bread. The bit of steak that clung to the bone may be minced, and have stirred into it a little Worcestershire sauce and a suspicion of made mustard; while the slice of cold lamb or veal, also minced, may be flavored with curry-powder and softened with melted butter to make filling for sandwiches.

The one or two cold sausages left in the pantry will make an appetizing sandwich when crushed fine with the back of a spoon, and laid between the two sides of a buttered roll or biscuit; while the last spoonful of lobster or chicken salad scraped from the bottom of the dish may be spread on buttered bread for yet another kind of sandwich.

White, Graham, brown, or whole-wheat bread may be used in turn, with an occasional roll or biscuit to still further vary monotony. Egg sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, sweetbread sandwiches, sardine sandwiches, minced ham, tongue, ham and chicken, chicken and bacon sandwiches—their name is legion.

But some one may object, one does not want _all_ sandwiches. True enough, but they are the _pièce de résistance_ of the lunch. They may be supplemented, however, by a piece of cold fowl, by, once in a while, a broiled bird, by a few pickled oysters, by deviled and plain hard-boiled eggs, by salads without number, by olives, cheese, and pickles. And for desserts are there not the little dishes already suggested, to say nothing of cake, cookies, ginger-snaps, apples, oranges, mandarins, bananas, pears, grapes, and other fruits? For school children there are such simple dainties as bread or rolls spread with jam, jelly, marmalade, or apple-sauce. And are not crackers and cheese always at hand, and almost always popular?

While all this may at first seem to impose additional labor upon the housekeeper, she will soon find, when the habit is once established of providing regularly for the lunch, that she feels it no more of a burden than she does to cater for the other meals of the day. Let her keep on the alert for new fancies, and they will come to her more rapidly than she can utilize them.

FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SPRING

These _menus_ for simple home lunches, given as were those for breakfasts—ten for each season—are not designed to serve as exact guides, but merely as suggestions to the housekeeper. They may easily be improved upon or altered. To some they will doubtless appear much too simple, while others may condemn them as being too elaborate. Certain selected recipes will accompany them.

1.

Baked Cheese Omelet. Toasted Crackers. Strawberry Jam. Cocoa.

_Baked Cheese Omelet._—Two eggs, two cups milk, one small cup grated cheese, one small cup fine bread-crumbs, salt and Cayenne pepper to taste, one tablespoonful melted butter. Soak the crumbs in the milk, in which you have dissolved a _tiny_ pinch of soda; beat the eggs light, and add to the bread and milk; stir in the butter, the seasoning, and, last of all, the cheese. Bake in a well-greased pudding-dish, and eat at once, before it falls.