Meals

“ By thus reducing the number and variety of my dishes at the regular meals, I only enhanced the pleasures of the palate instead of reducing them; for he who "does not eat but when he is hungry, nor drink except when he is thirsty," will enjoy the humblest meal much more than the pampered dedauchee can relish the richest feast. ”

“ Then the men of the family are at home for the day, the children have no claims of school or play to hurry them through their meals, and there is a general impression of delightful leisure which seems favorable to the eating and digestion of an excellent and hearty dinner. ”

“ If three meals are eaten, the heartiest meal should be taken at midday. The breakfast should be substantial, the evening meal very light, especially avoiding pastry, fats, rich sauces, and hearty foods. The evening meal should consist chiefly of ripe or cooked fruits, liquid foods, and such cereals as boiled rice or cereal flakes. ”

“ The extreme regularity and early hours for meals—twelve being always the time for dinner—obviated in a great measure the necessity of intermediates, and saved that perpetual eating into which some little ones fall, until the digestive powers are impaired in their incipient action. ”

“ You don't take three big meals a day, but twelve little ones, and each time it is something different from the last. There are delicacies for breakfast, for your four luncheons and your five dinners. You explain to your wife that you have lost your appetite, and she believes you, but at the same time she has the sense to hurry on your dinner. ”

“ There are three common meals—breakfast, luncheon-dinner, and dinner-supper—and any one who is not present at them, or who is hungry between times, will have to go without in the interval, and wait till the next regular meal-time comes round, unless he dare to invade the kitchen and curry favour with the cook, or goes down to some restaurant in the city. ”

“ All our meals should be eaten calmly and deliberately, so as to thoroughly masticate the food, and not impose on the stomach and viscera the legitimate work of the teeth. In the interest of health to soul as well as body I enter an earnest plea for more time for eating, and especially at noon, when most hard working people take their principal meal. Clerks, business men, and school teachers, mechanics, laborers, and our children who attend the public schools, need more time at noon to properly dispose of the chief meal of the day. ”

“ Every occasion on which food, no matter how small the amount, is eaten shall count as a meal.
(2) Not more than two meals shall be eaten by any person, of whatever size, age or sex, in a day of twenty-four hours.
(3) No meal shall last more than ten minutes.
(4) The mastication of every mouthful shall last not less than thirty seconds. ”

“ Care should be taken in planning meals for this class to avoid food which requires much oxygen, such as fresh pork, fried food, sausage, warm bread, pastry, griddle cakes, etc. The mid-day meal of a brain worker or business man should be light; a soup, glass of milk (hot or cold) , fruit, bread and butter, vegetable salad, a broiled chop or steak, etc., are suitable for luncheon. ”

“ Pure air and the restfulness of order are favourable and refining to appetite.
To allow fruit or any kind of food to stand in the dining room is a poor custom. Such things attract flies, create an odour of food in the room, and encourage the indulgent habit of eating bits now and then between meals. ”

“ Inasmuch as all people cannot change their meal hours in accordance with those we have suggested, we give these menus upon the basis of three meals a day, with the various food elements properly balanced. ”

“ The FOOD CONTROLLER looks askance at teas in these days, but in hot weather, when luncheon is reduced to the lowest common denominator and dinner resolves itself into a cold collation in the cool of the evening, some refreshment between our second and third meals is indispensable. ”

“ The simpler the meals, the less work will be expended in their preparation, and there is no advantage in an elaborate meal. The main thing is that the table should furnish a sufficient variety from day to day. ”

“ The men eat fabulous quantities of food: some require five meals a day. I well remember my first meal in a mountain hemlock shanty. Imagine a long table of unpainted boards with X-shaped legs, and along each side of the table benches for seats. ”

“ In regard to the nature of the meals prepared, the breakfast should furnish a supply of liquids, because the body has been exhausted by the exhalations of the night, and demands them more than at any other period. ”

“ Every day these good fellows have meals prepared for at least half a dozen more people than they have staying with [232] them at the moment, so that they are always prepared to receive casual droppers-in, and on Sundays I have seen a score or so of self-invited guests sit down to a first-rate breakfast, excellent in character and quality, both in eatables and drinkables, and the meal has gone on just as though it had been specially prepared for the occasion. ”

“ For that small sum a man may have a sufficiency of hot or cold beef or mutton, bread, tea and a choice of vegetables. I can testify from personal knowledge that the meals are well cooked, well served and plentiful. ”

“ Sometimes lunch is comparatively light so that there are two daily apologies for meals. To make up for these, the third meal may be very hearty. City folk often eat at dinner more than is good for them. ”

“ Two regular meals were allowed for each day; but to these might be added, at the master's discretion, a light collation towards sunset. Meat might be eaten thrice a week; and on other days there was to be a choice of vegetable fare so as to suit the tenderest stomach. ”

“ Whenever it is possible to do so, the heavy meal of the day should be served at noon and the lighter one in the evening. This plan should always be followed for children, and it is preferable for adults. ”

“ But it is one of those strange survivals of ancient manners which people practise without any consciousness of the fact, which is at the root of the fashion, which still occasionally prevails, of dividing the chief meal of the day by an interval of repose, and taking the wine and dessert an hour or two after the other courses ”

“ That there be always both fresh and salt Meat for Dinner; and twice in the Week, as well as on Sunday in particular, that there be either Puddings or Pies besides; that there be always Plenty of Victuals; that Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper be serv’d up in the cleanest and neatest manner possible; and for this Reason the Society not only allow but desire you to get a Cook; that the Boys Suppers be not as usual made up of different Scraps, but that there be at each Table the same Sort: and when there is cold fresh Meat enough, that it be often hashed for them ”

“ Bread of some kind, a liquid and a fat are served with every meal. For breakfast there should be cereal, and if desired a stewed fruit, perhaps eggs in some form, but they are not necessary. Dinner should include one starch, two fresh vegetables and a dessert, or, fish, a starch, one green vegetable and a dessert; or, meat, two vegetables and a dessert; or a meat substitute, a vegetable, and a dessert. For supper, fresh or stewed fruit, plenty of milk if possible, a sweet, and either cheese, peanut butter, a salad or a soup. ”

“ You need double the supply that the secular orders do when they fast, for your digestion is twice as active as theirs. Supper is now a sadly scanty meal; it consists simply of fish, bread, wine, and fruit. A miserable dish! not miserable as to quantity or quality, but because it is the solitary dish during the forty days of Lent, always excepting bread [Pg 387] and wine ad libitum. Fortunately, the friars are wise and provident; the slender supper is foreseen and provided against at dinner, which consists of four dishes. ”

“ As with breakfast dishes, those for supper are more a question of trouble and time than cost; but food that we can enjoy instead of food for which we have no relish has such a material difference of effect upon our system. We may conclude our observations on the last meal of the day by a word of advice to the housewife, to have it, as far as lies in her power, suited to the taste of all. ”

“ Every day, before dinner and supper, even whilst the dishes are cooling on the table, men and women repair to a side-table, and, to obtain an appetite, eat bread and butter, cheese, raw salmon or anchovies, drinking a glass of brandy. ”

“ The American bachelor takes usually a very light first meal. It consists of tea, coffee, or cocoa, toast, eggs, oatmeal, and fruit. There are yet a few men who go in for the old-fashioned hearty breakfast with beefsteak, buckwheat cakes, and trimmings, but in cities the lighter meal is preferable. All this is, of course, more a matter of environment and hygiene than etiquette. I have compiled a list of certain viands, which society does require should be eaten at a special meal and in only one manner. ”

“ As to the manifold green stuffs which, changing with the season, may be presented as salad, their name is legion; and their choice must be left to the eater's judgment, fancy, and digestion, all of which vary greatly.
The combination of dishes to form a meal now demands our consideration. The occupations of man in a civilized state, no less than the natural suggestions of his appetite, require stated and regular times for feeding. ”

“ Some fashionable ladies have the reputation of having very fine lunches—chops, chickens, oysters, salads, chocolate, and many other good things being provided; and others, just as fashionable, have nothing but a cup of tea or chocolate, some thin slices of bread and butter, and cold meat; or, if of Teutonic taste, nothing but cheese, crackers, and ale, thus reserving the appetite for dinner. ”

“ What shall I say of the numberless kinds of food to alleviate hunger, and the variety of seasonings to stimulate appetite which are scattered everywhere by nature, and for which we are not indebted to the art of cookery? ”

“ Prepare your breakfast something like they do in England, bread and butter, a little cheese, a few eggs, food that is light and nutritious, and which does not require so much labor in cooking; and instead of tea, if you cannot drink cold water, make a bowl of water gruel or meal porridge and you will save dirtying three or four dishes, knives and forks, or spoons, to each individual that sits at the table. ”

“ To-day, for instance, I’ll tell you what our food was. Breakfast: good oatmeal with boiled milk and sugar, coffee, war bread, which one of the group toasted before the fire for our table, “bacon” the eternal, which is fried ham, and not very good. Lunch: a kind of meat loaf, rice, with cheese (which we have about every other day) , bread and butter, cocoa, and stewed figs, stewed without sugar. ”

“ It is well known that the custom exists to a very wide extent among Continental nations of commencing either mid-day déjeuner or dinner by eating small portions of cold pickled fish, vegetables, of highly-flavored sausage thinly sliced, etc., to serve, it is said, as a whet to appetite. ”

“ Dinner, then, is the only meal which—as the greater includes the less—need be discussed in the third part of our subject, which claims to treat of custom and art in combining dishes to form a repast. With the requirements and under the circumstances just specified, it should not be a heavy meal, but it should be sufficing. No one after dinner should feel satiety or repletion, with a sense of repugnance at the idea of eating more; but all should still enjoy the conviction that a good meal furnishes delightful and refreshing occupation. ”

“ Thus we go on absolving in great style, till it is time for the matutinal meal—vulgarly called breakfast; when the whiskey, eggs, toast, and tea as strong as Hercules, with ham, fowl, beef-steaks, or mutton-chops, all pour in upon us in the full tide of hospitality. ”

“ The light lunch eaten in most homes demands much less time in cooking and eating than does a dinner, and leaves those who have partaken of it more fit for work than they would be were their stomachs burdened with the task of digesting soup, meat, vegetables, and dessert. ”

“ There seems to me, more mere animalism in wading through a long bill of fare, eating three or four indifferently cooked vegetables, fish, meat, poultry, each second-rate in quality, or made so by bad cooking, and declaring that you have dined well, and are easy to please, than there is in taking pains to have a perfectly broiled chop, a fine potato, and a salad, on which any true epicure could dine well, while on the former fare he would leave the table hungry. ”

“ Besides the courses of a well-ordered dinner, there are directions for making rolls, biscuits, bread, and numerous dishes for breakfast and tea, together with a most valuable set of directions how to prepare food for the sick. ”

“ At midday the servants were to have their first meal, which was to be bountiful, but "only of one meat and not of several, or of any delicacies; and give them only one kind of drink, nourishing but not heady, whether wine or other; and admonish them to eat heartily, and to drink well and plentifully, for it is right that they should eat all at once, without sitting too long, and at one breath, without reposing on their meal or halting, or leaning with their elbows on the table; and as soon as they begin to talk or to rest on their elbows, make them rise and remove the table." ”

“ A joint of meat, a fruit tart or stewed fruit, or a suet or milk pudding, constitute the luncheon of many who dine late, more especially when the household includes children who share the midday meal. Or the luncheon may consist of the cold remains of the previous night's dinner, in which case parts of birds, tarts, creams, jellies, etc., are usually made more presentable by being cut into portions suitable for serving, and neatly arranged on a dish. ”

“ Breakfast—Lamb chops broiled, eggs, tomato salad, stewed potatoes, muffins. Dinner—Fried smelts, beef à la mode, cones of carrots and turnips, mashed potatoes, lettuce salad, cheese fritters, amber pudding.
“Friday. Breakfast—Brown hash, poached eggs, corn bread, baked potatoes. Dinner—Bisque of clams, beef au gratin, chicken rissoles, cauliflower, potatoes, tomato salad, custard pie.
“Saturday. Breakfast—Scalloped clams, cauliflower, omelet, pop-overs, stewed potatoes. Dinner—Clear soup, veal cutlets, mashed potatoes, cabbage, macaroni, apple pudding. ”