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Read Ebook: What to Eat How to Serve it by Herrick Christine Terhune
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Ebook has 650 lines and 57726 words, and 13 pages
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THE DINING-ROOM 1
AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 16
MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST 24
THE INVALID'S BREAKFAST 32
A BREAKFAST-PARTY 40
FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SPRING 48
FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR SUMMER 58
FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR AUTUMN 68
FAMILY BREAKFASTS FOR WINTER 77
AT LUNCHEON 88
A SMALL LUNCHEON 96
A LARGE LUNCHEON 104
A STANDING LUNCH 112
THE LUNCH BASKET 120
FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SPRING 128
FAMILY LUNCHES FOR SUMMER 137
FAMILY LUNCHES FOR AUTUMN 147
FAMILY LUNCHES FOR WINTER 157
DINNER AT NIGHT 165
DINNER AT NOON 173
THE SUNDAY DINNER 181
THE SMALL DINNER-PARTY 188
A LARGE DINNER 196
FAMILY DINNERS FOR SPRING 204
FAMILY DINNERS FOR SUMMER 213
FAMILY DINNERS FOR AUTUMN 221
FAMILY DINNERS FOR WINTER 230
WHAT SHALL WE EAT? 239
THE CHILDREN'S TABLE 247
THE FAMILY TEA 255
AFTERNOON TEA 263
HIGH TEA 271
SOME HINTS ABOUT SUPPER 279
CHINA AND GLASS 288
LINEN AND SILVER 296
INDEX 305
THE DINING-ROOM
The apartment in which the members of a family assemble three times a day for meals must be pleasant. There is a chance to escape from any other part of the house. The business man rarely sees his drawing-room until after the shades are drawn and the lamps lighted. The wife and mother divides her time between nursery, sewing-room, and kitchen, while school-children are out of the house nearly as much as they are in it--at least during their waking hours. But no matter how widely the little flock may be scattered by their different employments, always twice and often three times a day they are all together in this common rallying-place of the home.
Only in the houses of the wealthy, or of those possessed of exceptionally large dwellings, is there found a breakfast-room other than that in which are eaten all the meals of the family. English mansions frequently possess both a family and a state dining-room, and the same custom prevails in some of the private palaces of our own millionaires; but in the average American home one room must do duty for every repast, whether simple or superb; and in our large cities this apartment is too likely, alas! to be situated in the basement.
A few housekeepers express their preference for basement dining-rooms because of the nearness of these to the kitchen, and the work saved thereby. This is an important consideration in houses where but one maid is kept. Her work as cook and waitress is almost doubled when she has to run up-stairs to remove the dishes from the dumb-waiter, and then fly back to her kitchen between the intervals of waiting on the table. In the country and in country towns it is the rule rather than the exception to find the kitchen in the L, or as an extension, and on the same floor with the dining-room and parlor, but in the majority of city houses the apartment in which the family gathers at meal-times is a little below ground. When this is the case, and when there is no possibility of converting the back parlor up-stairs into a dining-room by introducing a dumb-waiter and pantry, or when expediency or want of space precludes such a change, the best must be made of existing circumstances, and the efforts redoubled to render the despised basement as pleasant as possible.
The wall-paper must never be dark in a room like this, which at the best of times is never too light. Choose instead a creamy ground well covered with some small figure, or, better still, an ingrain paper of a solid color--a soft gray, a pale green, a cream, or one of those indescribable neutral tints that make good backgrounds, and furnish well but not obtrusively.
Unless the room is wainscoted with wood, a very pretty and inexpensive substitute can be made of India matting, secured at the top by a narrow band of wood moulding. The matting can be washed off with salt and water whenever it needs cleansing. An excellent plan is that of having the walls done in hard finish, and then painting this. The surface can then be scoured as often as it becomes stained or specked, and will always look neat and fresh. An additional coat of paint can be put on when the first becomes worn or faded.
In a rented house the tenants must, of course, take what they can get, and in many cases the landlord is unwilling to make changes. Still, pretty pictures, draperies, neat furniture, and a well-set table will do wonders, even for a room that appears unpromising at the outset.
It never pays to purchase an expensive carpet for the ordinary dining-room. Something durable should be selected, like an ingrain of a mixed color, or with a minute, closely-set figure. Better still is a rug, an art square, or a Smyrna rug, neither of which is high-priced, while either is satisfactory both in appearance and in wearing qualities.
The floor should be stained or painted, for a distance of from two to three feet from the wall all around the room, in a neat dark color. Borders of wood-carpeting are handsome and last a long time, but are costly, and one does not often find hard-wood floors in a rented house. The rug may be either laid loosely or tacked down around the edges.
The draperies in a dining-room should not be heavy. Not only do such darken the room, but they catch and retain the odors of food, and hold constantly in their folds depressing reminders of former feasts. Scrim, lace, or light Madras or China silk, decorates the room and softens outlines without impeding the entrance of light or air. Shades are essential, and so should be also window-screens from the appearance of the first fly in the spring until the last one has vanished in the fall.
Basement dining-rooms are seldom too cold. If they are heated by a register or a stove, or even by a coal fire in the grate, the constant struggle of the housekeeper is to prevent their becoming uncomfortably warm. Vicinity to the kitchen has much to do with this, and is in summer-time a serious draw-back to comfort. An equable temperature must be striven for by frequent airing at all seasons, and during the heated term by shading the windows, and by keeping, as much as possible, the doors shut that communicate with the kitchen. One advantage at least is possessed by the basement dining-room in summer. In common with the cellar, or with any other partially subterranean chamber, it is cooler than one that is above ground and thus unprotected from the hot air without.
The best method of artificially lighting a dining-room is hard to decide. Nothing is prettier or pleasanter than candle-light, and it is preferable to gas or lamps in that it does not heat a room perceptibly. But candles are expensive, if enough are used to produce a respectable illumination, and nothing is more dismal than eating by a dim light. Good candles are costly, and cheap ones not only give a poor light, but drip and smoke and smell, and are otherwise intolerable. A new style of candle has recently been introduced which is pierced through its length with three holes. These tiny pipes are supposed to carry off the melted wax, and their advocates claim that these candles will not drip on the outside.
Except on state occasions, candles are barred out for people of moderate means, and they must have recourse to lamps or gas. The light should always be suspended above the table, except, of course, where candles and candelabra or a tall-stemmed lamp are used. A side-light does not serve the purpose of a central one, for some one must always sit with his back towards it, and his plate is thus in a perpetual eclipse. Pretty hanging lamps come at all prices, but it never pays to get a cheap one. It may do very well for a time, but before long the burner will be out of order; the machinery by which the wick is turned up or down will prove refractory, and repairs will do little good. The only efficient way of mending a poor lamp is by buying a new one.
Among the best-known makes of lamps there is one with a powerful burner which gives a clear, steady flame, equal to two or three ordinary gas-jets. The only draw-back connected with it is the intense heat it radiates, which makes it objectionable in summer. Such a lamp costs about seven dollars, is furnished with a large ground-glass shade, and supplied with fixtures and a chain, by means of which it may be raised and lowered at pleasure.
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