Lunch

Description

This section is from the book "Practical Cooking And Dinner Giving", by Mary F. Henderson. Also available from Amazon: Practical Cooking And Dinner Giving.

Lunch

This is more espccially a ladies' meal. If one gives a lunch party, ladies alone are generally invited. It is an informal meal on ordinary occasions, when every thing is placed upon the ta ble at once. A servant remains in the room only long enough to serve the first round of dishes, then leaves, supposing that confidential conversation may be desired. Familiar friends oft-en "happen in" to lunch, and are always to be expected.

Some fashionable ladies have the reputation of having very fine lunches - chops, chickens, oysters, salads, chocolate, and many other good things being provided; and others, just as fashionable, have nothing but a cup of tea or chocolate, some thin slices of bread and butter, and cold meat; or, if of Teu-tonic taste, nothing but cheese, crackers, and ale, thus reserv-ing the appetite for dinner.

In entertaining at lunch, the dishes are served in the same manner as for dinner. Each dish is served as a separate course. It may be placed on the table before the hostess, if the lunch party is not very large; but it is generally served from the side. The table is also decorated in the same manner as for dinner, with a centre-piece of flowers or of fruit, and with various compotiers around the centre, containing fruits, bonbons, little fancy cakes, Indian or other preserves, etc. Other ornaments, in Dres-den china, majolica ware, Venetian or French glass, etc., filled with flowers, are often seen. Little dishes of common glass in different shapes, as crosses, quarter-moons, etc., about an inch high (see cuts, page 58), are also filled with flowers, and placed at symmetrical distances. As the last-mentioned decorations are very cheap, every one may indulge in them, and consider that there are no more beautiful ornaments, after all.

The lunch-table is generally covered with a colored table-cloth.

The principal dishes served are patés, croquettes, shell-fish, game, salads - in fact, ail kinds of entrées and cold desserts, or I may say dishes are preferred which do not require carving. Bouillon is generally served as a first course in bouillon cups, which are quite like large coffee-cups, or coffee or tea cups may be used, although any dinner soup served in soup-plates is en regle. A cup of chocolate, with whipped cream on the top, is often served as another course.

I will give five bills of fare, reserved from five very nice little lunch parties:

Mrs. Colliers Lunch (February 2d)

Bouillon; sherry. Roast oysters on half-shell; Sauterne. Little vols-au-vent of oysters. Thin scollops, or cuts of fillet of beef, braised; French pease; Champagne. Chicken croquettes, garnished with fried parsley; potato croquettes. Cups of chocolate, with whipped cream. Salad - lettuce dressed with tarragon. Biscuits glacés; fruit-ices. Fruit. Bonbons.