Social Customs/Chapter 12

A dinner-party has become in these days such an elaborate and formal affair that the timid and modest entertainer, or one who shrinks from ceremony, no longer invites people to dine with him. An invitation to dinner seems such a solemn thing, even if you protest and declare that the dinner will be strictly en famille! The word "dinner" implies of necessity a certain degree of formality; "luncheon," on the other hand, may imply anything or nothing; it is a delightfully elastic meal—and name, and includes every sort of repast, from a bowl of bread and milk to a grand banquet of seventeen courses!

If your friend lunches with you and finds everything on a simple and unpretending scale, he may still imagine that at your dinner-table all is very different. But if you are "found wanting" in the preparations for your dinner, then indeed have you given away your last stronghold; beyond this can no imagination go.

To avoid this unhappy result many people invite their friends to take luncheon, or "stout tea," and you go and eat what is virtually a dinner in all but the name.

Between a formal lunch-party and a dinner there is really very little difference. Bouillon is usually served in cups, instead of soup in soup-plates, at luncheon. When the guests enter the dining-room they find these cups already filled, and set at each place on a plate.

​Tea and coffee, if served at all, are handed around in the dining-room, and never in the drawing-room, as they often are at a dinner-party. Menu-cards should never be used at luncheon; indeed, many people consider them as inelegant, and declare that they are only in place on public occasions or at stag parties. At a lunch only a few wines are given, and the courses are rather less substantial in character than at a dinner. But where the occasion is a ceremonious one, the table is set very much as it would be for a dinner-party—minus the lights; and even these are not wanting at some luncheons. There is the same profusion of flowers, silver, glass, and china ware, and the dishes are all served from the sideboard and handed around by the servants.

The guests go into the dining-room separately instead of arm-in-arm,—the ladies going first, and the gentlemen following them. The ladies' toilets, though sometimes elaborate, are never such as are worn at dinner or in the evening. Often there is a great variety of dress on these occasions, some ladies wearing very elegant reception dresses, others appearing in tailor-made street costumes. Bonnets are usually worn, but gloves are of course removed before sitting down to table. Gentlemen appear in morning dress, if they appear at all; but most lunch-parties in America are given for ladies alone. Sometimes, where quite a number of guests are present, many little tables are used, three or four guests sitting at each; or again, at a very large lunch, no one sits at table, the refreshments being handed around in the dining-room.

Among the very pleasantest lunches are the informal familiar occasions where six or eight friends meet together and enjoy a plain but substantial meal spiced with plenty of bright and witty talk. If a suburban friend or a gentleman of leisure accidentally arrives, he is warmly welcomed to the elastic meal, and many a charitable project, many a pleasant excursion or summer trip, is planned and arranged in this ​leisure moment of a busy day. In short, lunch-time is the kaleidoscopic part of the twenty-four hours; the combinations that then arise charm us, because they are unforeseen. Old friends who have not met for years, perhaps, and busy people with "just a moment" to spare, all may meet at this enchanted hour,—meet and part as bubbles do, the bright prismatic colors of the rainbow flashing for a moment in their friendly talk; and then, presto! all is silence. One guest has gone to a concert, another to a committee meeting, a third to her studio, and a fourth to offer up the constantly-recurring sacrifice of her time demanded by that insatiable Moloch, Family Shopping!

For such a lunch-table as I have just described, a great latitude in the matter of the bill of fare is allowable, though meat in some form, or soup, should certainly be found upon it. Cold meats and salads are always appropriate, but most people prefer some hot dishes even at lunch. Fried oysters, croquettes, French chops, fish, even a plain beefsteak or a dish of minced meat, if nicely cooked and served, may be placed on the lunch-table.

Chocolate is a favorite beverage with many people, and is more suitable for the middle of the day than for the evening, being a rather heavy and not very digestible form of food.

The plates should be changed for dessert, and for each course where there are several courses.

In England it is quite customary at informal luncheons for the servants to leave the dining-room after they have helped the guests to the joint (which is an inevitable feature of English luncheons) and handed around the vegetables and the wine, leaving the host and hostess to help to the entrées, where there are any, and to the sweets. The same informality is allowable in this country; but in most American houses a hostess prefers to have the assistance of a servant, unless at a very simple lunch. It is to be feared that we are ​lazier about waiting upon ourselves than our English brethren; and we also dislike less than they do the presence of servants at table, and the restraint that it entails.

The usual cover for lunch consists of two knives, two forks, one or two spoons, a water-goblet, and if wine is given, two wine-glasses,—one for sherry and one for claret. The bread is folded in the napkin, as at dinner. With bouillon, a large teaspoon is provided. Where the lunch is a very elaborate one, three knives and forks may be set at each place, or two knives and three forks, a fork for raw oysters also, etc.

According to English custom, tea and coffee are not given at luncheon, wine taking their place. But in America we cannot do without our tea and coffee even when wine is served. As we have no leisure class of men to stay at home and take lunch with us, it has become quite a feminine meal, and American ladies do not care much for wine, except possibly for champagne.

At an informal occasion the hostess pours out the tea and coffee; at a formal one, they are passed around on a waiter by the servant, two or three cups at a time, a second servant following with cream and sugar, also on a salver. The coffee must be served as it would be after dinner; that is, strong black coffee (café noir) in small cups, accompanied with tiny coffee-spoons. Strict etiquette forbids the use of milk with this beverage in its after-dinner form; but although Americans dearly love to copy foreign etiquette, they also love to be comfortable and to make other people so; hence the presence of the cream-jug is connived at by many hostesses. It is not necessary to give both tea and coffee at luncheon; either one may be given alone, or chocolate may be substituted for them both. Coffee is usually preferred to tea, especially by young people.

The wine may be set on table in decanters,—either sherry or claret, or both. Light sparkling wines are sometimes pre​ferred for luncheon, or champagne, where the occasion is a formal one.

In setting the table the fruit and the dessert are often placed on it, and the meats either served from a side-table or set before the lady of the house, who helps her guests. With this arrangement the vegetables are handed from the buffet. In England finger-bowls are not used at luncheon; with us they often are, and are set on table just as they would be at dinner.

At elegant lunch-parties the service is usually à la Russe, and each lady finds a bouquet of flowers or some pretty painted trifle or other favor beside her plate. It is not usual to remain very long after luncheon, as the hostess may have other engagements for the afternoon; half an hour is long enough to stay unless where music is given, or unless in the case of intimate friends, who are privileged to linger.

What is the difference between lunch and luncheon? Just about as much as between tweedledum and tweedledee. The English call the meal luncheon, and we are beginning to do the same thing in this country. Some people consider it very affected to speak of the meal otherwise than as "lunch" or a "lunch-party;" but these are rather conservative individuals. According to present use in this country "lunch" and "luncheon" are practically synonymous; the terms "a ladies' lunch," "lunch-party" may be thought more euphonious than "a ladies' luncheon," etc., and are certainly very often used.

Lunch affords a good opportunity for housekeeper and cook to display their ingenuity, many excellent dishes suitable for this meal being in one form or another réchauffé from the previous day's dinner. At the family lunch-table many little odds and ends can be used which would be unsuitable for any more formal meal, but which fill up the gaps very conveniently at this delightfully unceremonious repast.

​Invitations for lunch are formal or informal according to the nature of the occasion. They are usually written in the first person, or even given verbally, but are sometimes engraved for a very ceremonious entertainment. They should be answered promptly where one has reason to suppose the lunch will be a "sit down" affair; since the hostess ought to know which of her guests are coming, although it will not make so much difference in her arrangements as in the case of a dinner. In the same way a little more indulgence is shown to late comers at luncheon; though, as has been said above, much depends upon whether the occasion is to be a ceremonious one. If any unforeseen occurrence should prevent a guest from attending a formal luncheon, she should send her hostess word at once, that her place may if possible be filled.

Those who follow English customs closely never permit a butler (or head-waiter) to wear full dress when waiting at a lunch-party, even if it be of a very formal character. "Dark morning costume" is the correct dress for a butler until the magic hour for dinner arrives; he may wear dark but not black trousers, a black coat, and black necktie. Where two men-servants wait on table the second wears livery, unless the head of the house disapproves of the costume on principle.

Gentlemen sometimes ask whether ladies' lunches are not very tame and tiresome; very dull affairs, in short, without the great masculine element to give them tone. Alas for the vanity of men! How sad it is that they can never know (unless they hide themselves in the wine-cooler or behind the buffet) what a jolly time women can have together, or how fast feminine tongues can wag when unrestricted by the presence of lords and masters!

There is another great pleasure that ladies derive from these feminine lunches apart from the never-ending delight of unremitting conversation. This is the gratification of the ​æsthetic taste, with a hundred dainty devices and delicate articles of food whose beauty and value would be thrown away on the coarser masculine mind and palate.

Where but at a ladies' lunch or a fairy revel would you expect to find a course of calla lilies, each lady having on her plate one of these white blossoms with a few early strawberries tucked away in its delicate cup? Where else would you find your sherbet lying cold at the heart of a "truly" tulip, or frozen in the form of a candle and candlestick, with real wick burning at the end, a dainty shade surmounting the whole? Would you or could you reasonably expect, at any other meal, to find your rolls tied up with ribbon, and green (paper) frogs hopping about on your plate under the shade of most unpleasantly realistic ice-cream toadstools?

We hope not; the mania for blending is all very well, but some things do not mingle, and it is useless trying to make them do so. Ribbons are lovely in themselves, and for many centuries have appealed direct to the feminine heart; but why should they be mingled with our food? What possible connection can there be between ribbons and bread? It would look perfectly ridiculous to see the family loaf adorned with a wide ribbon bow on its broad brow; and why does not little bread look just as absurd garnished with narrow ribbon?

How pleasant were the old times when we could eat out of china, when we thought plates were good enough for us, and did not consider it necessary to take our food out of pasteboard boxes, silken bags, and paper cups, nor to have stationery and haberdashery hopelessly mixed up with our viands! Ribbon is now the serpent whose trail is over all. If I found it in my soup, I should not murmur at the all-pervading decrees of Decorative Art, but should meekly draw it out as an article not calculated to assist digestion.

Despite these little incongruities and fanciful extravagances, there is much to admire in and on the lunch-table of ​to-day. The table-cloth, to begin with, is a poem in linen,—a poem, alas! which, with its elaborate drawn-work and wondrous lace-like effects, may have cost some poor woman her eyesight. The color which a stern good taste forbids in a dinner-cloth is considered quite allowable in a lunch-cloth. The handsomest ones are white, however, with a dash of color here and there. A beautiful set of table linen which sold recently for the moderate sum of fifty dollars, showed a bunch of grapes worked solid in fine gold-colored silk at each corner of the cloth; this was bordered with elaborate drawn-work, finished with knotted white fringe. The large doilies, six in number, matched the cloth, save that the design was made smaller. The solid masses of golden berries clustered at each corner of the table and nestled beside the plate of each guest gave a rich golden effect that reminded the beholder of King Midas's famous meal. But the reminder was a delicate and artistic one,—a shadowy likeness in soft silk, not a bold copy in gross metal.

At some ladies' lunches one must begin before the table-cloth, because the ceremonies of ornamentation commence in the dressing-room. Here the ladies find enormous cards, each one decorated with a bow of different-colored satin ribbon (the inevitable serpent), pink, blue, orange, lilac, etc., while the legend beneath sets forth that the ladies whose names are written on the orange card will please sit at the orange table, and so on, through all the colors.

At the lunch-party of which I am now writing, assurance was made doubly sure, each lady's name being painted in gold letters on the wide streamer which flowed from her basket of flowers. The end of this ribbon was caught around the napkin so as to bring the name uppermost, thus forming a novel sort of dinner-card. The yellow ladies had golden baskets containing yellow flowers, the pink ladies had pink roses, etc. On each table was a handsome candelabrum con​taining lighted candles of the color to match the prevailing decoration, with shades of the same hue; smilax and delicate flowers were wreathed about these candelabra, still maintaining the harmony of color. This dainty feast was called "a rainbow lunch."

At a luncheon there is an excellent opportunity for the display of beautiful china, the daylight showing the beauty of the ware to great advantage. Where people have well-filled china-closets, a complete change of design and color is made for each course. The delicacy of some of these courses is almost exaggerated, and recalls to mind the nightingales' tongues of ancient Rome. If a countryman with a hearty, healthy appetite were set down in the midst of one of these feasts, what would he think? Probably he would be of the opinion that he had seen no real and actual luncheon, but "samples" merely of several large repasts that were going on elsewhere. Certainly a pâté no larger than a silver dollar looks like nothing but a sample of some more adequate pie, even if the pâté is composed, as it usually is, of the most rich and mysterious ingredients.

One of the new fancies is to eat off dainty little metal spits, or skewers, each one ornamented with a butterfly by way of a handle. On these spits may be strung delicate morsels of chicken liver, infinitesimal scraps of nicely browned pork, etc. Each skewer is brought in erect, being firmly planted in a groundwork of some æsthetic paste.

No, I am not speaking of the days of Heliogabalus, although for the moment it seemed as if I must be. Where all this luxury will end is hard to say. As our people are in the main very sensible, they will probably get tired of this extreme frippery in the course of a few years, just as they have abandoned the Queen Anne style of architecture. After out-gabling gables, and indulging in a perfect frenzy of peaked roofs, balconies, and loggias, they suddenly made the amazing ​discovery that the inside of the house was the part actually lived in (at least in our climate), and that perhaps it would be well to have the dwelling-rooms large enough for comfort, instead of being chopped up into mince-meat, sacrificed for the appearance of the exterior. So Americans have soberly returned to building houses with simple outlines, and that contain large rooms, and they have hung the pumpkin, or its color, on the outer wall, to show that we still believe in the Puritans and in their favorite vegetable.

In the same way the ladies' lunches, with their twenty courses of china and glass, will no doubt subside before long as suddenly as a lofty and imposing but empty card-house tumbles to the ground. We may not perhaps return to the plain roast and boiled, the simple fare in which old George III. delighted, but rather to that safe middle path, the golden mean, which avoids all excesses alike, whether of luxury or of simplicity.

It has become the fashion now to speak of any meal taken between or after the regular meals as a luncheon. Thus sandwiches and beer, or any other light refreshments, if eaten at two o'clock in the morning, on returning from a ball, constitute a "luncheon," and not a supper.

The French déjeuner à la fourchette does not differ materially from what we call luncheon. It is now becoming the fashion to invite people to late breakfast, instead of to lunch; but few of the guests would know the difference between the two meals, except from the wording of the invitation. A "French breakfast" takes place somewhat earlier than a lunch,—at twelve o'clock instead of one, for instance.

The first course usually consists of fruit,—strawberries, melons, or whatever fruit is in season. In the succeeding courses there are often various preparations of eggs, since these belong more distinctively to breakfast than to luncheon. At some houses every meal begins with a course of fruit.