Communal dining

“ Some have kitchen arrangements so the occupants may do their own cooking as they enjoy. Others do not. However there are community dining rooms conveniently located where the citizens may enjoy their meals, if they wish to have them prepared for them. ”

“ The noble dining-hall, with its delicately tinted walls, its pillars and gilded roof, with neatly dressed waiters, and the master of ceremonies patrolling the room seeing to the comfort of the guests, the arrangements of their places, and that each servant did his duty, gave a zest to one’s appetite which the tempting viands increased a hundred fold, and the soups, fish, relèves, entrées, game, relishes, vegetables, pastry, and dessert of the menu differed from the bill of fare of the previous day as does light from darkness, sweet from bitter. ”

“ The men, of course, must allow the fairer sex to pass before them through the drawing-room door and into the dining room. Luncheon menus consist of oysters, clams, or grape fruit with crushed ice and saturated with maraschino for the first course. This is followed by bouillon, an entrée, a roast or chops with peas, or broiled chicken, salad with birds, ices and fruits, coffee and liqueurs. Sherry and claret are the wines, and sometimes champagne is served. ”

“ The far end of the dining-hall leads into the huge kitchen, to which the girls can bring their own dinners to be cooked, or where they can buy a large variety of things at coffee-house prices. Here again the health of the workers is carefully studied. Fruit is made a speciality, an experienced buyer being employed to insure its better supply. A private dining-room is provided for the forewomen. ”

“ Dining is always a serious act in France. At this inn the sauces of the chef, with their reputation behind them, and the proof of their real excellence before one, the dinner-hour was elevated to the importance of a ceremony. How the petty merchants and the commercial gentlemen ate, at first in silence, as if respecting the appeal imposed by a great hunger, and then warming into talk as the acid cider was passed again and again! ”

“ Then the doors leading into the dining room were thrown open, disclosing a table covered with rosetrees in full bloom five feet in height and a concealed orchestra began to play. There were twenty-four seats and a footman for each two chairs, besides two butlers, who directed the service. The dinner consisted of hors-d'oeuvre and grapefruit, turtle soup, fish of all sorts, elaborate entrées, roasts, breasts of plover served separately with salad, and a riot of ices and exotic fruits. ”

“ Two refinements of civilization will amuse the stranger; the first is a railway in miniature from kitchens to dining-rooms, by means of which the dishes are conveyed to the latter with the utmost possible dispatch. The temper indeed of these happy diners should be ineffably serene, considering that they can never be ruffled by soups or fish coming to table one degree less hot than the most epicurean palate could desire. ”

“ The physical and moral welfare of the men are not lost sight of, but are promoted in many ways. There is, for Instance, a spacious dining-hall, with accommodation for 1,000 men, each seat being provided with a coffee can and cup, and a cooking tin. Adjoining the dining-hall are large kitchens fitted with ovens, boilers, and hot-plates, where the workmen can either procure their meals at a small cost, or can bring their own provisions, and have them cooked free of charge. ”

“ The general repast is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese, to each mess, consisting of four persons, and each mess is allowed a bottle of port wine. Dinner is served daily to the members of the Inn during term time; the masters of the Bench dining on the state, or dais, and the barristers and students at long tables extending down the hall. On grand days the judges are present, who dine in succession with each of the four Inns of Court. To the parliament chamber, adjoining the hall, the benchers repair after dinner. ”

“ Into one door went the most respectable of people, intent on getting an exceptionably good dinner, which was always to be had there, cooked in the French style and elegantly served. At that end of the house there were several dining-rooms that would hold forty or fifty guests, and several others made to accommodate family parties of six to twelve. If a couple happened to stray in and inquire for a room to themselves the head waiter informed them that it was against the rule of the house to serve a private dinner to less than four people. ”

“ He is much more likely, the head waiter, who has summed him up, prompting him, to order very much the dinner that he would have eaten in his suburban home had he been dining there that night.
Every good cook has his little vanities. They are all inventors; and when any one of them, breaking away from the strict lines of the classic haute cuisine, finds that a pinch of this or two drops of that improves some well-known dish, he immediately gives it a new name. ”

“ A sumptuous feast is represented: the handsome dining-room is filled with voracious guests; footmen are waiting on the diners, or attending to side tables; butlers are drawing corks, course is following course, the cook and his assistant train are hurrying in with fresh dishes. Among the waiters, undetected, is our friend the grisly skeleton, who is busying himself with a dish he is conveying to the table. ”

“ Not only is our cooking done at the public kitchens, as I told you last night, but the service and quality of the meals are much more satisfactory if taken at the dining-house. The two minor meals of the day are usually taken at home, as not worth the trouble of going out ”

“ It was in the noble cause of conversion of fellow-man that I dined at the Hotel Cecil. One of my uncles, the Nabob—so called by us because he spent many years in the gorgeous East—affects the belief that there is no good curry to be had outside the portals of his club, the East India; and for that reason, when he is not dining at home, dines nowhere but there. ”

“ At the popular restaurants it was always necessary to engage a table in advance. I heard acquaintances lament that they had had to lunch at cheap tea houses after craving admittance at eight or nine packed dining-rooms in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly Circus. ”

“ You will do me the honour of dining with me. Thus will you escape the inconvenience of losing, even for a single day, the benefit of my matchless skill as a culinary amateur.”
“I see you are preparing dinner,” said I, “without having availed yourself of the Padre’s stores.”
“Bah!” he exclaimed; “cookery, in its higher operations, is independent of materials. When there is nothing for dinner, then it is that the true artist develops his professional resources. To tell you the truth, Monsieur, the Padre’s chief store is his cellar, into which he never permitted me to enter. ”

“ You go inside to a big, spotlessly bright dining room and get as good a meal as you can get anywhere on earth—and served in as good style, too. To the man fresh from the East, such an establishment reminds him vividly of the hurry-up railroad lunch places to which he has been accustomed back home—places where the doughnuts are dornicks and the pickles are fossils, and the hard-boiled egg got up out of a sick bed to be there, and on the pallid yellow surface of the official pie a couple of hundred flies are enacting Custard's Last Stand. ”

“ To sum up now the main characteristics of the present methods of serving the meals, it will be seen that, generally speaking, the conditions are very far from satisfactory. Even where the Local Education Authority draws up elaborate regulations for the management of the dining-centres, these regulations are frequently disregarded in practice by the supervisors. Too often the object is to get the meal over as quickly as possible, and inadequate attention is paid to the inculcation of table manners and the little amenities of a civilised meal. ”

“ The gardens are also very prettily illuminated very often, whilst from time to time firework displays help to pass away the evenings. The dining-hall faces the only nice portion of beach in the town, and being entirely covered in with glass, is warm in winter and cool in summer, when it can all be open. The meals are usually table-d'hôte, but it is possible also to order a dinner if one prefers to do so. Here also the traveller will find a little English spoken among the waiters and management, which may be useful to him. ”

“ All dishes are to be removed quietly, and either placed in a dumb-waiter or given in charge of a maidservant just outside the door. If it is necessary to have any dishes or silver used again, they must be cleansed out of sight and hearing of the guests, as also no odor of cookery must reach the dining-room. Large, flat baskets must be in readiness to transport the china and silver to the kitchen.
To wait at a large dinner the attendants should average one to every three people: hence, it will be well for the small household to engage outside attendance. ”

“ What the Parisians chiefly complain about in reference to American influence is that it has introduced our national vice of hurry into the kitchen and the dining-room. When so many of the wealthiest patrons of the restaurants expect to get dishes served at a moment's notice, to be gulped down and hastily followed by others, the very strongholds of gastronomic France—slow cooking and leisurely eating—are assailed. ”

“ The Argonauts, a little dining club which Frankfort Moore and I founded, before the Vagabonds allowed ladies 180at their dinners, to dine every Sunday or every other Sunday at Mrs. Robertson’s tea and luncheon rooms in Bond Street, where we had our club-room, would give a good example to follow. We seldom had a guest or speeches. A number of well-known people used to dine together for the pleasure of each other’s company. We left our places as soon as we had finished dinner, and broke up into little knots to converse. ”

“ I know the old gentleman's tastes, for he has asked me often enough to the wonderful oyster and woodcock lunches he gives, and the solid English dinners in which haunches of venison, saddles of mutton, great capons, turkeys almost as big as ostriches, cygnets, sucking pigs, and such-like dishes generally are the gros pièces, and it was not easy to select a suitable dining-place for him. ”

“ No preparation is required except to add to the dining paraphernalia a pair of chopsticks and a set of apparatus, nor is any one obliged to reflect whether there is room at table or whether the viands suffice, for guests and hosts alike sit upon the mats, where accommodation can always be found, and a word to a neighbouring restaurant produces fish and soup in abundance. ”

“ And when the communal kitchen—the common bakehouse of the future—is established, and people can get their food cooked without the risk of being cheated or poisoned, the custom will no doubt become general of going to the communal kitchen for the fundamental parts of the meal, leaving the last touches to be added as individual taste shall suggest. ”

“ In a large city one can procure many excellent dishes at the confectioner’s and pastry-cook’s. For a large buffet luncheon, as for a ball supper, the hostess should issue her order to some reliable firm of caterers. For a lunch-party of smaller size, she should endeavor to have the dishes cooked in her own kitchen. Almost every one now prefers home to hotel cooking, if the former is all that it should be. We should advise the young hostess, therefore, if she or her maid has a fair understanding of the culinary art, to have the main staples of her bill of fare prepared at home. ”

“ It is the most civilized of entertainments, and to say of a town that it is a dinner-giving town means that it has arrived socially. This flower of hospitality blooms slowly. In many western places where the reception, the afternoon tea, the theater party and the ladies’ luncheon flourish like a green bay tree, the dinner is an unknown function. A young hostess is often afraid of attempting it, as is also the unaccustomed diner-out. Yet it is not a formidable entertainment, rightly considered, and when happily managed the return it brings far outweighs the outlay of time and trouble. ”

“ The family waitress, with extra help if needed, should be in attendance near the dining-room exit, to receive the used dishes and remove them at once from the scene. This is a nice point; for a congestion of dishes in the dining-room spoils the effect of an otherwise well-managed service. The maid will also keep the stack of plates, etc., replenished; and she will carry back and forth from the pantry the salad bowl and platters for replenishing. ”

“ Three times each day the men march into the large dining-hall, which accommodates 1,500, and partake of their meals. The tableware is of tin and somewhat meager. The tables themselves present the appearance of the modern school-desk, being long enough that twenty men may be comfortably seated at each. ”

“ There was no such thing as a restaurant; each one by turn must do his own cooking in the inn kitchen, open to all. We, of course, were expected to carry our own provisions and do our own culinary work like any other respectable travelers. This we had frequently done before where restaurants were not to be found. Many a time we would enter an inn with our arms filled with provisions, purchased at the neighboring bazaars, take possession of the oven and cooking utensils, and proceed to get up an American meal, while all the time a hundred eyes or more would be staring at us in blank amazement. ”

“ In rural districts it is called early dinner, or ladies’ dinner; in the city, when the gentlemen are all down town, it becomes the elaborate ladies’ lunch. The invitations to luncheon are similar to those of a tea or reception, but the affair itself is even less formal. All the dishes should be light. Broiled fish, broiled chicken, broiled ham, broiled steaks and chops, are always satisfactory. The house-keeper living near the sea has an ample store to choose from. ”