Part 8

The boldest attempts to increase the enjoyments of the palate, or to tell people what they shall eat or drink, are constantly overthrown by some subtile enemy in the stomach; and breakfasts should especially be so light that they can tickle the palate without disturbing the brain. A red herring is a good appetizer.

"Meet me at breakfast alone, And then I will give you a dish Which really deserves to be known, Though 'tis not the genteelest of fish. You must promise to come, for I said A splendid red herring I'd buy. Nay, turn not aside your proud head; You'll like it, I know, when you try.

"If moisture the herring betray, Drain till from the moisture 'tis free. Warm it through in the usual way, Then serve it for you and for me. A piece of cold butter prepare, To rub it when ready it lies; Egg sauce and potatoes don't spare, And the flavour will cause you surprise."

It is not only the man who has eaten a heavy supper the night before; it is not only the heavy drinker, although brandy and soda are not the best of appetite provokers, so they say; but it is also the brainworker who finds it impossible to eat in the morning. For sleep has the effect of eating. Who sleeps, eats, says the French proverb; and we often find healthy children unwilling to eat an early breakfast. Appetites vary both in individuals and at various seasons of the year. Nothing can be more unwise than to make children eat when they do not wish to do so. During the summer months we are all of us less inclined for food than when sharp set by hard exercise in the frosty air; and we loathe in July what we like in winter.

The heavy domestic breakfast of steak and mutton-chops in summer is often repellent to a delicate child. The perfection of good living is to have what you want exactly when you want it. A slice of fresh melon, a plate of strawberries, a thin slice of bread and butter may be much better for breakfast in summer than the baked beans and stewed codfish of a later season. Do not force a child to eat even a baked potato if he does not like it.

It is maintained by some that a strong will can keep off sea-sickness or any other malady. This is a fallacy. No strong will can make a delicate stomach digest a heavy breakfast at nine o'clock. Therefore we begin and end with the same idea,--breakfast is a hard thing to manage in America.

In England, however, it is a very happy-go-lucky meal; and although the essentials are on the table, people are privileged to rise and help themselves from the sideboard. I may say that I have never seen a fashionable English hostess at a nine o'clock breakfast, although the meal is always ready for those who wish it.

For sending breakfasts to rooms, trays are prepared with teapot, sugar, and cream, a plate of toast, eggs boiled, with cup, spoon, salt and pepper, a little pat of butter, and if desired a plate of chops or chicken, plates, knives, forks, and napkins. For an English country-house the supply of breakfast trays is like that of a hotel. The pretty little Satsuma sets of small teapot, cream jug, and sugar-bowl, are favourites.

When breakfast is served in the dining-room, a white cloth is generally laid, although some ladies prefer variously coloured linen, with napkins to match. A vase of flowers or a dish of fruit should be placed in the centre. The table is then set as for dinner, with smaller plates and all sorts of pretty china, like an egg dish with a hen sitting contentedly, a butter plate with a recumbent cow, a sardine dish with fishes in Majolica,--in fact, any suggestive fancy. Hot plates for a winter breakfast in a plate-warmer near the table add much to the comfort.

Finger bowls with napkins under them should be placed on the sideboard and handed to the guest with the fruit. It is a matter of taste as to whether fruit precedes or finishes the breakfast; and the servant must watch the decision of the guest.

A grand breakfast to a distinguished foreigner, or some great home celebrity at Delmonico's for instance, would be,--

A table loaded with flowers. Oysters on the half-shell. Chablis. Eggs stuffed. Eggs in black butter, (au beurre noir). Chops and green peas. Champagne. Lyonnaise potatoes. Sweetbreads. Spinach. Woodcock. Partridges. Salad of lettuce. Claret. Cheese fondu. DESSERT: Charlotte Russe. Fruit Jelly. Ices. Liqueurs. Grapes. Peaches. Pears. Coffee.

A breakfast even at twelve o'clock is thus made noticeably lighter than the meal called lunch. It may be introduced by clam juice in cups, or bouillon, but is often served without either. These breakfasts are generally prefaced by a short reception, where all the guests are presented to the foreigner of distinction. There is no formality about leaving. Indeed, these breakfasts are given in order to avoid that.

For an ordinary breakfast at nine o'clock in a family of ten, we should say that the menu should be something as follows: The host and hostess being present, the lady makes the tea. Oatmeal and cream would then be offered; after that a broiled chicken would be placed before the host, which he carves if he can. An omelet is placed before the lady or passed; stewed potatoes are passed, and toast or muffins. Hot cakes finish this breakfast, unless fruit is also added. It is considered a very healthful thing to eat an orange before breakfast. But who can eat an orange well? One must go to Spain to see that done. The señorita cuts off the rind with her silver knife. Then putting her fork into the peeled fruit, she gently detaches small slices from the pulp, leaving the core and seeds untouched; passing the fork upward, she detaches every morsel with her pearly teeth, looking very pretty the while, and contrives to eat the whole orange without losing a drop of the juice, and lays down the core with the fork still in it.

It seems hardly necessary to say to an American lady that she should be neatly dressed at breakfast. The pretty white morning dresses which are worn in America are rarely seen in Europe, perhaps because of the difference of climate. In England elderly ladies and young married women sometimes appear in very smart tea gowns of dark silk over a colour; but almost always the young ladies come in the yachting or tennis dresses which they will wear until dinner-time, and almost always in summer, in hats. In America the variety of morning dresses is endless, of which the dark jacket over a white vest, the serviceable merino, the flannel, the dark foulards, are favourites.

In summer, thin lawns, percales, Marseilles suits, calicos, and ginghams can be so prettily made as to rival all the other costumes for coquetry and grace.

"Still to be neat, still to be drest As she were going to a feast,"

such should be the breakfast dress of the young matron. It need not be fine; it need not be expensive; but it should be neat and becoming. The hair should be carefully arranged, and the feet either in good, stout shoes for the subsequent walk, or in the natty stocking and well fitting slipper, which has moved the poet to such feeling verses.

THE LUNCH.

"A Gothic window, where a damask curtain Made the blank daylight shadowy and uncertain; A slab of agate on four eagle-talons Held trimly up and neatly taught to balance; A porcelain dish, o'er which in many a cluster Plump grapes hung down, dead ripe, and without lustre; A melon cut in thin, delicious slices, A cake, that seemed mosaic-work in spices; Two china cups, with golden tulips sunny, And rich inside, with chocolate like honey; And she and I the banquet scene completing With dreamy words, and very pleasant eating."

If all lunches could be as poetic and as simple and as luxurious as this, the hostess would have little trouble in giving a lunch. But, alas! from the slice of cold ham, or chicken, and bread and butter, has grown the grand hunt breakfast, and the ladies' lunch, most delicious of luxurious time-killers. The lunch, therefore, has become in the house of the opulent as elaborate as the dinner.

Twenty years ago in England I had the pleasure of lunching with Lord Houghton, and I well remember the simplicity of that meal. A cup of bouillon, a joint of mutton, roasted, and carved by the host, a tart, some peaches, very fine hot-house fruit, and a glass of sherry was all that was served on a very plain table to twenty guests. But what a company of wits, belles, and beauties we had to eat it! I once lunched with Browning on a much simpler bill of fare. I have lunched at the beautiful house of Sir John Millais on what might have been a good family dinner with us. And I have lunched in Hampton Court, in the apartments of Mr. Beresford, now dead, who was a friend of George the Fourth and an old Tory whipper-in, on a slice of cold meat, a cutlet, a gooseberry tart, and some strawberries as large as tomatoes from the garden which was once Anne Boleyn's.

What a great difference between these lunches and a ladies' lunch in New York, which, laid for twenty-eight people, offers every kind of wine, every luxury of fish, flesh, and fowl, flowers which exhibit the most overwhelming luxury of an extravagant period, fruits and bonbons and bonbonnières, painted fans to carry home, with ribbons on which is painted one's monogram, etc.

I have seen summer wild-flowers in winter at a ladies' lunch, as the last concession to a fancy for what is unusual. The order having been given in September, the facile gardener raised these flowers for this especial lunch. Far more expensive than roses at a dollar apiece is this bringing of May into January. It is impossible to say where luxury should stop; and, if people can afford it, there is no necessity for its stopping. It is only to be regretted that luxury frightens those who might like to give simple lunches.

A lunch-party of ladies should not be crowded, as handsome gowns take up a great deal of room; and therefore a lunch for ten ladies in a moderate house is better than a larger number. As ladies always wear their bonnets the room should not be too hot.

The menu is very much the same as a dinner, excepting the soup. In its place cups of bouillon or of clam juice, boiled with cream and a bit of sherry, are placed before each plate. There follows presumably a plate of lobster croquettes with a rich sauce, filet de boeuf with truffles and mushrooms, sweetbread and green peas, perhaps asparagus or cauliflower.

Then comes sorbet, or Roman punch, much needed to cool the palate and to invigorate the appetite for further delicacies. The Roman punch is now often served in very fanciful frozen shapes of ice, resembling roses, or fruit of various kinds. If a lady is not near a confectioner she should learn to make this herself. It is very easy, if one only compounds it at first with care, Maraschino cordial or fine old Jamaica rum being mixed with water and sugar as for a punch, and well frozen.

The game follows, and the salad. These two are often served together. After that the ices and fruit. Cheese is rarely offered at a lady's lunch, excepting in the form of cheese straws. Château Yquem, champagne, and claret are the favourite wines. Cordial is offered afterward with the coffee. A lady's lunch-party is supposed to begin at one o'clock and end at three.