Another thing: although a dinner should not be long, neither should it consist of samples, especially if set before men who are hungry!
The following menu might seem at first glance a good dinner, but it is one from which the average man would go home and forage ravenously in the ice box:
A canapé (good, but merely an appetizer) Clear soup (a dinner party helping, and no substance) Smelts (one apiece) Individual croutards of sweetbreads (holding about a dessert-spoonful) Broiled squab, small potato croquette, and string beans Lettuce salad, with about one small cracker apiece Ice cream
The only thing that had any sustaining quality, barring the potato which was not more than a mouthful, was the last, and very few men care to make their dinner of ice cream. If instead of squab there had been filet of beef cut in generous slices, and the potato croquettes had been more numerous, it would have been adequate. Or if there had been a thick cream soup, and a fish with more substance--such as salmon or shad, or a baked thick fish of which he could have had a generous helping--the squab would have been adequate also. But many women order trimmings rather than food; men usually like food.
All of us old enough to remember the beginning of this century can bring to mind the typical (and most fashionable) dinner table of that time. Occasionally it was oblong or rectangular, but its favorite shape was round, and a thick white damask cloth hung to the floor on all sides. Often as not there was a large lace centerpiece, and in the middle of it was a floral mound of roses (like a funeral piece, exactly), usually red. The four compotiers were much scrolled and embossed, and the four candlesticks, also scrolled, but not to match, had shades of perforated silver over red silk linings, like those in restaurants to-day. And there was a gas droplight thickly petticoated with fringed red silk. The plates were always heavily "jewelled" and hand painted, and enough forks and knives and spoons were arrayed at each "place" for a dozen courses. The glasses numbered at least six, and the entire table was laden with little dishes--and spoons! There were olives, radishes, celery and salted nuts in glass dishes; and about ten kinds of sugar-plums in ten different styles of ornate and bumpy silver dishes; and wherever a small space of tablecloth showed through, it was filled with either a big "Apostle" spoon or little Dutch ones criss-crossed.