What to Eat, How to Serve it. Christine Terhune Herrick
table. In the country and in country towns it is the rule rather than the exception to find the kitchen in the L, or as an extension, and on the same floor with the dining-room and parlor, but in the majority of city houses the apartment in which the family gathers at meal-times is a little below ground. When this is the case, and when there is no possibility of converting the back parlor up-stairs into a dining-room by introducing a dumb-waiter and pantry, or when expediency or want of space precludes such a change, the best must be made of existing circumstances, and the efforts redoubled to render the despised basement as pleasant as possible.
The wall-paper must never be dark in a room like this, which at the best of times is never too light. Choose instead a creamy ground well covered with some small figure, or, better still, an ingrain paper of a solid color—a soft gray, a pale green, a cream, or one of those indescribable neutral tints that make good backgrounds, and furnish well but not obtrusively.
Unless the room is wainscoted with wood, a very pretty and inexpensive substitute can be made of India matting, secured at the top by a narrow band of wood moulding. The matting can be washed off with salt and water whenever it needs cleansing. An excellent plan is that of having the walls done in hard finish, and then painting this. The surface can then be scoured as often as it becomes stained or specked, and will always look neat and fresh. An additional coat of paint can be put on when the first becomes worn or faded.
In a rented house the tenants must, of course, take what they can get, and in many cases the landlord is unwilling to make changes. Still, pretty pictures, draperies, neat furniture, and a well-set table will do wonders, even for a room that appears unpromising at the outset.
It never pays to purchase an expensive carpet for the ordinary dining-room. Something durable should be selected, like an ingrain of a mixed color, or with a minute, closely-set figure. Better still is a rug, an art square, or a Smyrna rug, neither of which is high-priced, while either is satisfactory both in appearance and in wearing qualities.
The floor should be stained or painted, for a distance of from two to three feet from the wall all around the room, in a neat dark color. Borders of wood-carpeting are handsome and last a long time, but are costly, and one does not often find hard-wood floors in a rented house. The rug may be either laid loosely or tacked down around the edges.
The draperies in a dining-room should not be heavy. Not only do such darken the room, but they catch and retain the odors of food, and hold constantly in their folds depressing reminders of former feasts. Scrim, lace, or light Madras or China silk, decorates the room and softens outlines without impeding the entrance of light or air. Shades are essential, and so should be also window-screens from the appearance of the first fly in the spring until the last one has vanished in the fall.
An open fireplace in a dining-room is unsurpassed for cheer and comfort there, as it is everywhere. A screen should always be in readiness to temper the glow and glare while the family are at meals. The chimney is a potent aid to ventilation, and helps to disperse those odors that will collect in the best-ventilated salles à manger, and which are so appetizing before meals and so unpleasant afterwards.
Basement dining-rooms are seldom too cold. If they are heated by a register or a stove, or even by a coal fire in the grate, the constant struggle of the housekeeper is to prevent their becoming uncomfortably warm. Vicinity to the kitchen has much to do with this, and is in summer-time a serious draw-back to comfort. An equable temperature must be striven for by frequent airing at all seasons, and during the heated term by shading the windows, and by keeping, as much as possible, the doors shut that communicate with the kitchen. One advantage at least is possessed by the basement dining-room in summer. In common with the cellar, or with any other partially subterranean chamber, it is cooler than one that is above ground and thus unprotected from the hot air without.
The best method of artificially lighting a dining-room is hard to decide. Nothing is prettier or pleasanter than candle-light, and it is preferable to gas or lamps in that it does not heat a room perceptibly. But candles are expensive, if enough are used to produce a respectable illumination, and nothing is more dismal than eating by a dim light. Good candles are costly, and cheap ones not only give a poor light, but drip and smoke and smell, and are otherwise intolerable. A new style of candle has recently been introduced which is pierced through its length with three holes. These tiny pipes are supposed to carry off the melted wax, and their advocates claim that these candles will not drip on the outside.
Except on state occasions, candles are barred out for people of moderate means, and they must have recourse to lamps or gas. The light should always be suspended above the table, except, of course, where candles and candelabra or a tall-stemmed lamp are used. A side-light does not serve the purpose of a central one, for some one must always sit with his back towards it, and his plate is thus in a perpetual eclipse. Pretty hanging lamps come at all prices, but it never pays to get a cheap one. It may do very well for a time, but before long the burner will be out of order; the machinery by which the wick is turned up or down will prove refractory, and repairs will do little good. The only efficient way of mending a poor lamp is by buying a new one.
Among the best-known makes of lamps there is one with a powerful burner which gives a clear, steady flame, equal to two or three ordinary gas-jets. The only draw-back connected with it is the intense heat it radiates, which makes it objectionable in summer. Such a lamp costs about seven dollars, is furnished with a large ground-glass shade, and supplied with fixtures and a chain, by means of which it may be raised and lowered at pleasure.
Whichever is used, gas or kerosene, the glare should always be softened by a shade of some kind. Globes of ground or colored glass may be used on gas-burners, or, if they are of clear glass, the light may be subdued by the Japanese half-shades, which can be slipped over the lower half of the globe. A pretty fashion is that of fastening a Japanese umbrella, stick upwards, under the chandelier, although this darkens the table too much, unless there is a strong light above it. If any member of the family suffers from weak eyes, and is distressed by the light that is none too brilliant for the others, quaint paper-screen shades, also of Japanese make, may be hung on the side of the globe towards the sufferer. The long pliable wires attached to these shades permit them to be twisted at almost any angle. Or the fancy paper screens which imitate roses, pond-lilies, sunflowers, and the like may be hung on the globes.
There has been a good deal of discussion among furnishers as to what style of picture should be hung in a dining-room. One declares that the stereotyped paintings and engravings of fruit, fish, and fowl are the only appropriate works of art for this room; while another argues that it is enough to see the food in its prepared condition upon the table, without being forced to contemplate it in its natural state upon the walls. The wise course to follow seems to lie between the two. Really pretty pictures of game birds or fish, or of fruit or flowers, are undoubtedly in their place in a dining-room, but there is no reason why every other kind of picture should be excluded. Pastoral or marine scenes, genre pictures, almost anything except family portraits, may fitly be placed there. Their place is in the library, the sitting-room, or in the large hall, if there be one.
Nothing should hang in the dining-room that is not good of its kind. A cheap chromo, a poorly executed drawing or water-color, or an indifferent photograph annoys beyond words the unfortunate wight who has to sit opposite it for an hour or two each day.
The furniture of a dining-room should be durable, even if its owners cannot afford to have it very handsome. Cheap chairs and table are out of place here. Even those who cannot afford leather-upholstered chairs and a heavy mahogany or black-walnut or oak dining-table may get solid, durable substitutes. Cane seats for the chairs, and an unpolished top for the table, are better than showy—and cheap—elegance. A square table generally allows more space to those seated about it than does a round one. Almost any amount of money may be expended upon a sideboard, but a good one may be purchased at no great outlay. In addition to this, if space permits, there should be a table, with a shelf or two above it, to serve as a dinner-wagon. This is almost a necessity when the vegetables are passed instead of being placed on the table, and it is also useful for holding relays of clean plates, etc.
The amount of furniture that is useful and appropriate in a dining-room is of necessity limited. Besides the