Mealtime

“ Dinner is eaten at twelve o’clock, and supper at seven. At breakfast we get coffee without sugar or milk; for dinner, mutton-broth, a piece of roast kid, pastry prepared with oil or a dish of cucumbers, and, as a concluding course, roast or spiced mutton. Twice in the week, namely on Fridays and Saturdays, we have fast-day fare; but if the feast of a particular saint falls during the week, a thing that frequently occurs, we hold three fast-days, the one of the saint’s day being kept as a time of abstinence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Regular meals at, usually, unbroken intervals--dinner, never more than five hours after breakfast; luncheon, unnecessary; animal food, once certainly, in some lighter form, twice a day--are the suggestions of common sense followed out in most well-regulated households. But it is not the food which is eaten, but the food which is digested, that nourishes body and brain. ”

“ Luncheon: for Billy: herring, cold muffins, doughnuts; for Dick and me: German toast, apple sauce.
Dinner: fish hash, biscuits, Indian pudding, milk.
Saturday.
Breakfast: oatmeal, German toast, cocoa shells.
Luncheon: for Billy: cold biscuits, hard-boiled eggs, bowl of rice; for Dick and me: rice and milk, doughnuts, apple sauce.
Dinner: baked beans, new raised bread.
[231] To a man accustomed to a beefsteak breakfast, fried hasty pudding may seem a poor substitute and griddle cakes may seem well enough to taper off with but scarcely stuff for a full meal. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Properly to perform its various duties, the body requires energy, and energy comes from food. A furnace supplied at noon with two or three cinders and a shovel full of ashes, would not be expected to heat the house sufficiently during the afternoon. Yet a woman hopes to finish her day creditably on the fuel supplied at noon by cream puffs, ice-cream soda, or nothing at all.
Too much cannot be said in favor of regular hours for meals. Midway between breakfast and dinner there should be a nourishing luncheon, not elaborate in quality or quantity, but sufficient. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Breakfast, after schnapps, comprised radishes sent around as the first course, with Bologna sausages, tongue and dried beef, salt fish, bread and butter, beefsteak and potatoes, ham and eggs, with coffee if you insisted on having it. There is evidently no need of starving when you get all that for breakfast, and about four hours afterwards sit down to dinner and take soup (if you can) , with fish following, and beef, poultry, game, salad, cucumbers, puddings, fruit, nuts, &c., and wine at your order. Eating is one of the principal institutions in these northern climates. ”

“ After breakfast I go into my own room and remain there quite undisturbed the whole forenoon. At twelve o'clock Mrs. W. H. sends me up a second breakfast, bread and butter, a glass of iced milk, oranges and bananas. You see my dear heart, I am not likely to suffer from hunger. At three o'clock they dine, and there may be a guest or two to dinner. In the afternoon my good hostess takes me out somewhere, which is in every way agreeable to me.
The evening is nevertheless the flower of the day in this family, (ah, in how many families is the evening the heaviest part of the day!) ”

“ For any large meal but especially for dinner served late in the day, as many preparations as may be, should be made in the morning or at luncheon time. When making the menu for a meal do not select things which conflict; for instance, a roast of meat and a delicate pudding cannot be baked at the same time. Likewise, it is inconvenient, not to say unappetizing to have the meat and vegetables and dessert for a meal all boiled or all baked or all fried. Try not to have two things for the same meal which will be spoiled if they are not served the instant they are cooked. ”

“ It should not be the heartiest meal, because the organs of digestion are weakened by long fasting, and the exhalations. Dinner should be the heartiest meal, because then the powers of digestion are strengthened, by the supplies of the morning meal. Light and amusing employments should occupy mind and body for an hour or more after a full meal.
But little drink should be taken, while eating, as it dilutes the gastric juice which is apportioned to each quantity of food as it enters the stomach. It is better to take drink after the meal is past. ”

“ The farmer who dines at two o’clock, for example, and, after walking about his fields for three or four hours in the afternoon, comes home in the evening with a genuine and undeniable appetite, has a legitimate right to an additional supply of wholesome food before betaking himself to his couch; because a sufficient interval has elapsed to allow the stomach to recover itself from the labour of digesting his dinner, and the continued waste of the system requires to be replaced. ”

“ He will eat little meat; but that little very savory and prepared in a manner to be easily digested. He will choose but light vegetables. He will flavor his breakfast with caviare and lemon; and at dinner he will relish rich stewed fruit, by means of which appetite and digestion are increased. Should he not feel strengthened immediately after dinner, he has sufficient time to wait till his food is transformed into blood. He takes a nap after dinner, and a pleasant walk in the open air, to get an appetite for his well-selected supper. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In some seasons of the year the farmer takes his heartiest meal at the close of the labors of the day, and soon retires. Is this a bad custom? Our opinion is that food may be taken properly at a late hour, provided, first, that the individual has not already eaten enough for the twenty-four hours,—that he has done so being true, probably, in most cases; and provided, secondly, that he is in such a state of health that digestion will not so act upon his nerves as to disturb his sleep. ”

“ The breakfast at sunrise, the noontide repast and the twilight pillow, which distinguished the days of Elizabeth, are now changed for the evening breakfast, and the midnight dinner. The evening is by no means the proper time to take much nourishment: for the powers of the system, and particularly of the stomach, are then almost exhausted, and the food will be but half digested. ”

“ The appetite of the fifteenth century seems to have been uncommonly good, for we find our ancestors eating four meals a day, beginning with breakfast at seven, dinner at ten, supper at four, and a collation taken in bed—oh, the cormorants!—between eight and nine in the evening. The meal taken in bed may have consisted of a blanquette de veau, or perhaps now and then a bolster pudding, while the ladies may have indulged themselves with a côtelette en papillotes. ”

“ On the day after that, may be, on my arrival at another house where a day's cutting and fitting is wanted, I find the breakfast awaiting me at seven; this suits very well—but not another mouthful of food passes my lips until after three o'clock, and may be, then, I have such an inward trembling and exhaustion, that I cannot eat. On the day following, the order is again changed. So it goes on. The difference in food, too, is often as great. At some houses, everything is of good quality, well cooked, and in consequence, of easy digestion ”

“ They always ate plain food and plenty of it, and they never ate between meals. They had breakfast from the time they awakened in the morning until the sun was high in the sky, then they had dinner until the sun was low in the sky, and supper from that time until it grew dark and they went to sleep: but never a mouthful between meals, no matter how hungry they might be. ”

“ Breakfast, the hardest meal of the day to many well people, is doubly difficult to one who must eat it in the same room where she has spent the night—perhaps many nights—of feverish restlessness, that has given her a detestation of the bed, the bedroom, and everything connected therewith, chiefest of all being the disgust with herself, the weary, distraught being with aching limbs, heavy head, and ill-tasting mouth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who are engaged, either mentally or physically, throughout the evening, cannot with impunity, eat a very hearty meal previous to that effort; but after their work is done they need nourishing food, and food that is both easily digested and assimilated. ”

“ She should remember that her cooking is not finished until she has cleaned up after herself, has washed and put away the dishes, washed the dish towels and left the kitchen in order.
What to Have for Breakfast—Breakfast is in most families the simplest meal of the day and the easiest to prepare. Some people are satisfied with fruit, cereal, toast or muffins, coffee for the adults, and milk for the [134] children. Many families, however, like the addition of a heartier dish, such as boiled or poached eggs, fish hash, or minced meat on toast. ”

“ The scullery maid must clear the kitchen meals and help in all the washing up, take up nursery tea, help the cook prepare late dinner, carry up the dishes for late dinner, clear and wash up kitchen supper. The nurse has her dinner in the kitchen. Servants' meals should be breakfast, before the family, dinner directly after upstairs lunch, tea at five, supper at nine. They should go to bed regularly at ten o'clock. Now as to their fare. For breakfast a little bacon or an egg, or some smoked fish; for dinner, meat, vegetables, potatoes, and pudding. ”

“ I dine upon soup, a choice of three plates of meat, about half-a-pint of wine, a dessert and bread at discretion. Our dinner hour is four o’clock, and we are not likely to eat anything more before bedtime; although one of us may win a cup of coffee or a dram of brandy at billiards or dominoes in the evening. ”