THE
DINNER YEAR-BOOK
THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK
“COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” SERIES.
BY
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
1883.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
1883.
Copyright by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
1878.
Trow’s
Printing & Bookbinding Co.,
205-213 East 12th St.,
NEW YORK.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
1878.
Trow’s
Printing & Bookbinding Co.,
205-213 East 12th St.,
NEW YORK.
Transcriber’s Note:
The books by the same author, referenced oftenin this text, Common Sense in the Household and Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea, may be foundat Project Gutenberg, etexts 48804 and 49944, or, if supported by your device, by clicking hereor here.
Familiar Talk with the Reader.
“Do not laugh when I tell you that one of the mostserious perplexities of my every-day life is the daily recurringquestion, ‘What shall we have for dinner?’” writesa correspondent.
I do not smile at the naïve confession. I feel morelike sighing as I recollect the years during the summersand winters of which the same query advanced with meinto the dignity of a problem. There were several importantends to be compassed in the successful settlementof the question. To accomplish an agreeable varietyin the family bill of fare; to accommodate appetitesand individual preferences to the season and state of thelocal market; to avoid incongruous associations of meats,vegetables, sauces, entrées and desserts; to build fragmentsinto a structure about which should linger no flavorof staleness or sameness; so to manage a long successionof meals that yesterday’s repast and the more frugal oneof to-day should not suggest the alternation of fat and leanin the Hibernian’s pork, or the dutiful following of penanceupon indulgence; to shun, with equal care, the rockof parsimony and the whirlpool of extravagance;—but whyextend the list of dilemmas? Are they not written in themental chronicles of every housewife whose conscience—beher purse shallow or deep—will not excuse her from acontinual struggle with the left-overs? Such uncompromising[2]bits of facts do these same “left-overs” appear inthe next day’s survey of ways, means, and capabilities,that timid mistresses are the less to blame for often winkingat the Alexandrine audacity with which the cook hasdisposed of the knotty subject by emptying platters andtureens into the swill-pail,—which should stand for thearmorial bearings of her tribe wherever found,—or satisfiedindolence, and what goes with her for humanity, by tossingcrusts, bones, and “cold scraps” into the yawningbasket of the beggar at the basement door.
One of these days I mean to write an article, scientificand practical, upon the genus, “basket-beggar.” For thepresent, take the word of one who has studied the speciesin all its vari
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