Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper: Containing Five Hundred Receipes for Economical and Healthful Cooking; also, Many Directions for Securing Health and HappinessBeecher, Catharine Esther
General
Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper: Containing Five Hundred Receipes for Economical and Healthful Cooking; also, Many Directions for Securing Health and Happiness
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Cooking; Home economics
3. Set the bread on the table, when there is no waiter. Some take a
fork and lay a piece on the napkin or tumbler by each plate. Others
keep it in a tray, covered with a white napkin to keep off flies. Bread
for dinner is often cut in small junks, and not in slices.
4. Set the principal dish before the master of the house, and the other
dishes in a regular manner. Put the carving-knife, fork, and steel by
the principal dish, and also a knife-rest, if one be used.
5. Put a small knife and fork by the pickles, and also by any other
dishes which need them. Then place the chairs.
ON WAITING AT TABLE.
A domestic who waits on the table should be required to keep the hair
and hands in neat order, and have on a clean apron. A small tea-tray
should be used to carry cups and plates. The waiter should announce
the meal (when ready) to the mistress of the family, then stand by
the eating-room door till all are in, then close the door, and step
to the left side of the lady of the house. When all are seated, the
waiter should remove the covers, taking care first to invert them, so
as not to drop the steam on the table-cloth or guests. In presenting
articles, go to the left side of the person. In pouring water, never
entirely fill the tumbler. The waiter should notice when bread or water
is wanting, and hand it without being called. When plates are changed,
be careful not to drop knives or forks. Brush off crumbs, with a
crumb-brush, into a small waiter.
When there is no domestic waiter, a light table should be set at the
left side of the mistress of the house, on which the bread, water, and
other articles not in immediate use can be placed.
ON CARVING AND HELPING AT TABLE.
It is considered an accomplishment for a lady to know how to carve
well at her own table. It is not proper to stand in carving. The
carving-knife should be sharp and thin. To carve fowls (which should
always be laid with the breast uppermost,) place the fork in the
breast, and take off the wings and legs without turning the fowl; then
cut out the merry-thought, cut slices from the breast, take out the
collar bone, cut off the side pieces, and then cut the carcass in two.
Divide the joints in the leg of a turkey.
In helping the guests, when no choice is expressed, give a piece of
both the white and dark meat, with some of the stuffing. Inquire
whether the guest will be helped to each kind of vegetable, and put the
gravy on the plate, and not on any article of food.
In carving a sirloin, cut thin slices from the side next to you, (it
must be put on the dish with the tenderloin underneath;) then turn it,
and cut from the tenderloin. Help the guest to both kinds.
In carving a leg of mutton or a ham, begin by cutting across the middle
to the bone. Cut a tongue across, and not lengthwise, and help from the
middle part.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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