Dinner table

“ One meets with all peoples and tongues and sorts at the dinner table. Now, much of comfort at that interesting time depends upon who sit next you. Dining at a long table with a large company is never so genial as dining round a smaller table in a party of six or eight. ”

“ Their table d'hôtes are certainly the most festive way of eating a dinner. There is such variety in the faces, such pretty, intellectual, stupid, heavy faces—faces, indeed, that seem to have been turned all day long towards that dinner, and wistfully expecting it. A long narrow room, yet so bright and airy, and looking on the street; I can fancy nothing so cheerful. Every one is in good humour ”

“ An ungainly wooden framework, with a long broad plank on it, occupies the middle of the room, and is covered with a cloth whose original colour it would be an impossibility to determine. This is the table at which the guests sit. During the dinner itself the old patriarchal customs are observed, with this difference, that not only do all the guests eat out of one dish, but that all the eatables are served up in one, and one only. Beans and rice, potatoes and roast beef, Paradise apples and onions, etc., etc., lie quietly side by side, and are devoured in the deepest silence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The dinner has always something of a ceremonious character, being the time when the family all meet with the leisure to enjoy one another’s society after the labors of the day are done. It is well, therefore, to attend to the few material details which aid in making the occasion an agreeable one. Refinements are more clearly shown at table than elsewhere, and the influences of decorum at dinner are more subtle than are always recognized. ”

“ According to the latest dinner etiquette in France, coffee is served for both the men and women at the dinner table. But when the dinner is very large and fashionable, it is still customary for the women to retire to the drawing-room, where the hostess presides over the coffee-urn. When men and women leave the dining-room together, they resume the same order as they observed when they entered it. ”

“ The table-cloth should be of the heaviest and handsomest damask, the centre-piece, the floral decorations, the candelabra, with their candles and silk shades, the dishes, containing hors-d'œuvres, bonbons, glacé fruits, etc., differ little from the similar array on the table at a formal luncheon. The same general plan is to be followed in serving the courses. The dinner usually begins with oysters or clams. Next comes a soup—consommé, or a cream soup of some really choice variety. ”

“ Very pretty fancy pieces are made for this use, but an ordinary dinner napkin will do. This is not removed until the table is cleared for the dessert. When the carving is done on the table, the soup and dessert are usually served by the lady of the house, and the salad is also dressed on the table, and then passed. So far as the service will allow, however, it is pleasanter to have everything passed that does not need cutting.
The vegetable dishes should never be placed on the table. ”

“ A small dinner should not last much more than an hour and a half. It is readily disposed of in that length of time if the cook has the courses ready promptly, and if the waitress understands her business. All the carving should be done off the table. The plates should be put in front of the guests from the right side, and removed from the left. Of course, whatever dish is passed must be offered from the left side. ”

“ Heavy table-cloth, linen table-cloth, carving-cloths, napkins, doilies, flower bowl, candlesticks, carafes, tumblers, salt cups, pepper boxes, salt spoons, plate for rolls, butter plate and knife, bread-and-butter plates, olive dishes, pickle dishes, and forks.
Supper is served, instead of dinner, when it is necessary to gain time for an evening entertainment, [Pg 33] or when for other reasons a shorter instead of longer meal is desirable. ”

“ The broad dinner-table is set diagonally in the long dining-room, and to-morrow, at least, the guests will have to take two turns at filling its twenty seats, while the children go through the same manoeuvre in the pantry. Where they will all sleep to-night is a mystery which none can unravel save the busy, hospitable "lady of the manor;" ”

“ Over this comes the snowy, linen table-cover, falling gracefully over the sides with the four points almost touching the floor. A place is laid for each guest. The most fashionable method is to have a large lace or embroidered doily in the center of the table, and smaller ones indicating the position of the guests. A centerpiece of glass, china, silver, is usually used, over the doily or without it, and on top of this flowers. Delicate ferns are sometimes used instead of flowers, although roses (hot-house roses when no others are obtainable) are always the favorite at an elaborate dinner. ”

“ A delicious smell of roasting comes from the kitchen, and in the dining-room the long table is laid for a good, old-fashioned dinner with good old wine. How nice and comfortable everything is! One might fall ill with longing to be home. ”

“ At a dinner party the gentlemen sit at one table and the ladies at another in a different room. Dishes are served ready cut up, the food being placed in a large bowl or dish in the centre of the table, from which the guests help themselves mouthful by mouthful. ”

“ When the dinner is large and formal, or even when it numbers only eight or ten, it is wise to have small cards with the names of the guests at each place at the table, and, if the guests are strangers to each other, to have a tray in the men’s dressing-room or hall where they remove their coats and hats with tiny envelopes addressed to each, containing little cards on which is written the name of the dinner partner. ”

“ The plates used are ordinarily of rather smaller size than those seen at dinner, as the dishes are of a lighter character, and the handsomest are reserved for the fingerbowls, which [Pg 13] are put on the table with the bonbons and coffee only, unless the meal begins with fruit, when they appear twice.
The question of lighting the table is one that often puzzles young housekeepers or novices at entertaining. "Shall we use candles at luncheon?" they ask, bewildered at the seeming absurdity of the idea. ”

“ Thirteen persons sit round a dinner table. When dinner is over the discovery is made that they were thirteen in number and the diners reflect that, according to the ancient fiction, one of them at least will die within the year. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When every one is seated, take a plate of soup in each hand and place each plate in turn in front of each person, laying it on the dinner plate that is already there, serving the older members of the family first, if there are children, otherwise going right around the table, always laying it down from the right side of each person. ”

“ On the side-table place extra plates, the carvers with their forks, tablespoons, and sauce ladles. Leave room on the side-table for vegetable dishes and sauce boats.
Be sure that the salad bowl, olive dishes, and pudding dish are cool, the tureen, dishes, and plates being properly heated. When it is nearly time for dinner, place two olive dishes and two almond dishes, alternately, [Pg 26] just outside of the candelabra; place a decanter of sherry near the carver’s right, and a decanter of claret at the opposite corner of the table; fill the carafes, fill the tumblers, light the candles. ”

“ Carving is done in the kitchen and no food set on the table except ornamental dishes of fruit, candy and nuts. The plate service is also the same as at dinner. The places are never left plateless, excepting after salad, when the table is cleared and crumbed for dessert. The dessert plates and finger bowls are arranged as for dinner. Flowers are usually put in the finger bowls, a little spray of any sweet-scented flower, but "corsage bouquets" laid at the places with flower pins complete are in very bad taste. ”

“ At a luncheon one removes wraps and veils in the dressing-room, retaining one's hat and gloves, the latter being removed at table, and resumed in the drawing-room after the meal, unless cards are the form of entertainment.
As the guests enter the drawing-room the hostess shakes hands with them and introduces them to one another before going to the dining-room. When no men are present the hostess leads the way to the dining-room, and the guests find their places at the table by the name cards. When men are present the procedure to the dining-room follows the custom at a formal 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. ”

“ No matter how nicely any one keeps house, there is a great deal for the servants to think of for a dinner, and as they have never served one for you before, should you get the impression in the morning that things are not going on very well, you will have to be in the dining-room a good deal, quietly seeing that no time is lost.
1. If you don’t like so many forks and knives on the table at once, put enough for the first three courses and have the others brought on with the plates of each course as in the case of dessert. ”

“ Fifteen minutes before the hour for dinner, the waitress, after having lighted the lights on the parlor floor and in the front hall stands at the front door watching to open it promptly to prevent any guest from having to ring the bell. She helps the gentlemen off with their coats, hangs up their hats, places their canes in the rack, and hands them the tray on which the card envelopes have been placed. When all the guests have arrived, the chambermaid signals the cook this fact, then fills the glasses with iced water, while the waitress lights the candles on the dining-table. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dinner being at last fairly finished, “now comes the sweetest morsel of the night,” and strong ale and tobacco, as their legitimate successors, supersede beef and pudding, and all the guests being settled down in the capacious Hall, as many as can, round the long table, others on forms or benches arranged in rows, and others, more favoured, apart from the crowd, around a small table placed under a chimney large enough to be a dwelling-house for a family of moderate pretensions ”

“ He commanded an elaborate, every-dish-cooked-to-order dinner, that would excuse his remaining there for two or three hours, and from his table at the curtained window he kept his eyes upon the saloon across the way. ”

“ The dinner is confined to one thing at a time—soup, sometimes fish, a joint, or chickens, and a sweet. The Professor opens his own wine at the table and passes it round, and very good it is, but one scarcely needs it in this climate. ”

“ Take out the tureen first, then the soup-plates, carrying out two at a time, one in each hand. Carry in all the hot dinner-plates at once, put them on the serving-table, and as you take up a service plate from the table put a hot dinner-plate in its place. Bring in the meat dish first and put it in front of the carver, and then bring in the vegetable dishes and place them on the serving-table or dinner-wagon. Pass meat and vegetables and see that every one has bread and that the glasses are filled. Return to the kitchen and wash the silver and china of the first course. ”

“ At the table to one side of us are a young couple whose dinner has consisted of curried chicken and plum pudding au Rhum, and at the table to our other side, two ladies are eating a typical woman's dinner of hors d'œuvre, poached eggs and spinach, and a vanilla ice. The Au Petit Riche finds room on its small carte du jour for dishes to suit all tastes. ”

“ This new resolve gave her a sort of light-headed self-confidence: when she left the dinner-table she felt so easy and careless that she was surprised to see that the glass of champagne beside her plate was untouched. She felt as if all its sparkles were whirling through her. ”