Part 10

In eating stone fruit, such as cherries, damsons, &c., the same rule had better be observed. Some put the stones out from the month into a spoon, and so convey them to the plate. Others cover the lips with the hand, drop them unseen into the palm, and so deposit them on the side of the plate. In our own opinion, the last is the better way, as it effectually conceals the return of the stones, which is certainly the point of highest importance. Of one thing we may be sure, and that is, that they must never be dropped from the mouth to the plate.

In helping sauce, always pour it on the side of the plate.

If the servants do not go round with the wine (which is by far the best custom), the gentlemen at a dinner-table should take upon themselves the office of helping those ladies who sit near them. Young ladies seldom drink more than three glasses of wine at dinner; but married ladies, professional ladies, and those accustomed to society and habits of affluence, will habitually take five or even six, whether in their own homes or at the tables of their friends.

The habit of taking wine with each other has almost wholly gone out of fashion. A gentleman may ask the lady whom he conducted down to dinner; or he may ask the lady of the house to take wine with him. But even these last remnants of the old custom are fast falling into disuse.

Unless you are a total abstainer, it is extremely uncivil to decline taking wine if you are invited to do so. In accepting, you have only to pour a little fresh wine into your glass, look at the person who invited you, bow slightly, and take a sip from the glass.

It is particularly ill-bred to empty your glass on these occasions.

Certain wines are taken with certain dishes, by old-established custom--as sherry, or sauterne, with soup and fish; hock and claret with roast meat; punch with turtle; champagne with whitebait; port with venison; port, or burgundy, with game; sparkling wines between the roast and the confectionery; madeira with sweets; port with cheese; and for dessert, port, tokay, madeira, sherry, and claret. Red wines should never be iced, even in summer. Claret and burgundy should always be slightly warmed; claret-cup and champagne-cup should, of course, be iced.

Instead of cooling their wines in the ice-pail, some hosts have of late years introduced clear ice upon the table, broken up in small lumps, to be put inside the glasses. This is an innovation that cannot be too strictly reprehended or too soon abolished. Melting ice can but weaken the quality and flavour of the wine. Those who desire to drink wine and water can ask for iced water if they choose; but it savours too much of economy on the part of a host to insinuate the ice inside the glasses of his guests when the wine could be more effectually iced outside the bottle.

A silver knife and fork should be placed to each guest at dessert.

It is wise never to partake of any dish without knowing of what ingredients it is composed. You can always ask the servant who hands it to you, and you thereby avoid all danger of having to commit the impoliteness of leaving it, and showing that you do not approve of it.

Never speak while you have anything in your mouth.

Be careful never to taste soups or puddings till you are sure they are sufficiently cool; as, by disregarding this caution, you may be compelled to swallow what is dangerously hot, or be driven to the unpardonable alternative of returning it to your plate.

When eating or drinking, avoid every kind of audible testimony to the facts.

Finger-glasses, containing water slightly warmed and perfumed, are placed to each person at dessert. In these you may dip the tips of your fingers, wiping them afterwards on your table-napkin. If the finger-glass and doyley are placed on your dessert-plate, you should immediately remove the doyley to the left of your plate, and place the finger-glass upon it. By these means you leave the right for the wine-glasses.

Be careful to know the shapes of the various kinds of wine-glasses commonly in use, in order that you may never put forward one for another. High and narrow, and very broad and shallow glasses, are used for champagne; large, goblet-shaped glasses for burgundy and claret; ordinary wine-glasses for sherry and madeira; green glasses for hock; and somewhat large, bell-shaped glasses, for port.

Port, sherry, and madeira, are decanted. Hocks and champagnes appear in their native bottles. Claret and burgundy are handed round in a claret-jug.

The servants leave the room when the dessert is on the table.

Coffee and liqueurs should be handed round when the dessert has been about a quarter of an hour on the table. After this, the ladies generally retire.

The lady of the house should never send away her plate, or appear to have done eating, till all her guests have finished.

If you should unfortunately overturn or break anything, do not apologize for it. You can show your regret in your face, but it is not well-bred to put it into words.

To abstain from taking the last piece on the dish, or the last glass of wine in the decanter, only because it is the last, is highly ill-bred. It implies a fear on your part that the vacancy cannot be supplied, and almost conveys an affront to your host.

To those ladies who have houses and servants at command, we have one or two remarks to offer. Every housekeeper should be acquainted with the routine of a dinner and the etiquette of a dinner-table. No lady should be utterly dependent on the taste and judgment of her cook. Though she need not know how to dress a dish, she should be able to judge of it when served. The mistress of a house, in short, should be to her cook what a publisher is to his authors--that is to say, competent to form a judgment upon their works, though himself incapable of writing even a magazine article.

If you wish to give a good dinner, and do not know in what manner to set about it, you will do wisely to order it from Birch, Kühn, or any other first-rate restaurateur. By these means you ensure the best cookery and a faultless carte.

Bear in mind that it is your duty to entertain your friends in the best manner that your means permit. This is the least you can do to recompense them for the expenditure of time and money which they incur in accepting your invitation.

"To invite a friend to dinner," says Brillat Savarin, "is to become responsible for his happiness so long as he is under your roof." Again:--"He who receives friends at his table, without having bestowed his personal supervision upon the repast placed before them, is unworthy to have friends."

A dinner, to be excellent, need not consist of a great variety of dishes; but everything should be of the best, and the cookery should be perfect. That which should be cool should be cool as ice; that which should be hot should be smoking; the attendance should be rapid and noiseless; the guests well assorted; the wines of the best quality; the host attentive and courteous; the room well lighted; and the time punctual.

Every dinner should begin with soup, be followed by fish, and include some kind of game. "The soup is to the dinner," we are told by Grisnod de la Regnière, "what the portico is to a building, or the overture to an opera."

To this aphorism we may be permitted to add that a chasse of cognac or curaçoa at the close of the dinner is like the epilogue at the end of a comedy.