Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration | Page 9

and plates and bringing in fresh ones--preside at either table
end, and the table is decorated (flowers and candles). At one end of the

luncheon cloth (or the table may be laid with doilies) stands the service
tray, with teapot, hot-water pot, creamer, sugar bowl with tongs and cut
sugar, and sliced lemons in dish with lemon fork. The tray also contains
cup and saucers (each saucer with spoon, handle paralleling cup). The
coffee, bouillon or chocolate service is established in the same manner
at the other end of the table. If coffee is served, the service tray is
equipped with urn, cream and sugar; if chocolate, whipped cream in
bowl with ladle; if bouillon, the urn alone.
Each lady who pours must have a large napkin convenient to guard her
gown. Arranged along the table should be plates of sandwiches and
cakes, bonbon dishes and dishes with salted nuts. But the table must not
be crowded. This important rule is responsible for the existence of the
frappe table.
The frappe table holds the afternoon tea punch. Since the dining room
is apt to be well filled as it is, the frappe table had best be established in
some other room. On its luncheon cloth is set the punch or frappe bowl
with ladle, and individual ices, frozen creams (not too rich or elaborate)
or punch are served in frappe or punch bowls by a friend of the hostess.
The small plates on which the frappe glasses are served should be piled
on the table with doilies (linen always) between the plates. When
served, the glass is filled with the sherbet or cream, and a sherbet spoon
laid at the right-hand side of plate (a tray of sherbet spoons belongs to
the frappe table equipment, as well as a filled cake basket, dishes of
candy, piles of small plates and small linen napkins). Unless you are
entertaining guests to the number of a hundred or more, _never use
paper doilies at a formal afternoon tea_!
A pretty custom dictates that young girl friends of the hostess serve the
guests. They provide the latter with plate and napkin, ask their choice
of beverage, and serve it, together with sandwiches and cakes. Or the
plates and napkins may be handed the guests as they enter by a waitress
stationed at the door, before they are served by the young girls.
A salad should never be offered at a formal afternoon tea! To do so is
to commit a social solecism.

CHAPTER VIII
SUPPERS
Supper, "the evening meal," the last of the day, in modern usage often
is actually a dinner, the most elaborate meal; the place of the former
dinner being taken by the luncheon. A supper is often a particularly
elaborate dinner or banquet, as, for instance, the "class supper."
THE LATE SUPPER
The late supper, often given after a theatre party, or a card party, is
always an informal affair. Its favorite form is what might be called the
"chafing dish supper," where should they wish, the guests may help
themselves.
Two chafing dishes or one may grace the table (laid with luncheon
cloth or luncheon set, flowers and candles) according to the number of
guests. The chafing dish is set before the hostess on a metal tray resting
on an asbestos mat. A teakettle of boiling water, an electric toaster (the
asbestos mat of the chafing dish laid over the flame may also be used
for keeping toast or croutons made in the kitchen warm while on the
table), and plates already heated go with the chafing dish. Also, near at
hand, should be matches, an extra napkin, a "sampling" fork and spoon,
and a bowl of some sort for burned matches and the "sampling silver."
All that is to be cooked, dry or liquid, should already have been
measured and be ready for use. All bowls, small dishes and pitchers
containing ingredients for any one dish should be grouped on a single
tray, at the left of the person attending to the chafing dish.
Chafing-dish rarebits may be of every kind, and every rarebit should
have some main dominating flavor, as green or red pepper, onion,
tomato, etc. Cheese souffles or sweet souffles are also successful
chafing-dish products, as well as cooked fish heated in a piquant sauce.
For chafing-dish purposes there are available: Meats: Beef, Venison,
Lamb, Cooked Tongue, Bacon and Ham, Chicken, Chicken Livers and

Sweetbreads. Sea Food: Lobster, Terrapin, Crab Meat, Frogs' Legs,
Oysters, Shrimps, Scallops, Sardines, Salmon and Finnan Haddie. Eggs,
Cheese, Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Peas should also be included with
this list.
Sliced and toasted bread or crackers heated usually form the basis of
the chafing-dish preparation. Rarebits suppose toast or crackers, but
creamed dishes demand toast. The chafing dish also pays homage to the
sweet