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A Mock Canteen
OR one boy who wanted to entertain a few of the fellows who had been in camp with him, his hospitable sister planned a jolly supper party which undoubtedly owed its success to its "homeiness." Certainly its friendly informality accomplished much more than any large outlay in money could have done. There were to be half a dozen boys, so five other girls were invited to make an equal number of girls and men.
To begin with, the hostess passed around to the girls slips of paper and duplicate slips to the men.
Each slip contained the name of some article of food for supper and the man and girl who drew duplicate slips were thus delegated to prepare that particular dish together. When all had matched up partners they repaired to the kitchen, a big old-fashioned room with plenty of space for all of them. [29] The hostess and her partner did no cooking, but announced that they would manage this cafeteria.
While all the others were in the kitchen, they arranged on a side table in the diningroom stacks of tin trays, knives, forks, spoons, and paper napkins. Over it they posted a bulletin board in good imitation of a real cafeteria. There were listed on it the five dishes which were being prepared and as a joke a number of others - quite impossible to cook at such a time, as roast beef, mince pie, frozen pudding - all of which were then heavily crossed off in black ink.
When the cooks had finished their tasks (and the cheerful uproar that accompanied their occupations may be easily imagined) the food was arranged on a long kitchen table.
Thereupon each person, after possessing him or herself of a tray and the required silver and scanning the menu posted, passed on and pretended to select from the counter.
In reality, of course, everyone took everything, and received a check from the hostess [30] with a punch against some "stunt" written on it.
The menu as prepared read as follows:
Scalloped salmon Fruit salad Lettuce sandwiches Chocolate pudding with whipped cream Tea or coffee Two tables were left bare in the diningroom and the company chose seats where they wished.
A great deal of additional fun was gained upon finding that someone had surreptitiously set up a placard on one of the tables reading "Reserved for Ladies." Over the cold water faucet was a sign reading "Water" and glasses were grouped near it.
After supper the various stunts registered on the checks and some rollicking songs filled the remainder of a merry evening in which there had been absolutely no chance for stiffness from beginning to end. These were some of the stunts: [31] For the Men 1. Show in five different ways how reveille affected your friends. 2. Give an imitation of a lady and her pet "Peke." 3. Go around the room without touching your feet to the floor. 4. Do a ballet act. 5. Dig a trench (in pantomime). 6. Sing a Mother Goose rhyme through your nose.
For the Girls 1. Give a military salute to every man in the room in turn. 2. Choose a partner to walk around the "chimney" with you ten times. 3. Count to fifty, substituting the words "Oh, fudge!" for fives and every multiple of five. 4. Pretend to eat a bunch of grapes. 5. Represent your favorite movie actress till the others guess her correctly. 6. Flirt in three different ways. [32]
There is a menu here, but the device is that the guests cook it in pairs drawn by lot. That single decision determines every dish on the list.
- Scalloped salmonScalloped in this period means baked in a shallow dish in layers with a sauce and crumbs, browned on top. The salmon came out of a tin. It is assembled rather than cooked, which is why it can be handed to two people who may never have cooked anything.
- Five dishes, five pairs, one kitchenScalloped salmon, fruit salad, lettuce sandwiches, chocolate pudding, tea or coffee. Nothing needs timing against anything else, nothing is ruined by standing, and only one item needs the oven. The menu was engineered backwards from the game.
- Chocolate pudding means a boiled puddingA cornflour or flour-thickened cooked pudding, stirred on the stove and then cooled to set. It is neither a baked sponge nor a mousse, and because it has to cool it is the dish the pair should have started first.
- Lettuce sandwichesLettuce and mayonnaise between buttered bread and nothing else. The butter is structural rather than decorative — it waterproofs the crumb against the dressing, which is why a sandwich made without it goes grey in twenty minutes.
- The cafeteria was the jokeTin trays, a bulletin board, a posted menu with roast beef and mince pie struck off in black ink, a punched meal check. The comedy only works on guests who had queued in a real one, and it tells you the dining room was imitating an institution rather than a restaurant.
The guests are boys just back from camp, and the whole evening is built out of army material: the canteen, the punched check, reveille, the military salute, a trench dug in pantomime. A sister putting on a mock canteen for her brother’s friends is taking the thing they had recently been inside and turning it into a parlour game, and the laughter is the function. The arithmetic is just as careful — six boys, so five other girls were invited to make the numbers equal, and somebody set a placard reading Reserved for Ladies on one of the two tables as a joke about the rules everyone was observing.