A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at SchoolBeecher, Catharine Esther
General
A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Home economics
A table-rug, or crumb-cloth, is useful to save carpets from injury.
Bocking, or baize, is best. Always spread the same side up, or the
carpet will be soiled by the rug. Table-mats are needful, to prevent
injury to the table from the warm dishes. Teacup-mats, or small plates,
are useful to save the table-cloths from dripping tea or coffee.
Butter-knives, for the butter-plate, and salt-spoons, for salt-dishes,
are designed to prevent those disgusting marks which are made, when
persons use their own knives, to take salt or butter. A sugar-spoon
should be kept in or by the sugar-dish, for the same purpose.
Table-napkins, of diaper, are often laid by each person's plate, for
use during the meal, to save the tablecloth and pocket-handkerchief. To
preserve the same napkin for the same person, each member of the family
has a given number, and the napkins are numbered to correspond, or else
are slipped into ivory rings, which are numbered. A stranger has a clean
one, at each meal. Tablecloths should be well starched, and ironed on
the right side, and always, when taken off, folded in the ironed
creases. _Doilies_ are colored napkins, which, when fruit is offered,
should always be furnished, to prevent a person from staining a nice
handkerchief, or permitting the fruit-juice to dry on the fingers.
Casters and salt-stands should be put in order, every morning, when
washing the breakfast things. Always, if possible, provide _fine_ and
_dry_ table-salt, as many persons are much disgusted with that which is
dark, damp, and coarse. Be careful to keep salad-oil closely corked, or
it will grow rancid. Never leave the salt-spoons in the salt, nor the
mustard-spoon in the mustard, as they are thereby injured. Wipe them,
immediately after the meal.
For table-furniture, French china is deemed the nicest, but it is liable
to the objection of having plates, so made, that salt, butter, and
similar articles, will not lodge on the edge, but slip into the centre.
Select knives and forks, which have weights in the handles, so that,
when laid down, they will not touch the table. Those with rivetted
handles last longer than any others. Horn handles (except buckhorn) are
very poor. The best are cheapest in the end. Knives should be sharpened
once a month, unless they are kept sharp by the mode of scouring.
_On Setting Tables._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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