DINNERS AND LUNCHEONS

Formal dinners.

“A fig for your bill of fare; show me your bill of company,”

As has already been remarked, we ask our “dear Five Hundred” to our balls and receptions, reserving our dinner invitations for those whom we particularly wish to compliment.  The dinner we provide is by no means of the comfortable “pot-Iuck” kind.  It is, in society, an elaborate and expensive form of entertainment.  A dinner to eight people, not specially elaborate and without wines, rarely costs the giver less than $25 or $30, and may easily run much higher.  It requires delicacies for the palate, flowers and bonbons and other decorations for the table, and ceremonious serving.  The finest of linen, cut glass and silver adorn it, and the repast may easily be prolonged through two or more hours.  Such a dinner is served in courses; begins with an appetizer, extends through soup, fish, joint, salad and dessert courses at the very least, and ends with coffee, served at the table or in some other apartment—­the library or drawing room—­where the guests converse over their cups.

Such a meal cannot be prepared or served without competent service in the kitchen and dining-room.  The cook must know how to prepare every dish in the best manner, and have it ready at the right moment; the waiter must be experienced and noiseless.  The hostess must have such perfect confidence that everything will progress in perfect and proper order that she can give her full attention to the guests,

Serving the Dinner.—­Let us suppose a dinner for eight people is to be served.  The ceremonious dinner, the world over, is served a la Russe, that is, according to the Russian fashion.  By this fashion nothing but the covers—­a term which includes the china, silver and glass at each plate—­flowers, dishes of bonbons, salted nuts and olives, occasionally small cakes, are on the table when the guests are seated,

[Manners and social customs 699]

The hostess has inspected the table, after it is laid, seeing that everything is correct, Silver must have had a fresh polish, the cut glass must shine and sparkle, There must be plenty of light, yet no glare; to prevent this, ground glass globes on the electric lights are preferred.  The hostess herself will arrange the place cards, separating married people, and in so far as possible so seating her guests that each may be pleased with his or her neighbor.  The centerpiece is of flowers; for this never choose a strongly scented flower like hyacinths or narcissi.  The heat, the odor of the food, combined with the scent of the flowers, may induce lethargy, so that the dinner may be “garnished with stupidity.”