Dinner service

“ Nothing so delays the service of a dinner as dishes that must immediately be followed by necessary accessories. If there is no one to help the butler or waitress, no dish must be included on the menu—unless you are only one or two at table, or unless your guests are neither critical nor "modern"—that is not complete in itself. ”

“ Given well-prepared food, whether simple or elaborate, proper service, a room not too warm and a current of fresh air that does not blow on any one, guests sympathetically chosen, the dinner can not fail to be a success. A young married belle of a western city who was visiting in a smart New York set was asked at her first dinner what people in the West did for after-dinner entertainment. ”

“ Unless one has a large establishment, and is very sure of good service, the bill of fare selected should not be an elaborate one, and the choice of dishes should be confined to those which one is used to preparing, and which in cost will not exceed one's means. It is the quality of the dinner which pleases, and not the multiplicity of dishes. Small dinners for not less than six or more than ten guests are always the most pleasant, and for those of moderate means or those unaccustomed to dinner-giving are by far the most suitable. ”

“ The elaborate dinner will take from an hour to two hours, according to the number of courses and the efficiency of the service. There should be a waiter for every six people, although at a small dinner an efficient maid may serve eight covers without much delay.
The invitations to a formal dinner are sent out two weeks ahead. No more people should be asked than can be comfortably seated and speedily served. Twenty inches at the very least should be allowed to each cover. Children are never present at a ceremonious dinner. ”

“ In every household the dinner, be it early or late, is the important meal of the day, and it merits whatever dignity can be given to it by such accessories as service, care in laying the table, decoration, etc., and not the least of these will be found the menu written for every day. ”

“ But for customary "entertaining," those who "live quietly," with possibly but one domestic to assist with the dinner, will show good sense in not attempting anything more imposing than they are able to compass successfully. The "family dinner" has a dignity of its own when in keeping with all the conditions; and though its menu may be simple, its service unpretentious, it may be the gracious exponent of a hospitality "fit for a king."
At the informal dinner it is customary to seat the guests in the order in which they enter the dining-room, without assigning any place of distinction ”

“ After the service came the dinner, not a cold water, dry biscuit affair, but the best dinner of the week, smoking hot roasts, tarts, pies and cream pudding in abundance, just what would please hungry, growing boys and make them love the mother and give them a warm regard for Sunday. ”

“ Yet one alone can, on occasion, manage very well, if attention is paid to ordering an especial menu for single-handed service—described on page 233. Aside from the convenience of a second person in the dining-room, a house can not be run very comfortably and smoothly without alternating shifts in staying in and going out. The waitress being on "duty" to answer bell and telephone and serve tea one afternoon, and the housemaid taking her place the next. They also alternate in going out every other evening after dinner. ”

“ Good cook books are full of suggestions for delectable menus and for the order of service. The butler or maid takes complete charge and it is better to have a less elaborate dinner than to have so many courses that he or she cannot manage without haste, noise, or confusion. ”

“ The higher you reach up that glorious scale of responsibility which runs from manager to marmiton, the more intelligent help you will get in ordering your dinner, the more certain you are to have an artistic meal, and not to be spending money unworthily.
That you must pay on the higher scale for a really artistic dinner is, I regret to say, a necessity. No doubt the luxurious surroundings, the quick, quiet service appear indirectly in the bill; but the material for the dinner is costly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Until a hearse drew up beside the door...
I saw a tiny coffin carried out.
And after that, towards dusk I’d often see
Behind the blind another face that looked:
Eyes of a young wife watching anxiously,
Then rushing back to where her dinner cooked.
She often gulped it down alone, I fear,
Within her heart the sadness of despair.
For near to midnight I would vaguely hear
A lurching step, a stumbling on the stair.
These little dramas of the common day!
A man weak-willed and fore-ordained to fail... ”

“ There is nothing more conducive to thorough enjoyment of an evening, to the thorough enjoyment of a menu, than when table and appointments are perfect and artistically simple. The hostess should give as much time and thought to the preparation and arrangement of the table, as she does to the planning of the menu. She will find that her guests will appreciate novel lighting effects, surprising color tones, unusual serving innovations. And she will find that a correctly laid table will add surprisingly to the entire success of her dinner party. ”

“ Being fortunate enough to find a plate without anybody’s card in it, you wisely seat yourself at once, and have a little leisure to look about you. Waiters, with wine-baskets in their hands, are placing decanters of sherry down the tables, at very respectable distances; melancholy-looking salt-cellars, and decayed vinegar-cruets, which might have belonged to the parents of the indigent orphans in their time, are scattered at distant intervals on the cloth; and the knives and forks look as if they had done duty at every public dinner in London since the accession of George the First. ”

“ The character of the hospitality he is enjoying permits him to breakfast from seven till ten, alone, or in company with the family if he chooses. Horses, dogs, and guns for the gentlemen—billiards, the carriage, music, or promenading, with cards, chess, backgammon, or dominos for the ladies, to pass away the day until dinner. At this meal the household and guests unite, and the rich viands, wines, and coffee make a feast for the body and sharpen the wit to a feast of the soul. ”

“ A dîner de restaurant is pleasant from its novelty. The guests seem less ceremonious and more gay; the absence of the elegance that marks the dinner-table appointments in a maison bien montée, gives a homeliness and heartiness to the repast; and even the attendance of two or three ill-dressed garçons hurrying about, instead of half-a-dozen sedate servants in rich liveries, marshalled by a solemn-looking maître-d'hôtel and groom of the chambers, gives a zest to the dinner often wanted in more luxurious feasts. ”

“ One has only to give carte blanche to one's cook and house-steward, dress oneself in one's best, and stand at the head of the stairs to receive one's guests with a conventional smile upon one's face. A dinner is a somewhat more difficult affair, and there, I think, without vanity, I may justly pride myself upon my ability. A cosy little dinner for, let us say, not more than eight people, each to be most carefully selected. ”

“ Any of the company dinners can be prepared at home almost as easily as an ordinary dinner, success depending not upon a great number of dishes, but upon a few well cooked and well served, and a hostess apparently free from care. ”

“ We find no fault with the elegances of the table, in plate, crystal, china, and so forth; but an English dinner is not an elegant meal. The guests are supposed, by a polite fiction, to have the hunger of the whole day to satisfy, and provision is made accordingly. Varieties of soup, fish, flesh, fowl, game, rich-made dishes, load the board spread for a group of well-dressed men and women, known to have already dined, and who would affect to shudder at so heavy a meal, if it was termed supper. ”

“ In families where great dinners are seldom given, it will be better, when it can be conveniently done, to make an arrangement, as to the principal dishes, a day or two, or more, before hand. The Cook should never quit her post, on such an occasion, as it requires not only great skill but the utmost attention and exertion to send up the whole of a great dinner, with all its accompaniments, in perfect order. ”

“ Possessing plenty of pretty napery, silver, and china, having tolerably good cooks and well-trained waitresses, they feel themselves fairly equipped for giving small dinners, especially when they may order some of the most difficult dainties from outside. They need not be appalled by the list of what are to the majority of them unattainable adjuncts, that are declared by writers on the complete art of dining to be indispensable to a correct dinner. ”

“ It requires judgment to take the right line. We need not attempt, in our everyday dinner, to realize Disraeli's ideal of dining: "eating ortolans to the sound of soft music." But we may try to make our dinner an enjoyment as well as a refreshment; and although our set banquets may be rare, taste and attention will impart to every meal something of the character of a feast. ”

“ The lady at the right hand of the host must now be on the lookout for the signal to rise, which the hostess will convey to her by a look or slight nod. At a formal dinner the gentlemen sometimes escort the ladies back to the drawing-room, the couples going arm-in-arm. After seeing their partners comfortably seated, the men excuse themselves by a bow and return to the dining-room or repair to the smoking-room, where coffee, cigars, and liqueurs are served. Sometimes the men simply rise from the table when the ladies do, and remain standing until the latter have passed out. ”

“ It is as necessary to the stomach and to the enjoyment of the table as is change of scene for the mind. Even large and expensive state dinners become very monotonous when one finds everywhere the same choice of dishes. Mr. Walker, in his “Original,” says: “To order dinner is a matter of invention and combination. ”

“ The hors-d'œuvre were on the table, but it was difficult, hungry as she was, to induce the little prima donna to leave her first view of the river, a river now grown steel-colour in the growing darkness, and to turn to the prosaic side of life, and dinner.
It is a comfortable dining-room, with its green curtains to the big bow-window, its paper with a flower pattern, its mirrors and its great panes of glass through which the arched looking-glasses of the hall can be seen. Of our fellow-diners there was no one whose face is well known to the world. ”

“ I could not well dine at a club without evening clothes, and a smart restaurant was equally out of the question, for I felt, being in the state of humiliation which weariness and London grime bring one to, that I could not have held my own as to the choice of a table or the ordering of a dinner against even the least determined maître d'hôtel. ”

“ She should be ready five minutes before her guests arrive, and in the parlor, serene and cool, "mistress of herself, though china fall." She should see herself that the dinner-table is properly laid, the champagne and sherry thoroughly cooled, the places marked out, and, above all, the guests properly seated.
"Ay, there's the rub." To invite the proper people to meet each other, to seat them so that they can have an agreeable conversation, that is the trying and crucial test. Little dinners are social; little dinners are informal; little dinners make people friends. ”

“ If a hot luncheon is served, it is not etiquette to put the vegetables on the table as at dinner; they should be handed by the waiter. The luncheon-table is already full of the articles for dessert, and there is no place for the vegetables. The hot entres or cold entres are placed before the master or mistress, and each guest is asked what he prefers. ”

“ Never fold your napkin where you are invited for one meal only, but lay it loosely on the table. When the ladies withdraw from the table, the gentlemen rise. Remain in the drawing-room at least half an hour after dinner before bidding host and hostess good-by. ”

“ They receive in the drawing-room until fifteen or twenty minutes after the time mentioned in the invitations. Then, even if there is still a guest or two missing, it is customary for dinner to be served. Only on one occasion does this rule vary; if the dinner is being held in honor of some celebrated guest, it may not be served until he has arrived.
The hostess, in inviting her guests, should be sure that there is an equal number of men and women. Husbands and wives should never be sent into the dining-room together. ”

“ George's and found myself in a long room with plenty of palms and a general look of being cared for, with a counter and many long white-clothed tables, with seats for about half a dozen at each. There were little black-dressed waitresses flitting about, and at the tables a fair sprinkling of men, neither obtrusively smart nor obtrusively shabby, who were dining, and who nearly all kept their hats on. I drifted down to the end of the room and sat at a table and told the waitress in rather a feeble way that I should like the best vegetarian dinner that the house could give me. ”