Tapa

“ For breakfast and tea, set the waiter on square, put the cups and saucers in front, and the sugar and slop bowls, and cream cup the back side. Put a sugar spoon, or tongs, by the sugar bowl. Then set the plates around the table at regular distances with a knife in front, and a napkin on one side and a cup mat the back side of it. Put mats for dishes of food in a regular manner, and set these dishes on, square and orderly. Set the tea or coffee either on the waiter, or on a mat at the right hand. ”

“ It was the waiter who raised him from this other abyss where he had been like to perish, the waiter and the things, including tea: plates, forks, napkins, cups and saucers, tea and hot water, jam, biscuit, toast. There was something particularly reassuring about that plate of nicely matched triangles of buttered toast. It spoke of a sane and orderly world where you were never taken off your feet.
"How many lumps?" demanded the pouring flapper. ”

“ We sit down, take our napkins, and the waiters—always men— fill our glasses from the elegant water bottles that grace each end of the table. One dish, containing, perhaps, cold meat, salad, red pepper, radishes, and pickled beans, is served on plates, and the first ones taken away from us, although not used. After endeavoring to swallow some of this nauseating stuff, which the natives devour with relish, the servant removes the dish, our plates, knives and forks, and another equally strange and equally detestable dish is brought on. ”

“ Generally the taproom is the best dining-room that is at your service, and you mustn't be particular if the place is full of tobacco smoke, or if horse-play and larking is going on all the while. Some publicans give you more decent quarters, but not many. But, lor! for that matter, when a man fumbles his way down off his box in the winter time with his feet like lumps of ice, and his face feeling as though it had been warnished and froze dry, he isn't very particular what place he puts his head into, so long as it is warm and snug. ”

“ When the dinner is over, at a signal from the hostess, the women rise and retire to the drawing-room, where coffee is usually served, the men remaining in the dining-room for coffee and cigars.
Five o’clock tea may be served in a variety of ways: the hostess may brew it herself in a teapot upon her tea-table in the parlor; she may make it by pouring boiling water over a tea-ball; or it may be served by either a man or maid servant in the dining-room. Its proper accompaniments are sugar, cream, sliced lemon, and either wafers, thin sandwiches, or cake. ”

“ Decorated porcelain is cheap nowadays, and makes a table look extremely pretty. Each one of the household should have his own especial oatmeal set, either the bowl, plate, and pitcher, or one of the deep saucers that come for this purpose in dark blue and white ware, with a plate to match, while the cream or milk may be held for common use in one good-sized pitcher, to be served by the mother, or passed to each, as may seem best. Every tea or coffee drinker should have his own cup and saucer, and in his imagination his favorite beverage will taste better from that cup than from any other. ”

“ We could have mock-turtle soup, a sole, curry, and roast duck. Agreed. At this table by this window. Punctually in an hour.
I had been feigning to look out of this window; but I had been taking note of the crumbs on all the tables, the dirty table-cloths, the stuffy soupy airless atmosphere, the stale leavings everywhere about, the deep gloom of the waiter who ought to wait upon us, and the stomach-ache with which a lonely traveller at a distant table in a corner was too evidently afflicted. I now pointed out to Bullfinch the alarming circumstance that this traveller had dined. ”

“ The moment you sit down a waiter with the inevitable teapot is at your elbow, depositing on the table before you a cup containing one grimy thumb. The tea and watermelon seeds are, as they say in the Moulin Rouge, “obligatoire”, but you are free to refuse threescore flies resting on a bar of candy, eggs of uncertain age whose whites have become black, or apples just the proper softness with which to pelt [177] actors. At the tables all around you men are audibly sipping tea or eating dishes of steaming viands, after which they wipe face and hands on hot towels which the waiters are passing. ”

“ At large gatherings a tray was often employed for passing refreshments (fig. 4) . “A servant brings in on a silver tray the cups, the sugar bowl, the cream jugs, pats of butter, and smoked meat, which are offered to each individual,” explained Ferdinand Bayard. [46] The principal use of the tray was, of course, to bring the tea equipage to the table. Whether placed on a bare or covered table, it arrived with the various pieces such as cups and saucers, spoons, containers for sugar and cream or milk, tongs, bowls, and dishes arranged about the teapot. ”

“ But just then one of the king’s guard smelled out that the lad who had owned the scissors and the table-cloth had a tap besides, which, if one only turned it a little, gave out the rarest drink, both ale, and mead, and wine. So when he came back to the palace, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut this time any more than before; he went about telling high and low about the tap, and how easy it was to draw all sorts of drink out of it.
“And as for that mead and ale, I’ve never tasted the like of them in the king’s palace; honey and syrup are nothing to them for sweetness.” ”

“ The soup is brought in and placed on the central table; each one helps himself, and, taking it to one of the small tables, eats at his leisure; the soup finished you serve yourself with fish, roast meats, chicken, and vegetables, in quantity and variety as you choose, and return to your table. The servants replenish the supplies on the large table, remove soiled plates and bring tea, coffee, beer, or wine, as ordered, to the occupants of the small tables, but each one must serve himself from the various courses, ending with pudding and nuts and raisins. ”

“ On the outside of the tavern, whither we betake ourselves to wash, are a tub of water, a basin and a towel, for all the guests; but as only one person can perform his ablutions at a time, it will be necessary for us to form ourselves in a line, and take our turn—the first comers being entitled to the front places. We are now ready to replenish the inner man. The bar is convenient for those who wish to imbibe. Breakfast is announced. We seat ourselves at the table. Before us is a reasonable quantity of beans, pork and flapjacks, served up in tin plates. ”

“ The well-worn black-board became an elegant buffet, and instead of long rows of figures, held pails of crystal water and jugs of sweet, fresh milk. A solar lamp of diminutive size graced the centre of the table, which groaned under the weight of cake, dough-nuts, bread and butter, and a variety of other articles too numerous to mention. ”

“ You get a bowl of good soup, a course of fish, a cut from the joint, a salad, two kinds of vegetables, with bread and butter, a biscuit and a bit of rich Gorgonzola or dry Wiltshire cheese to wind up with, and your whole bill will be four shillings, to which add threepence for “attendance,” which is charged in the bill, and about threepence more which you will hand to the waiter. A feature of the place is that the hot joint, over a chafing dish and on a small table, is wheeled round to you, and it is there cut before your eyes and transferred to your plate. ”

“ With whatever style of costume, gloves must be worn.
A lady who expects to have many calls, and who wishes to offer refreshments, should have hot tea and coffee and a bowl of punch on a convenient table; or, better still, a silver kettle filled with bouillon standing in the hall, so that a gentleman coming in or going out can take a cup of it unsolicited. If she lives in an English basement house, this table can be in the lower dining-room. In a house three rooms deep the table and all the refreshments can be in the usual dining-room or in the upper back-parlor. ”

“ Waiters are continually walking around, jostling the spectators and shouting the merits of their tobacco, candy, fruit or what not, and depositing teapots and steaming dishes of food wherever they are wanted. The most spectacular thing is the manner in which the towels arrive. One waiter throws them to the other in tightly wrapped bundles, the pitcher standing near the entrance and the catcher near the stage or wherever people need to wipe their hands and faces. ”

“ Place a folded napkin at the left of the plate, a bread and butter plate at the tips of the forks with butter spreader laid across the plate. Near the top of each plate individual pepper and salt cellars, at the right of each plate place a glass for water, and sugar bowl and cream pitcher at each end of the table.
Food should be passed at the left and placed at the right. When coffee and tea is served, place a cup at the right of each person.
When clearing off the table, food must be first removed, then the soiled dishes, glass, silver, then crumb. ”

“ At the proper hour, the party assemble at the tea-house, and give orders for the lunch, dinner, and frequent teas to be served during the day. The tea-house attendants conduct them to their box, and at each intermission come to see what is wanted, bringing in at the dinner-hour the large lacquer chow boxes with their courses of viands, that their patrons may dine comfortably where they sit. Everybody smokes, and each box has its little tabako bon, with its cone of glowing coals to light the tiny pipes, the rat-tat of the pipes, as the ashes are knocked out, often making a chorus to the action. ”

“ A tavern-keeper brought in some wine glasses stinking of whiskey, to which a cloth seemed never to have been applied; out of a pitcher of water he poured some into a glass, just shook it, and then throwing the water into the waiter upon which the wine stood, walked away satisfied with this proof of his cleanliness: and a female the other evening, in order to brush away the flies while we were at supper, flourished over our heads her dirty pocket handkerchief, in the absence of the brush of feathers fixed upon a long stick, which is generally waved over the dishes during the repast. ”

“ The spirit of the place steals over you. On entering, with a quarter of an hour to spare, your idea was a cutlet and a glass of claret. In the face of the refreshment-room waiter, the notion appears frivolous, not to say un-English. You order cold beef and pickles, with a pint of bitter in a tankard. To win the British waiter’s approval, you must always order beer in a tankard. The British waiter, in his ideals, is mediæval. ”

“ When the evening of the tea comes, and the guests have all been introduced one to another, they may be ushered into the dining-room and the supper be served. The dining-table should be arranged in as old-fashioned a style as possible. At the four corners place candlesticks with wax candles, and for a centrepiece have a large bouquet of artificial bachelors' buttons. Use old-fashioned china and silver if you happen to have any. At each place put a few bachelors' buttons, to which attach a menu card by a narrow white taffeta ribbon. ”

“ The Cups Feast-Master. Six? Eh! boys, eh! Come, rouse yourselves; throw your books aside, even as the stag seeks a corner to hide his horns. Prepare the table, cover it, place seats, napkins, round and square plates, bread; fly, quicker than the word. Let not our teacher complain of our slowness. Bring beer, one of you; another, draw water from the well and place the cups. What is the meaning of this—bringing them so unclean? Take them back into the kitchen so that the maid may rub them clean and wipe them thoroughly, whereby they may be bright and shining. ”

“ Suppose you are to serve panned oysters, on squares of toast, lettuce salad, bread and butter sandwiches and coffee, or Welsh rarebit, potato salad and coffee and sandwiches. Any of these is a good menu as you will not want sweets or ice cream at such a supper.
For safety place your chafing dishes on metal trays and do not fill the lamp too full. Many hostesses prefer to have their ingredients on the table in bowls which will not break and on Japanese trays and use wooden spoons for stirring as they do not become hot, and do not scratch the dishes. ”

“ When a lady does dispense with finger-bowls and follows the custom of a Grand Pacha in having passed to her guests a large silver bowl of rose water, in which each one in turn is expected to dip the tips of the fingers and wipe them on a pearl-fringed towel, she need not be surprised if the first guest, seeing this bowl of rare workmanship presented at her left hand, looks about on the tray for some spoon or ladle by [Pg 88] which she is to help herself to the pale beverage. ”

“ Should a gentleman send you wine at a public table, or ask the honor of a glass with you, observe when he raises his glass, and do the same, bowing, whether you drink or not.
2660. As a general rule, in helping any one at table, never use a knife when you can use a spoon.
2661. If at dinner you are requested to help any one to sauce, do not pour it over the meat or vegetables, but on one side.
2662. If you should have to carve and help a joint, do not load a person's plate—it is vulgar; also in serving soup, one ladleful to each plate is sufficient. ”

“ A fat, perspiring waiter—why do waiters always perspire?—had just carried in from a neighboring cafe a large tray bearing a tea-pot, a jug of hot water, plate of sandwiches, ditto of cute little cakes, and all the various accessories of tea-making and drinking. ”