What to Eat, How to Serve it. Christine Terhune Herrick
is employed for the family when they are alone. Decorated porcelain is cheap nowadays, and makes a table look extremely pretty. Each one of the household should have his own especial oatmeal set, either the bowl, plate, and pitcher, or one of the deep saucers that come for this purpose in dark blue and white ware, with a plate to match, while the cream or milk may be held for common use in one good-sized pitcher, to be served by the mother, or passed to each, as may seem best. Every tea or coffee drinker should have his own cup and saucer, and in his imagination his favorite beverage will taste better from that cup than from any other.
There is little chance to make mistakes in setting the breakfast-table. The hostess has the tray before her, and serves the tea, coffee, or chocolate. At the other end of the table is the principal dish, presided over generally by the master of the house, while biscuit, bread, muffins, or griddle-cakes and potatoes have their posts at the sides. An oatmeal set stands at each place, accompanied by the knife, fork, and spoon, tumbler, napkin, butter-plate—unless the oatmeal course is preceded by one of fruit, when fruit plates, with fruit napkins and finger-bowls, should hold the first place.
With the fresh room, the bright cloth, the shining glass and silver, the vase of flowers, the appetizing food, one must be either very dyspeptic or a confirmed pessimist who does not feel a slight rise of spirits as he takes his place at the breakfast-table.
MORE ABOUT BREAKFAST
IN the majority of the homes where fruit is served for breakfast it appears as a first course. Countless are the headaches to which this custom has given rise among those whose stomachs resent the introduction of the acid as the earliest nourishment of the day. The choice should always be given each eater between beginning with fruit or reserving it as a final course. When it is served last it acts as a pleasant neutralizer of the solid or possibly greasy food that has been already consumed, and sends one from the table with what children call "a good taste" in the mouth.
The habit of eating some cereal for breakfast is happily becoming almost universal. There are comparatively few households in which porridge of one sort or another does not appear on the breakfast-table, and it is usually relished by both children and elders. It need not be always of oatmeal. There are numerous varieties of cereals in the market at present, and an occasional change will prevent any one's wearying of the wholesome dish. With cracked wheat, cerealine, wheat-germ meal, wheatena, wheat, oat, and Graham flakes, corn-meal mush, hominy boiled plain, hominy boiled in milk, and a number of others to choose from, there is no reason why any one should have occasion to complain of monotony. Cream adds greatly to the toothsome qualities of any one of these preparations, and may usually, even in the city, be procured in sufficient quantities to allow a modicum for each of the elders. The healthy appetites of the children rarely need this encouragement.
The tea should always be made on the table when it is possible, as by this means there need be no doubt that the water used in its concoction is actually boiling. The "loud-hissing urn" is a decided addition to the beauty and brightness of the table, especially when the "urn" is in the form of a pretty brass or copper kettle, swinging from one of the tall cranes known as a "five-o'clock tea." Some people prefer making the coffee on the table too, and this is possible when a Vienna coffee-pot or a French drip coffee-pot is used. The only trouble is that the coffee in the latter pot is apt to cool before it has stood long enough to extract the full strength of the berry.
The tea-cozy should never be lacking, and it is not a bad plan to have a similar wadded cap with which to cover the coffee-pot. One of the prettiest and best kinds of tea-cozy is the covered Japanese basket with a thick stuffed lining, in which the china teapot is set. These are not costly, and will outwear the ordinary cozy made of silk, woollen, or chamois-skin. When the lining of the basket is worn out, it may easily be renewed.
The substantial part of our American breakfast is not marked by much variety. At nearly all of them will be found the steak, chops, or cutlets, varied once in a while by fish, a hash, or a stew, semi-occasionally by a dish of eggs. Potatoes in some form—stewed, baked, boiled, or fried—are in order, and these are flanked by a plate of hot biscuit or muffins, or oftenest by successive instalments of griddle-cakes.
There is no use in adding further to the diatribes that have been written and spoken against the American breakfast. Such as it is, it appears to be here to stay, and it is a waste of time, breath, and energy to attempt a radical reform. All one can hope to do is possibly to modify it, and lighten its sameness by suggesting dishes that may please the palate and not impair the digestion. The adoption of the Continental breakfast has been vainly urged, and it is an open question whether or not the habit ever survives transportation. The American climate and mode of life differ so much from those of the Continent that other fashions must be followed here than those which prevail there. Many families, who during a long foreign residence have found quite sufficient for their matutinal meal the coffee or chocolate, the rolls and butter, possibly supplemented by fresh eggs or a little marmalade, have conscientiously endeavored to pursue the same custom upon their return to this country. In not a single case within the writer's cognizance has the attempt proved other than a failure, recognized as such at the end of a few months. Autre pays, autres mœurs.
While the children are still young, the entire family usually breakfasts together. The obligation upon the younger members of reaching their schools at a given hour forces them to be on time, although there are homes in which the wretched practice is observed of permitting the school boys and girls to rush in at the last moment and gulp down a few mouthfuls, hurrying off to their recitations after having thus successfully sown the seeds of future dyspepsia. As the sons and daughters grow into manhood and womanhood, they drift more and more into unpunctual habits. The breakfast-table is left standing well on into the middle of the morning, and sundry plats are kept hot in the oven for Mr. Jack or Miss Mamie, who has been out late the night before. Often the demands of business require the young man to be down in season, but there are no such claims obliging his sister to quit her couch at a—to her—unseasonable hour. As a consequence, what should be one of the family gathering-places becomes little better than a hotel breakfast-room, where the guests come and go as suits themselves. Besides all other considerations, the work of the servants is increased, and their own duties are crowded out by the necessity of being in readiness to serve these tardy ones.
At the first glance it may seem harsh to exact the prompt appearance at the breakfast-table of the girl who has danced until after one o'clock in the morning, and whose head has not touched her pillow until an hour or two later. But the habit of self-indulgence fostered by such concessions, does the girl no good. Is it any harder for her to rise betimes than it is for the weary mother, whose domestic cares forbid her lying in bed? Does not this indolence to a certain degree unfit the daughter for the duties that will devolve upon her when she in turn becomes a wife and mother?
One sensible matron, who still held the reins of family government as firmly when her children were grown as when they were first short-coated, always insisted on promptness at the breakfast-table. "Human beings are gregarious," she would say, "and they should eat together. If you are tired and sleepy, take a nap later in the day, but be on hand at breakfast-time."
Of course there may be exceptions to this rule, and here the maternal judgment must appear. More privileges can be allowed to the delicate, nervous girl, than to the strong, robust one; but then the former should avoid late hours and dissipation. An occasional morning nap does no harm; but there is little rhyme or reason in permitting the young, healthy members of the family to be the lie-abeds.
Without encouraging any disposition to "finicalness" concerning food, special attention should be paid to individual preferences in catering for the family breakfast. Children are apt to take whims, and these should not be fostered; but when either a child or an older person has a decided distaste for some article of food, he cannot be forced into a fondness for it. Better is it to humor his idiosyncrasies by preparing something that he will eat. In a private family it may be out of the