Mary Eaton - The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

Though persons of large fortune may support an expensive establishment without inconvenience, it ill becomes those in the middle rank to imitate such an example. Nothing can be more ludicrous than the contrast exhibited between two families of this description; the one living in the dignified splendour, and with the liberal hospitality, that wealth can command; the other in a stile of tinsel show, without the real appropriate distinctions belonging to rank and fortune. They are lavish, but not liberal, often sacrificing independence to support dissipation, and betraying the dearest interests of society for the sake of personal vanity, and gratifying what is significantly termed 'the pride of life.'

The great point for comfort and respectability is, that all the household economy should be uniform, not displaying a parade of show in one thing, and a total want of comfort in another. Besides the contemptible appearance that this must have to every person of good sense, it is often productive of fatal consequences. How common it is, in large towns especially, that for the vanity of having a showy drawing-room to receive company, the family are confined to a close back room, where they have scarcely air or light, the want of which is essentially injurious to health. To keep rooms for show belongs to the higher classes, where the house is sufficiently commodious for the family, and to admit of this also: but in private dwellings, to shut up perhaps the only room that is fit to live in, is to be guilty of a kind of self-destruction; and yet how frequently this consideration escapes persons who are disposed to render their family every comfort, but they have a grate, a carpet, and chairs too fine for every day's use. What a reflection, when nursing a sick child, to think that it may be the victim of a bright grate, and a fine carpet! Or, what is equally afflicting, to see all the children perhaps rickety and diseased from the same cause! Keeping a spare bed for ornament, rather than for use, is often attended with similar consequences. A stranger or a friend is allowed to occupy it once in so many months, and he does it at the peril of his health, and even of his life.

Another bad effect of keeping spare rooms is the seeing more company, and in a more expensive manner, than is compatible with the general convenience of the family, introducing with it an expense in dress, and a dissipation of time, from which it suffers in various ways. Not the least of these is the neglect of parental instruction, which it is attempted to supply by sending the children at an improper age to school; the girls where they had better never go, and the boys where they get but little good, and perhaps are all the worse for mending. Social intercourse is not improved by parade, but quite the contrary; real friends, and the pleasantest kind of acquaintance, those who like to be social, are repulsed by it. The failure therefore is general, involving the loss of nearly all that is valuable in society, by an abortive attempt to become fashionable.

The direction of a Table is no inconsiderable part of a lady's concern, as it involves judgment in expenditure, respectability of appearance, the comfort of her husband, and those who partake of their hospitality. It is true that the mode of covering a table, and providing for the guests, is merely a matter of taste, materially different in a variety of instances; yet nothing can be more ruinous of real comfort than the too common custom of making a profusion and a parade, unsuited not only to the circumstances of the host, but to the number of the guests; or more fatal to true hospitality than the multiplicity of dishes which luxury has made fashionable at the tables of the great, the wealthy, and the ostentatious, who are often neither great, nor wealthy, nor wise. Such excessive preparation, instead of being a compliment to the party invited, is nothing better than an indirect offence, conveying a tacit insinuation that it is absolutely necessary to provide such delicacies to bribe the depravity of their palates, when we desire the pleasure of their company, and that society must be purchased on dishonourable terms before it can be enjoyed. When twice as much cooking is undertaken as there are servants, or conveniences in the kitchen to do it properly, dishes must be dressed long before the dinner hour, and stand by spoiling; and why prepare for eight or ten more than is sufficient for twenty or thirty visitors? 'Enough is as good as a feast;' and a prudent provider, avoiding what is extravagant and superfluous, may entertain her friends three times as often, and ten times as well.

Perhaps there are few incidents in which the respectability of a man is more immediately felt, than the style of dinner to which he may accidentally bring home a visitor. And here, it is not the multiplicity of articles, but the choice, the dressing, and the neat appearance of the whole that is principally regarded. Every one is to live as he can afford, and the meal of the tradesman ought not to emulate the entertainments of the higher classes; but if two or three dishes are well served, with the usual sauces, the table linen clean, the small sideboard neatly laid, and all that is necessary be at hand, the expectation of the husband and the friend will be gratified, because no irregularity of domestic arrangement will disturb the social intercourse. The same observation holds good on a larger scale. In all situations of life the entertainment should be no less suited to the station than to the fortune of the entertainer, and to the number and rank of those invited.

The manner of Carving is not only a very necessary branch of information, to enable a lady to do the honours of the table, but makes a considerable difference in the consumption of a family; and though in large parties she is so much assisted as to render this knowledge apparently of less consequence, yet she must at times feel the deficiency; and should not fail to acquaint herself with an attainment, the advantage of which is evident every day. Some people haggle meat so much, as not to be able to help half a dozen persons decently from a large tongue, or a sirloin of beef; and the dish goes away with the appearance of having been gnawed by dogs. Habit alone can make good carvers; but some useful directions on this subject will be found in the following pages, under the article Carving.

Half the trouble of waiting at table may be saved, by giving each guest two plates, two knives and forks, two pieces of bread, a spoon, a wine glass, and a tumbler; and by placing the wines and sauces in the centre of the table, one visitor may help another. If the party is large, the founders of the feast should sit about the middle of the table, instead of at each end. They will then enjoy the pleasure of attending equally to all their friends; and being in some degree relieved from the occupation of carving, will have an opportunity of administering all those little attentions which contribute so much to the comfort of their guests. Dinner tables are seldom sufficiently lighted, or attended; an active waiter will have enough to do to attend upon half a dozen persons. There should be half as many candles as there are guests, and their flame should not be more than eighteen inches above the table. The modern candelabras answer no other purpose than that of giving an appearance of pomp and magnificence, and seem intended to illuminate the ceiling, rather than to shed light upon the plates.

The leading consideration about food ought always to be its wholesomeness. Cookery may produce savoury and elegant looking dishes, without their possessing any of the real qualities of food. It is at the same time both a serious and a ludicrous reflection, that it should be thought to do honour to our friends and to ourselves to set out a table where indigestion with all its train of evils, such as fever, rheumatism, gout, and the whole catalogue of human diseases, lie lurking in almost every dish. Yet this is both done, and taken as a compliment. The practice of flavouring custards, for example, with laurel leaves, and adding fruit kernels to the poison of spirituous liquors, though far too common, is attended with imminent danger: for let it be remembered, that the flavour given by laurel essence is the most fatal kind of poison. Children, and delicate grown-up persons, have often died suddenly from this cause, even where the quantity of the deleterious mixture was but small.