Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration | Page 7

soiled
dishes, open wine bottles (yes, this is still done!) and be prepared to do
anything else which will help make the dinner a success.
THE WHAT'S WHAT OF A FORMAL DINNER
The fine damask tablecloth is a feature--though the table is set
practically as though for a formal luncheon--and large-size dinner
napkins are the rule. The parsnips of circumstance are not buttered at
the formal dinner, though the bread and butter plate sometimes shows
its face as a serving convenience for bread, celery, olives and radishes.
Wineglasses still appear in formal dinners given _in private_. This
provides for quite an array of glassware. At the point of the knives, in
the following 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