Breakfast tray

“ 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 ”

“ One mother uses a plan for having everybody help at breakfast time, modeled after the tray system of a cafeteria. The breakfast is cooked ready to serve, and on the kitchen table is a small tray for each one of the family of four. ”

“ If the children eat breakfast with the family, a regular child’s service, with attractive little knives and spoons should be provided, and his whole service, preferably, should be arranged on a tray near the table’s edge. Every child likes to have his own porridge bowl, his mug and little milk pitcher, and having his own table tools teaches him to be neat and self-reliant. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When table-napkins are used, care should be taken to keep the same one to each person; and in laying them aside, they should be folded so as to hide the soiled places, and laid under pressure. It is best to use napkin-rings.
The table-cloth should always be put on square, and right side upward. The articles of table furniture should be placed with order and symmetry.
The bread for breakfast and tea should be cut in even, regular slices, not over a fourth of an inch thick, and all crumbs removed from the bread-plate. ”

“ No hard-and-fast rules can be laid down for the disposal of the cruets, butter, toast, eggs, marmalade, etc., but they all appear on a properly appointed table, arranged according to the space available, and, of course, some symmetrical order must be maintained. As a rule, one end of the table is occupied by the breakfast ware, sugar, hot and cold milk, tea and coffee pots, and when only one hot dish is provided, it is nearly always placed at the opposite end of the table. ”

“ The camp stove oven is about ten inches square, with bake pans to fit, two loaves to a pan, one pan at a time. Light bread went a good deal further than baking-powder biscuit. It takes nine slabs of the latter a day to satisfy us now. We are reduced to the bare necessities, no butter nor canned milk. For breakfast I give them corn-meal mush, bacon, bread, beans and coffee. For dinner bacon, beans, bread, pea soup, apple sauce and coffee. For supper either bacon gravy, made of flour and water, or stew, if we have ptarmigan or meat, beans, rice, apple sauce, bread, hard-tack and tea. ”

“ The tray taken to an invalid should be studied as carefully as the table in the dining-room. A trained eye will let no spot or stain on the dining-room linen escape it; nor will a trained waitress fail to replace a spotted cloth by a fresh one. On a tray cloth a coffee stain or a fruit stain is not at all sure to escape notice because it is covered by a plate or a saucer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ When the meal consists of one dish, a knife and fork, either large or small, according to choice, and a small knife for bread and butter, should be laid for each person. When fish is included in the breakfast menu, the knife and fork provided for the service must be placed to the right and left outside the ordinary knife and fork. When the breakfast comprises several dishes, usually three knives and two forks are laid instead of one, but there is a steadily growing tendency in this direction, to avoid an unnecessary display of silver and cutlery. ”

“ I open door and windows wider for the blowing-through of breezes. And I wander down-stairs. It is half-after nine or half-after ten. I go into the clean empty clock-ticking kitchen and cook my breakfast. It is a task full of hungry plaisance and pleasantness. I make a British-feeling breakfast of tea and marmalade and little squares of toast and pink-and-tan rashers of bacon and two delightful eggs. Up to the moment of broaching the eggs the morning has an ancient sameness with other mornings. ”

“ It is important, however, that the supply be large enough to admit of their being changed two or three times a week. For general use a dinner napkin is to be preferred, unless a separate set of table-cloths and napkins be desired for breakfast. ”

“ Put the next dish on the top of the one you have already taken and the spoon by the other spoon. When you have taken dishes and spoons, take plates, piling one above another on your tray.
If there are few people at table, you may take all at once; if there are more, you must judge for yourself how many times to go. Follow this rule: Never pile dishes on a tray in a manner to look disagreeable to yourself or to those who sit at table.
Salad and dessert plates you may remove as you do cereal dishes, putting forks or spoons on the tray by the side of the plates. ”

“ He gave her the fish, all cleaned, and rolling them in corn-meal, she laid them delicately in the sizzling frying-pan, each by the side of a marbled strip of bacon.
There was no doubt that this breakfast was an improvement on breakfasts that had gone before. Bread is mighty good when one has not had any for nearly two months; and warm golden bread just out of the oven and made by Dolly is more than mighty good. The coffee had undeniably an aroma that it had not had of past mornings. ”

“ The intermediate dinners will ring the changes on cold neck, suet pudding, perhaps fried fish or cheap sausages, and rice or potatoes. Breakfast and tea, with the exception of the husband’s relishes, consist of tea, and bread spread with butter, jam, or margarine. In houses where no gas is laid on, the gas-stove cannot take the place of a missing oven, and it is extraordinary how many one-roomed dwellings are without an oven. Two pots, both burned, a frying-pan, and a kettle, do not make an equipment with which it is easy to manage the delicacies of cooking. ”

“ Each guest lifts the bowl and doily from the plate and places them at the left hand side. The doily is never to be used to wipe the fingers.
A good waitress will not pile one dish upon another when removing them from the table. She should be provided with a tray for all the smaller dishes, and should remove the plates one or two at a time.
All dishes from which people help themselves, such as vegetables, bread, butter, etc., should be passed at the left; those that are set before people, such as soup plates, clean plates, water glasses, finger bowls, etc., should be passed at the right. ”

“ I very much dislike coffee; but there is nothing else provided for breakfast but coffee and a loaf of stale bread, and our own butter (if we have any left) , so we don't seem to start the day very well. For the rest, we make tea twice a day in the ward kitchens, and can use the ward bread. If funds are high and the lunch bad, we sometimes indulge in rashers of bacon; sometimes on Sunday we have a sausage or two; but it is more usual to fill in the cracks with tea and cake. ”

“ After the salad, crumb the table, both at luncheon and supper, but if you use doilies do not take the regular crumb-knife and tray, but carry a folded napkin in your right hand and gently sweep off the crumbs into the tray; a knife might scratch the table, and would certainly sound disagreeable against the wood.
"The dessert, which may be fruit, should be ready before the meal on the sideboard, with the plates and finger-bowls. When the last course before it is taken off and the crumbs removed, there are no plates on the table at all; it is the one time when it is cleared. ”

“ The one or two kinds of substantials are set before the host; vegetables or entrées are placed on the sides. Do not have them askew. It is quite as easy for an attendant to place a dish in a straight line as in an oblique angle with every other dish on the table.
I advocate the general use of oatmeal porridge for breakfast. Nothing is more wholesome, and nothing more relished after a little use. If not natural, the taste should be acquired. It is invaluable for children, and of no less benefit for persons of mature years. ”

“ A few complain that they don’t get enough to eat. It is the breakfasts chiefly that fail to satisfy. The French having been used, time out of mind, to a petit déjeuner of rolls and coffee, utterly fail to comprehend the American need for heartier sustenance. When the contracts with the hotels were made it was carefully stipulated that eggs, meat or fish should be served at breakfast in addition to the continental menu, but the quantities were not stated and to a hearty doughboy on a cold morning one egg is a mere tantalization, if not an insult. ”

“ Any piling of dishes as they are removed, however carefully done, looks unpleasant; taking two plates to the pantry at a time costs many steps. The large tray on the serving table is a compromise between these alternatives which I have found good.
Waiting, like table setting cannot become excellent unless it is characterized by an almost exaggerated [177] carefulness. Whether the meal is elaborate or extremely simple, evidences should never be lacking of minute thoughtfulness and of the use of careful hands.
The Pantry.—A pantry is like a tea basket, or a handy box, or a ship's cabin. ”

“ Each one, without being told, fell to his or her duty. The boys brought in wood, and filled up the kettle and boiler with water; the girl monitor weighed out the oatmeal for to- morrow's breakfast and handed over to the cook girls, who in their turn carefully stirred it into the big iron pot on the stove. A wise arrangement this to insure breakfast being in good time in the morning, as the porridge has only to be heated up with a little fresh water, and is none the worse. ”

“ Pour the left-over breakfast porridge into a square mold and stand it aside. At luncheon or dinner time cut this into thin slices, cover the bottom of a baking dish with these slices, and cover these with sliced apples, and so continue until you have the ingredients used, having the last layer apples. Beat an egg, without separating, until light, add a half cupful of milk and a saltspoonful of salt, then stir in a half cupful of flour. When smooth pour this over the apples and bake in a quick oven a half hour. Serve with milk or with hard sauce. ”

“ Chop a large onion and sprinkle it over the top, cover with another layer of bacon and one pint of water and put on the lid. Fill the hole half full of hot embers, place the Dutch oven in the center and fill the space surrounding the oven full of embers. Cover all with about 6 inches of dirt, then roll yourself up in your blanket and shut your eyes—your breakfast will cook while you sleep and be piping hot when you dig for it in the morning. ”

“ The linen should always be perfectly fresh, the food in small quantities and daintily arranged. The dishes may well be the daintiest and prettiest in the house, and should be small enough for easy use. A flower or a geranium leaf is a pleasant addition to the tray.
Before bringing a meal to an invalid, go and see that she is comfortable. If one has not an invalid's table, it is well to put a pile of books or boxes on each side of the sick person on which the ends of the tray can rest. It takes strength and nerve to balance something on one's lap when half lying down. ”