Another feature of luncheon service, which is always omitted at dinner, is the bread and butter plate.

The Bread and Butter Plate

The butter plate has been entirely dispossessed by the bread and butter plate, which is part of the luncheon service always—­as well as of breakfast and supper.  It is a very small plate about five and a half to six and a half inches in diameter, and is put at the left side of each place just beyond the forks.  Butter is sometimes put on the plate by the servant (as in a restaurant) but usually it is passed.  Hot breads are an important feature of every luncheon; hot crescents, soda biscuits, bread biscuits, dinner rolls, or corn bread, the latter baked in small pans like pie plates four inches in diameter.  Very thin bread that is roasted in the oven until it is curled and light brown (exactly like a large Saratoga chip), is often made for those who don’t eat butter, and is also suitable for dinner.  This “double-baked” bread, toast, and one or two of the above varieties, are all put in an old-fashioned silver cake-basket, or actual basket of wicker, and passed as often as necessary.  Butter is also passed (or helped) throughout the meal until the table is cleared for dessert.  Bread and butter plates are always removed with the salt and pepper pots.

=THE SERVICE OF LUNCHEON=

The service is identical with that of dinner.  Carving is done in the kitchen and no food set on the table except ornamental dishes of fruit, candy and nuts.  The plate service is also the same as at dinner.  The places are never left plateless, excepting after salad, when the table is cleared and crumbed for dessert.  The dessert plates and finger bowls are arranged as for dinner.  Flowers are usually put in the finger bowls, a little spray of any sweet-scented flower, but “corsage bouquets” laid at the places with flower pins complete are in very bad taste.

=THE LUNCHEON MENU=

Five courses at most (not counting the passing of a dish of candy or after-dinner coffee as a course), or more usually four actual courses, are thought sufficient in the smartest houses.  Not even at the Worldlys’ or the Gildings’ will you ever see a longer menu than: 

1.  Fruit, or soup in cups 2.  Eggs 3.  Meat and vegetables 4.  Salad 5.  Dessert

or

1.  Fruit 2.  Soup 3.  Meat and vegetables 4.  Salad 5.  Dessert

or

1.  Fruit 2.  Soup 3.  Eggs 4.  Fowl or “tame” game with salad 5.  Dessert

An informal lunch menu is seldom more than four courses and would eliminate either No. 1 or No. 2 or No. 5.

The most popular fruit course is a macedoine or mixture of fresh orange, grape fruit, malaga grapes, banana, and perhaps a peach or a little pineapple; in fact, any sort of fruit cut into very small pieces, with sugar and maraschino, or rum, for flavor—­or nothing but sugar—­served in special bowl-shaped glasses that fit into long-stemmed and much larger ones, with a space for crushed ice between; or it can just as well be put in champagne or any bowl-shaped glasses, after being kept as cold as possible in the ice-box until sent to the table.