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Tea and Coffee
Much has been written on the importance of serving neatly the various drinks for an invalid. But careful service is equally essential at the daily home table. It is mistaken generosity to fill the cup so full that when sugar and cream are added, the liquid will spill over into the saucer. One should never be compelled to clean the bottom of the cup on the edge of the saucer, or on the napkin, to keep the liquid from dripping on the cloth. In serving tea and coffee, ascertain the tastes of those at the table as to sugar and cream. Put the cream and sugar in the cup, and an extra block of sugar in the saucer; pour in the liquid until the cup is three fourths full. Where there are no servants to wait on the table, this way makes less confusion than to pass the sugar and cream to each person. Always provide a pitcher of boiling hot water and a slop-bowl. In cold weather, pour hot water into the cups to warm them; then turn it into the bowl. In serving a second time, rinse the inside of the cup with hot water before filling.
PIES.
It was formerly considered necessary to divide a pie with mathematical exactness into quarters or sixths. A better way is to cut out one piece of the usual size and offer it, and then if less be desired, cut off such portions as may be needed.
In serving a pie, always use a fork with the knife. Pies with no undercrust are more easily served with a broad knife or a triangular knife made expressly for pies. For serving berry and juicy fruit pies, a spoon also may be needed. Where two or three kinds are served, help to very small portions of each, even if it be at a Thanksgiving dinner.
It is presuming on the capacity of the commonsized plate, and it is an insult to the human stomach, to offer any one three sixths of a pie after a dinner of the usual courses.
PUDDINGS.
Hot puddings of a soft consistency should be served with a spoon; sometimes a fork also is needed. With the edge of the spoon cut through the brown crust in a semicircle, slip the spoon under, and take up a spoonful; slip it off on the plate, leaving it right side up.
Take special case to serve temptingly anything with a meringue. MOULDS OF PUDDING, CREAMS, CHARLOTTE RUSSE, ICE-CREAM, ETC. Anything stiff enough to be moulded should be cut in slices from three fourths of an inch to an inch thick; the wider slices in oval-shaped moulds may be divided through the middle. A broad silver knife with a raised edge is very convenient to use in serving Bavarian Cream, Ice-Creams, and Charlottes.
Service rather than cookery: how full to fill a cup, how to cut a pie, how to lift a spoonful of pudding onto a plate. Every instruction here concerns the moment between the kitchen and the person eating.
- Three fourths fullSugar and cream into the cup first, an extra lump in the saucer, then the liquid poured only to three quarters. The reason is given: a cup filled to the brim overflows into the saucer the moment anything is added, and then has to be wiped on the napkin or the saucer edge. It is a sound rule and it is still broken constantly.
- Where the page says who it is forThe method is recommended because it makes less confusion where there are no servants to wait on the table. That half-sentence places the household exactly — a table laid formally, poured by the hostess, with nobody standing behind the chairs.
- The slop-bowlCups were warmed with boiling water and the water tipped into a slop-bowl, and between servings the cup was rinsed out the same way. The bowl has disappeared from the tea set entirely, though warming the cup survives wherever coffee is taken seriously.
- Cut the pie to orderThe page argues against dividing a pie into exact sixths in advance: cut one piece of the usual size, offer it, and cut a smaller one if that is what is wanted. It is the reverse of how a pie is served now, and it wastes nothing.
- The right bladeA fork used alongside the knife for pie; a broad or triangular blade for a pie with no undercrust; a spoon as well for juicy fruit; and a broad silver knife with a raised edge for moulded creams and ices. Four tools for four textures, and the only one still common is the pie server.
- Moulded puddingsCharlotte russe, Bavarian cream and moulded ices were cut in slices three quarters of an inch to an inch thick, and a wide slice out of an oval mould was halved. The whole class of dish has gone, which is why the knife designed for it has gone with it.
The page opens by noting how much has been written about serving drinks neatly to an invalid, and then claims the same standard for the ordinary family table. That is where this kind of care was first set down: sickroom cookery was a genre of its own, with rules about trays, temperatures and presentation, and the author is borrowing its seriousness for people who are perfectly well. The objects she assumes have gone — the slop-bowl, the pitcher of boiling water, the sugar in blocks, the raised-edge knife kept for Charlotte russe — but the social arrangement is still recognisable. Somebody sits at the head of the table and pours, and is expected to know already how each person takes it. The one place her own voice breaks clean through is her objection to being handed three sixths of a pie after a dinner of the usual courses, which she calls an insult to the human stomach, and it is the only moment on the page where she is plainly enjoying herself.