The principal gala day of this month is toward the last, the historic gala day of our forefathers, Thanksgiving; still, it is quite proper to have a luncheon at any time during the month which shall have the characteristics of the time.
A THANKSGIVING LUNCHEON
FOR A THANKSGIVING LUNCHEON. FOR A THANKSGIVING LUNCHEON.
should remind us of the dress and food of our ancestors, but all of their austerity and asceticism may go without mention; we do not take kindly to these things in our days of luxury and ease. Have your guest-cards bear a sketch of a Puritan girl, or a man in a tall pointed hat and long cloak with a gun over his shoulder, or some other suggestion of Colonial times. Have your menu made up largely of dishes said to have been used at the first Thanksgiving Day meal, judiciously combined with every-day delicacies which are more warmly approved by this generation. Let your bonbons be in the shape of candy vegetables; they are odd, and wonderfully accurate, and are to be had in the form of radishes, carrots, potatoes, turnips, beets, and almost everything else; and buy favours in the shape of miniature roasted turkeys. Chrysanthemums are the flower of November, and they are beautiful in any shade, but yellow is the most brilliant, and a mass of this splendid color in the centre of the table will make it attractive. If you use candles, have them of yellow, with paper shades of chrysanthemums.
The Puritans are said to have dined on oysters, clams, turkey, succotash, and game, and all these things must be in the menu:—
MENU
Oysters on the Half-Shell.
Cream of Celery Soup.
Clams Newburgh.
Roast Turkey Breast in Slices.
Currant Jelly. Succotash in Cases. Potato.
Cranberry Sherbet.
Scallop Salad. Olives.
Brown Bread and Butter.
Individual Mince Pies. Cheese.
Vanilla Ice Cream with Hot Chocolate Sauce.
Coffee.
The salad is made by scalding a pint of scallops, draining them and serving on lettuce with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and a French dressing. The mince-pies may be omitted if they seem too heavy for luncheon, but if you fancy this reminder of a real Thanksgiving meal, have them made in small round tins about four inches across, and have the pie-crust as delicate as possible. The hot sauce to serve with the ice cream is made by boiling a pint of water with half a pint of sugar until it hardens in water, and then adding two tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate dissolved in three tablespoonfuls of boiling water, and boiling again until it crisps in water; add vanilla and serve at once. In the place of both the pie and this cream, you may have a sort of combination of both, which might be called mince-pie ice cream, made by adding chopped raisins, spice, and a dash of wine to a rich chocolate ice cream; the slices look and taste like fruit cake, and served with whipped cream are delicious.
A CARMEN LUNCHEON
In cities the opera season begins earlier than it did formerly, and this suggests an operatic luncheon, either one served just before a matinÉe, or given by way of something new, without regard to times and seasons. Almost any opera gives scope for decorations and cards in keeping with the idea of its story, but perhaps Carmen is the most distinctive. For this, your cards should bear a bar of music,—the famous and easily recognized "Toreador" song is the best,—or else a sketch of some scene from the stage. If you can find paper fans with the pictures of bull-fights, such as are to be had at times in our shops, these are certainly appropriate as souvenirs.
The decorations must be in the Spanish colours, scarlet and yellow, and carnations will give the best results; if you fancy having a corsage bouquet for each guest these may be of alternate colours, yellow tied with red and red tied with yellow, with the flowers in the centre of the table of the two. The bonbons may be of scarlet and yellow also. Here is a Spanish menu:—
MENU
Oranges.
Red Bean Soup.
Broiled Fish with Tomato Sauce.
Spaghetti with Cheese.
Spanish Chicken. Lyonnaise Potatoes.
Olive Salad.
Stuffed Cake.
Coffee.
The soup is made of strong stock with red beans, and seasoning in this way: a little onion and garlic are browned in a deep kettle with a spoonful of lard and a pinch of thyme; a stock is poured over this, and two cupfuls of red beans which have been cooked until they are soft are added; the whole is put through a sieve and poured over croutons just before serving.
Any fish will do for the third course, but bluefish is the best; after it is cooked it is cut in pieces ready to serve, and then a rich tomato sauce is poured over each piece. The chicken is really delicious. A tender fowl is chosen, jointed, and put on to stew. A dozen dry red peppers are cut up and boiled, after the seeds have been removed; they are then moistened with a little chicken broth and put through a sieve; one green pepper and two sliced onions are fried in a little lard, the peppers and chicken added, and the whole covered with the thickened gravy and simmered for fifteen minutes before serving.
The salad is one of the commonest Spanish dishes. To make it, take a cup of dice made of stale bread, sprinkle with bits of red peppers, add a cup of stoned olives, cut up, and half a cup of chopped cucumber pickles; mix the whole with mayonnaise and serve on lettuce cut in strips; pass a strong cheese with it. The stuffed cake is also a dish frequently seen in Spain. A large sponge cake is soaked in mild sherry, stuck full of blanched almonds and stoned raisins, and eaten with a rich boiled custard poured over it.
A HORSE-SHOW LUNCHEON
In New York the horse show is the great November event; perhaps in other cities there is something corresponding to it, and certainly in small places there is a great interest taken in the County Fair, which comes somewhat earlier in the fall. For any day when a number of friends are to visit a place where the horse is the hero, a luncheon may precede the hour. A large floral horse-shoe may be the decoration of the table, or one may be suspended over the table and the flowers may be of the same variety in the centrepiece, but arranged with more grace. The guest cards may bear a sketch of a horse, or of a horse-shoe, or a whip or some similar device, and the favours may be of the same character, in the shape of little silver pins; or, if the luncheon is sufficiently informal to warrant it, these favours may be chocolate horses, standing at each plate.
MENU
Clams on the Half-Shell.
Cream of Lima Bean Soup.
Creamed Scallops in Ramekins.
Chicken in Green Peppers.
Breaded Chops with Tomato Sauce.
Potatoes au Gratin. Hot Rolls.
Lobster Salad. Cheese Straws.
Ice Cream with Maple Sauce.
Coffee.
The chicken in the peppers is to be ordinary minced white meat, with sufficient white sauce to make it palatable; if it is too wet it will not be good. It is put in raw peppers from which the ends have been cut, and the seeds removed, and the whole thoroughly heated in the oven. The potatoes are baked and served in their own shells after they have been scooped out and seasoned, and cut in half, with grated cheese over them. The ice cream is a rich French cream made with eggs, and the sauce is hot maple syrup with English walnuts broken in pieces in it; it is one of the most delicious of desserts, well worth being used in place of any of the suggested creams at any luncheon during the year.
AN INDIAN LUNCHEON
Boys are supposed to scorn luncheon as a purely feminine meal and one which is necessarily frivolous; nevertheless there are occasions when a boy is interested in entertaining his friends at luncheon, perhaps before going to see a football game, or some such athletic contest, and then a meal with Indian accessories will delight him.
The table should be laid with a cloth rather than with doilies, and the centrepiece may be a birch-bark canoe, planted with ferns. The cards may be of birch bark with quotations from Hiawatha, or of cardboard with an Indian's head in colours, or a sketch of a wigwam, or a tomahawk, or a pair of snowshoes.
The bonbons may be in pretty little bead pouches laid at each plate, or else in pairs of small moccasins around on the table, or in tiny birch-bark canoes. The luncheon should be a hearty one without those "frills" which the budding masculine intelligence refuses to admire.
The menu, like the one suggested for the Thanksgiving luncheon, may have a suggestion of Indian dishes in it.
MENU
Oyster Bisque.
Creamed Fish in Shells.
Slices of Turkey Breast. Peas.
Creamed Potatoes. Cranberries.
Lobster Salad. Sandwiches.
Individual Mince-Pies.
Vanilla Ice Cream. Cakes.
A CARD LUNCHEON
After a morning at whist, one should have an appetite for the noon meal; let it be so delicious that the anxieties and disappointments of the game may be speedily forgotten! The table may be prettily laid with the usual doilies, and the flowers chosen chrysanthemums again, unless you fancy carrying out the red and black colours of the cards, when the plan suggested for the Musical Luncheon in January may be adopted, and red carnations tied with narrow black ribbons may be laid by each plate, and dark chocolate bonbons may be in the little dishes around a centrepiece of red carnations. At each of the places may be a small box of cardboard in the shape of a heart, a club, a diamond, or a spade alternately, filled with bonbons. There are tin cutters which are in these same shapes, and the cakes and sandwiches may still further carry out the idea. The ices, too, are to be found at the caterer's in slices of white with the figures on them in colours, but you may make a white cream at home and serve it in paper boxes painted with the various figures around the edge, if you choose.
Any one of the preceding menus may be used, or one may have something different which yet reproduces the best dishes which have been suggested, especially the delightful ice cream which was mentioned for one luncheon, with the maple sauce, one of the delicious things among new dishes.
MENU
Oyster Bisque.
Lobster Croquettes with Tomato Sauce.
Mushroom Omelette. Hot Rolls.
Fried Chicken in Cream Sauce. Potato SoufflÉ. Asparagus Tips.
Waldorf Salad. Cheese Sandwiches.
French Vanilla Ice Cream with Maple Sauce.
Coffee. Bonbons.
The mushroom omelette is easily prepared by putting a mixture of chopped mushrooms and olives in a delicately browned omelette as it is folded over just before it is served; there is nothing better in an egg dish than this. The salad is made by cutting rather sweet apples in bits and adding as much chopped celery and a stiff mayonnaise and laying on lettuce leaves; if English walnuts are added, the salad is entirely changed from the original, but it is thought quite as good by most persons; the fact that these nuts are to be served in the dessert, however, gives reason for omitting them from the mixture of apple and celery. If it is desired to have a sherbet for this luncheon, add it after the chicken, one of canned pineapple, or grape fruit, and have the final course a cream cheese with Bar-le-Duc currants and crackers, with the coffee; the mixture of sweet and cheese seems odd to one who has not tried it, but it is warranted to give satisfaction.
