Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration | Page 7

order stand the water goblet and the iced tea glass or appolinaris glass. The wineglasses (usually no more than three wines are served) are grouped to the right of the water goblet. Their order is that of use. (There are separate glasses for high and low cocktail, sherry, sauterne, claret, champagne, cordials and whiskey.) Each guest has his own nut dish, placed directly before him. Candles are lit and water glasses half-filled a few minutes in advance of the dinner announcement, and the hostess already having arranged place cards before this is done.
THE COURSES
The "initial" course may be placed on the table before dinner is announced or may be served after. If, however, you serve cocktails in the drawing room with the accompanying caviar or lettuce sandwiches, or if you serve a canape, do not repeat the latter as the opening of the dinner. For instance, you should not serve a Lobster Canape in the drawing room and a Finnan Haddie Canape at the dinner table. Fruit cocktails of every kind, and canapes are in order for this commencement of the meal.
A GOOD FRUIT COCKTAIL RECIPE
Mix shredded pineapple, halved strawberries, (fresh, not preserved), with grapefruit pulp, the pulp in a two to one proportion to the pineapple, chill and cover with wine dressing. To be served in champagne glass, with top garnish of a large strawberry for each glass.
The soup course may be preceded by one of fruit, where the cocktail or canape has been served in the drawing room. Supposing it to be strawberries, the berries will already be waiting in a small plate when the guests take their seats upon entering the dining room. They should be unhulled, large, selected berries, and may be eaten either by hand (dipped in the sugar mound into which they are thrust on the plate) or with the strawberry fork. The serving of a finger bowl with this course is a matter of taste.
When this course has been removed, the soup is served, and the head waitress pours the sherry, while cakes and olives are passed by a second waitress.
If fish comes next--we will presume the fish to be Shad a la Delmonico, Halibut a la Meniere or Turbans of Flounder--it is passed in the platter, followed by rolls and Cucumber Ribbons, Dressed Cucumbers or Sliced Cucumbers, as the case may be. Then the fish course is taken from the table and we come to the entree.
If one entree is the limit it precedes the roast. Where you have two entrees the heavy (meat) entree comes first, then the lighter (vegetable) one. Let us say we have only Delmonico Tomatoes or Mushroom Croquettes. We would carry on next with our roast fowl or flesh. But if we have Oyster and Mushroom Patties and Roast Ham with Cider Sauce as entrees, the Roast Ham, being the heavier, should be served first.
Our roast--the champagne was poured from the right side with the right_ hand _after the removal of the fish plates--is now due. The entree plates in turn have been taken away and the warm dinner plates substituted for them. Ah, the roast! What shall it be? There is so much from which to choose. It cannot be too epicurean for a formal dinner. Fillet of Beef Larded with Truffles, with a Brown Mushroom Sauce; Crown of Lamb (crowned with Green Peas and surrounded by Fried Potato Balls); Roast Turkey with Truffle Gravy; Venison Saddle, Chateaubriand of Beef, Sirloin Steak, there is no lack of choice.
When both roast and game are served, a frozen punch is supposed to draw the line of demarcation between them, and the salad enters with the game instead of being counted as an individual course.
While one waitress passes the roast, another follows with the potatoes. Other vegetables and rolls then come in order and, if the nut dishes of any of the guests are empty, they are refilled.
When more than a single meat course is served at a formal dinner, the sorbets and frozen punches should be dropped. In such a case they are only permissible at an especially large official dinner, a banquet or a large hotel spread.
After dinner plates have been taken away the salad (already arranged on the plate, the fork on the right hand side) is served from the right, and sandwiches are passed. The variety of possible salads has already been alluded to in the consideration of the formal luncheon, hence nothing need be added here on that head.
With the emptied salad plate are removed peppers and salts (on tray) and the table crumbed, the ice cream plate (as at the formal luncheon) is placed. The ice cream mold is passed with _the mold already cut, but retaining its shape_, to facilitate the guest's helping himself. Together with the ice cream, the accompanying small