Breakfast table

“ We sit down to the breakfast table, which has a more than usually festive aspect. A faint aroma of truffles perfumes the air, every one is smiling, and through the glass I see, startling sight! the doorkeeper, with his own hands, wiping the handrail of the staircase. It is a glorious day.
Baby has ranged his elephants, lions, and giraffes round his plate, and his mother, under pretext of a draught, breakfasts in her tippet. ”

“ There is little chance to make mistakes in setting the breakfast-table. The hostess has the tray before her, and serves the tea, coffee, or chocolate. At the other end of the table is the principal dish, presided over generally by the master of the house, while biscuit, bread, muffins, or griddle-cakes and potatoes have their posts at the sides. ”

“ If a breakfast room is not used, a small winged table set in a sunny corner, or bay-window recess of the dining room, and used as a breakfast table, is an improvement upon breakfast at the large dining table, and can be arranged in almost any dining room. ”

“ The breakfast table should be simply decorated, yet it may be made very attractive with its snowy cloth and napkins, its array of glass, and its ornamentation of fruits and flowers. Bread should be placed upon the table, cut in slices. In eating, it must always be broken, never cut, and certainly not bitten. ”

“ The breakfast-room should be a glassed-in porch, and its curtains should be thin yellow silk, through which the sunshine would cast a golden light on the little breakfast table spread with a white embroidered cloth and set with shining silver and china. The coffee percolator would be bubbling, and the grape-fruit in place, and when she came from the kitchen with the plate of muffins Bert would look up from his paper and say, "Muffins again? ”

“ The breakfast table is usually laid with centerpiece and plate doilies these days, and it may not be ill-timed to suggest that every effort be made to have this meal cheery and attractive, for it is, alas, too often suggestive of funeral baked meats and left-over megrims from the night before. If fruit is to be served, followed by a cereal and a meat or other heavier course, each place is provided with a fruit plate with its doily and knife, a breakfast knife and fork, a dessert spoon, two teaspoons, and a finger bowl. ”

“ Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and well-provisioned breakfast-table. ”

“ The coup d'œil of the dinner-table very much resembles that of a fashionable hotel. All the appurtenances of the repast are in handsome style. The eatables are many of them such as, even on shore, would be considered delicacies, and they are never deficient in abundance and variety. Whatever may be the state of the weather, or the motion of the ship, the steward and the cook are unfailing in their duty; constantly fulfilling their arduous functions with the same care and regularity. The breakfast-table is always covered with a variety of relishes, and warm cakes. ”

“ It is very much to be feared that the inability to conceive of something more original for the morning meal than the eternal trio referred to is a melancholy reproach to the housekeeping capabilities of many. To read an account of a highland breakfast, in contradistinction to this paucity of comestibles, is to make one almost pensive. The description of the snowy tablecloth, the generously loaded table, the delicious smell of the scones and honey, the marmalade, the different cakes, the fish, the bacon, and the toast, is enough to create a desire to dwell there for a very prolonged period. ”

“ A canary-bird in the sunniest window is a good thing to have in a breakfast-room if you like his shrill warbling. A pot of English ivy, brave and green, twisting over the face of the old clock, and festooning the windows, is a choice bit of brightness in the winter time. In summer, when flowers are cheap and plentiful, never set the table without them if you can get nothing more than a button-hole bouquet to lay on John’s napkin. ”

“ After this unwelcome progress through my stifling ward, I go to breakfast with what appetite I may; find the uninvitable fried beef, salt butter, husky bread, and washy coffee; listen to the clack of eight women and a dozen men,–the first silly, stupid, or possessed of one idea; the last absorbed with their breakfast and themselves to a degree that is both ludicrous and provoking, for all the dishes are ordered down the table full and returned empty ”

“ The breakfast-table is left standing well on into the middle of the morning, and sundry plats are kept hot in the oven for Mr. Jack or Miss Mamie, who has been out late the night before. Often the demands of business require the young man to be down in season, but there are no [Pg 29] such claims obliging his sister to quit her couch at a—to her—unseasonable hour. As a consequence, what should be one of the family gathering-places becomes little better than a hotel breakfast-room, where the guests come and go as suits themselves. ”

“ The importance of preparing a variety of dainty dishes for the breakfast table is but lightly considered by many who can afford luxuries, quite as much as by those who little dream of the delightful, palate-pleasing compounds made from "unconsidered trifles." ”

“ SHERLOCK HOLMES, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he stayed up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. ”

“ On your way downstairs open windows top and bottom in the part of the house which is in your charge, closing them after your breakfast in time for the dining-room to get warm for the family breakfast.
Your breakfast being over, set the family breakfast table, and if there is not time for dusting before their breakfast, quickly put back into place anything that has been put out of order the night before and make the room look comfortable.
If there has been a fire the night before, lay a fresh one ready to light and brush up the hearth. ”

“ Dinner! There were old baked potatoes, and a mess of turnips, and a bite of fried beefsteak, all mixed in a heap in a rusty tin pan on the table; and Tiny whispered to Bunch that there was “a piece of the very codfish balls which were on mamma’s breakfast table.” Her appetite had deserted her, Bunch had cried hers away, and Jelly had left hers at her own bountiful table. But the Midgetts ate, and enjoyed.
“Now,” said they, “if you’ll be real good, and mind, we’ll give you a gay old treat. Want to go a-swimmin’? ”

“ She then washes her hands and face, and puts on a clean apron, &c. so as to be cleanly before the parlour bell rings for breakfast. Directions for setting out the breakfast table will be found in the Instructions to the Footman, as well as for dinner, lunch, tea, &c.
As soon as the family is seated at breakfast, she throws open the bed-room doors and windows, and uncovers the beds to be aired, and placing the bed-clothes across a chair at the foot of the bed, leaves them in that state till breakfast is finished, when she proceeds to make the bed. ”

“ When breakfast is made a formal meal—that is, when company is invited to come at a stated hour--serviettes, or large dinner- napkins, must be placed at each plate, as for a dinner. But they are never used at a "stand-up" breakfast, nor are doyleys or finger- bowls.
If any accident happens, such as the spilling of a glass of wine or the upsetting of a plate, the dbris should be carefully cleared away, and the waiter should spread a clean napkin over the desecrated table-cloth. Large, white napkins are invariably used at luncheon, and the smaller ones kept for breakfast and tea. ”

“ Broiled chicken, fresh mushrooms on toast, and stewed kidney. On a larger dish is fish, and ranged behind these hot viands are cold ham, tongue, pheasant and game-pie. On huge platters of wood, with knives to correspond, are farm-house brown bread and white bread, whilst on the breakfast-table itself you will find hot rolls, toast—of which two or three fresh relays are brought in during breakfast—buttered toast, muffins and the freshest of eggs. The hot dishes at breakfast are varied almost every morning, and where there is a good cook a variety of some twenty dishes is made. ”

“ And even as you are gazing out of the window at the glorious scenery all around you, there arises the odour of frizzling ham (that originally ran about, uncooked, in a field lower down) , fried potatoes (the good old-fashioned sort done in the frying-pan) , coffee, and other hungry things; and you find to your surprise that a substantial breakfast is on the table by eight o’clock, though (and this is where guests bless their hostess) no one need get up to breakfast, if they prefer to have it in bed, for very tired people come here sometimes. ”

“ The advantage of having one's guests choose breakfast up-stairs, is that unless there is a separate breakfast room, a long delayed breakfast prevents the dining-room from being put in order or the lunch table set. ”

“ Woman's Club Breakfast.
Have the table of honor a round table with a large round basket of white flowers and everything corresponding in white. Use roses, carnations or any white [Pg 42] flower you choose. Have oblong tables radiating from the center table with place for four on each side and two at the outer ends. This leaves no guest seated with her back to the honor table. Have the oblong tables decorated in pink. Have name cards with carnations thrust through the corner, at each plate. Make the breakfast a daylight affair, unless the day is a dark one. ”

“ The servants get their breakfast at the same time as we do, as we require hardly any or no waiting upon, everything being ready on the table. In a former letter I told you what was our breakfast some years since when in business, now we have placed on the table some brown bread, rolls and dry toast; the butter is in a glass butter-dish, and the eggs are brought up when we have sat down to table. ”

“ Hot plates are required for all the food except the raw shell-fish, salad and dessert, and should be ready for immediate use, together with a reserve of silver, or means for washing it. The coffee service may be laid before the hostess or upon the side table, at convenience; chocolate is similarly served, and is a favorite breakfast beverage, especially when it is made with eggs, after the Mexican method.
Tea is not on the regulation breakfast list, but of course it may be served if it is desired. ”

“ Guests might prefer to retain their strength by a repast at home if the breakfast-hour were at twelve o’clock, and then the fine breakfast would be less appreciated. At breakfast parties, with the exception of the silver service being on the table all the time for tea and coffee, the dishes are served in courses precisely as for dinner. ”

“ Green tea and fried pork, honeycomb and salted salmon, pound cake and pickled cucumbers, stewed chickens and apple- tarts, maple molasses and pease-pudding, gingerbread and sour-crout, are to be found at almost every table. The dinner differs not at all from the breakfast, and the afternoon repast, which they term supper, is equally substantial. ”

“ The Service of Breakfast varies very little, no matter how simple or elaborate the meal. On the cottage table, the breakfast-ware, teapot, bread, butter, and dish of bacon, or whatever constitutes the homely fare, all have their allotted places, although the arrangement of the respective articles may not agree with everybody's sense of fitness. Ascending a degree in the scale of life, it is usually found that a touch of refinement is added by plants and flowers. ”

“ In arranging all this on the table, attention should be given that all that is necessary has been brought into the room; that each person has, besides his cup and saucer, a plate, knife, and fork; that there is a large knife for cutting bread, a butter-knife, and a spoon for each egg-cup, the salt-cellars filled with salt, and a couple of small breakfast-knives and of tea-spoons laid upon the table, which last articles may at first appear to be the property of no one, but which are generally of essential service, in making it unnecessary for the servant to be rung for during breakfast ”

“ In some households a smaller, lighter tablecloth is used for breakfast and luncheon. In others, a luncheon cloth of embroidered linen, lace or drawn work is used for these less formal meals. In others, the table is left bare and doilies spread where plates and dishes are to be set. Many people who use doilies or a luncheon cloth for luncheon prefer a covered table at breakfast. ”

“ As a rule these articles are highly ornamental, and are meant to be used on the table or sideboard; they are usually brought into requisition at breakfast, luncheon and supper, and are undoubtedly most serviceable in households where only a few servants are kept, as by their aid dainty little dishes such as fried or scrambled eggs, omelettes, stewed kidneys, broiled tomatoes, welch rarebit or cheese fondu, and similar preparations can be speedily prepared at the early morning meal, or at a late supper "after the theatre." For dwellers in flats the chafing dish is almost indispensable. ”

“ Imprimis, tea and coffee; secondly, dry toast; thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly, ham; sixthly, something potted; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives, forks, &c. One of the first things that belong to a breakfast, is a good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively and the snug, in coming down to one’s breakfast-room of a cold morning, and seeing every thing prepared for us,—a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-things ”