Common Sense in the Household 25

Common Sense in the Household 25

HAM AND CHICKEN PIE.

 

Cut up and parboil a tender young chicken—a year old is best. Line a

deep dish with a good pie-crust. Cut some thin slices of cold boiled

ham, and spread a layer next the crust; then arrange pieces of the fowl

upon the ham. Cover this, in turn, with slices of hard-boiled eggs,

buttered and peppered. Proceed in this order until your materials are

used up. Then pour in enough veal or chicken gravy to prevent dryness.

Unless you have put in too much water for the size of the fowl, the

liquor in which the chicken was boiled is best for this purpose. Bake

one hour and a quarter for a large pie.

 

 

HAM AND EGGS.

 

Cut your slices of ham of a uniform size and shape. Fry quickly, and

take them out of the pan as soon as they are done. Have the eggs ready,

and drop them, one at a time, in the hissing fat. Have a large pan

for this purpose, that they may not touch and run together. In three

minutes they will be done. The meat should be kept hot, and when the

eggs are ready, lay one upon each slice of ham, which should have been

cut the proper size for this. Do not use the gravy.

 

 

PORK AND BEANS.

 

Parboil a piece of the middling of salt pork, and score the skin. Allow

a pound to a quart of dried beans, which must be soaked over night in

lukewarm water. Change this twice for more and warmer water, and in the

morning put them on to boil in cold. When they are soft, drain off the

liquor, put the beans in a deep dish, and half-bury the pork in the

middle, adding a very little warm water. Bake a nice brown.

 

This is a favorite dish with New England farmers and many others.

Although old-fashioned, it still makes its weekly appearance upon the

tables of hundreds of well-to-do families.

 

 

PORK AND PEAS PUDDING.

 

Soak the pork, which should not be a fat piece, over night in cold

water; and in another pan a quart of dried split peas. In the morning

put on the peas to boil slowly until tender. Drain and rub through

a cullender; season with pepper and salt, and mix with them two

tablespoonfuls of butter and two beaten eggs. Beat all well together.

Have ready a floured pudding-cloth, and put the pudding into it. Tie it

up, leaving room for swelling; put on in warm, not hot water, with the

pork, and boil them together an hour. Lay the pork in the centre of the

dish, turn out the pudding, slice and arrange about the meat.

 

 

 

COMPANY.

 

LAYING to your conduct the line and plummet of the Golden Rule, never

pay a visit (I use the word in contradistinction to “call”) without

notifying your hostess-elect of your intention thus to favor her.

 

Perhaps once in ten thousand times, your friend—be she mother,

sister, or intimate acquaintance—may be enraptured at your unexpected

appearance, travelling-satchel in hand, at her door, to pass a day,

a night, or a month; or may be pleasantly surprised when you take

the baby, and run in to tea in a social way. But the chances are so

greatly in favor of the probability that you will upset her household

arrangements, abrade her temper, or put her to undue trouble or

embarrassment, by this evidence of your wish to have her feel quite

easy with you, to treat you as one of the family, that it is hardly

worth your while to risk so much in order to gain so little.

 

Mrs. Partington has said more silly things than any other woman of her

age in this country; but she spoke wisely in declaring her preference

for those surprise-parties “when people sent word they were coming.”

Do not be ashamed to say to your nearest kin, or the confidante of

your school-days—“Always let me know when to look for you, that

I may so order my time and engagements as to secure the greatest

possible pleasure from your visit.” If you are the woman I take you to

be—methodical, industrious, and ruling your household according to just

and firm laws of order and punctuality, you need this notice. If you

are likewise social and hospitable, your rules are made with reference

to possible and desirable interruptions of this nature. It only

requires a little closer packing of certain duties, an easy exchange

of times and seasons, and leisure is obtained for the right enjoyment

of your friend’s society. The additional place is set at table; your

spare bed, which yesterday was tossed into a heap that both mattresses

might be aired, and covered lightly with a thin spread, is made up with

fresh sheets that have not gathered damp and must from lying packed

beneath blankets and coverlets for may be a month, for fear somebody

might happen in to pass the night, and catch you with the bed in

disorder. Towels and water are ready; the room is bright and dustless;

the dainty dish so far prepared for dinner or tea as to be like Mrs.

Bagnet’s greens, “off your mind;” John knows whom he is to see at his

home-coming; the children are clean, and on the _qui vive_—children’s

instincts are always hospitable. The guest’s welcome is half given in

the air of the house and the family group before you have time to utter

a word. It may have appeared to her a useless formality to despatch the

note or telegram you insisted upon. She knows you love her, and she

would be wounded by the thought that she could ever “come amiss” to

your home. Perhaps, as she lays aside her travelling-dress, she smiles

at your “ceremonious, old-maidish ways,” and marvels that so good a

manager should deem such forms necessary with an old friend.

 

If she had driven to your house at nightfall, to discover that you

had gone with husband and children to pass several days with John’s

mother, in a town fifty miles away, and that the servants were out

“a-pleasuring” in the mistress’ absence; if she had found you at home,

nursing three children through the measles, she having brought her

youngest with her; if you were yourself the invalid, bound hand and

foot to a Procrustean couch, and utterly unable even to see her—John,

meanwhile, being incapacitated from playing the part of agreeable

host by worry and anxiety; if, on the day before her arrival, your

chambermaid had gone off in a “tiff,” leaving you to do her work and

to nurse your cook, sick in the third story; if earlier comers than

herself had filled every spare mattress in the house;—if any one of

these, or a dozen other ills to which housekeepers are heirs, had

impressed upon her the idea that her visit was inopportune, she might

think better of your “punctilio.”

 

But since unlooked-for visitors will occasionally drop in upon the best

regulated families, make it your study to receive them gracefully and

cordially. If they care enough for you to turn aside from their regular

route to tarry a day, or night, or week with you, it would be churlish

not to show appreciation of the favor in which you are held. Make them

welcome to the best you can offer at so short a notice, and let no

preoccupied air or troubled smile bear token to your perturbation—if

you are perturbed. If you respect yourself and your husband, the

appointments of your table will never put you to the blush. John, who

buys the silver, glass, china, and napery, is entitled to the every-day

use of the best. You may have—I hope this is so—a holiday set of each,

put away beyond the reach of hourly accidents; but if this is fit

for the use of a lord, do not make John eat three hundred and sixty

days in the year from such ware as would suit a ditcher’s cottage. If

your children never see bright silver unless when “there is company,”

you cannot wonder, although you will be mortified, at their making

looking-glasses of the bowls of the spoons, and handling the forks

awkwardly. Early impress upon them that what is nice enough for Papa,

is nice enough for the President. I have noticed that where there is

a wide difference between family and company table furniture, there

usually exists a corresponding disparity between every-day and company

manners.

 

Especially, let your welcome be ready and hearty when your husband

brings home an unexpected guest. Take care he understands clearly

that this is his prerogative: that the rules by which you would

govern the visits of your own sex are not applicable to his. Men

rarely set seasons for their visits. They snatch an hour or two with

an old chum or new friend out of the hurry of business life, as one

stoops to pluck a stray violet from a dusty roadside. John must take

his chances when he can get them. If he can walk home, arm in arm,

with the school-fellow he has not seen before in ten years, not only

fearlessly, but gladly, anticipatory of your pleasure at the sight

of his; if, when the stranger is presented to you, you receive him as

your friend because he is your husband’s, and seat him to a family

dinner, plain, but nicely served, and eaten in cheerfulness of heart;

if the children are well-behaved, and your attire that of a lady who

has not lost the desire to look her best in her husband’s eyes—you have

added to the links of steel that knit your husband’s heart to you;

increased his affectionate admiration for the best little woman in the

world. Many a man has been driven to entertain his friends at hotels

and club-rooms, because he dared not take them home without permission

from the presiding officer of his household. The majority of healthy

men have good appetites and are not disposed to be critical of an

unpretending bill of fare. The chance guest of this sex is generally

an agreeable addition to the family group, instead of _de trop_—always

supposing him to be John’s friend.

 

As to party and dinner-giving, your safest rule is to obey the usage of

the community in which you live in minor points, letting common sense

and your means guide you in essentials. Be chary of undertaking what

you cannot carry through successfully. Pretension is the ruin of more

entertainments than ignorance or lack of money. If you know how to

give a large evening party (and think it a pleasant and remunerative

investment of time and several hundred dollars)—if you understand the

machinery of a handsome dinner-party, and can afford these luxuries,

go forward bravely to success. But creep before you walk. Study

established customs in the best managed houses you visit; take counsel

with experienced friends; now and then make modest essays on your own

responsibility, and, insensibly, these crumbs of wisdom will form

into a comely loaf. There is no surer de-appetizer—to coin a word—to

guests than a heated, over-fatigued, anxious hostess, who betrays her

inexperience by nervous glances, abstraction in conversation, and,

worst of all, by apologies.

 

A few general observations are all I purpose to offer as hints of a

foundation upon which to build your plans for “company-giving.” Have

an abundance of clean plates, silver, knives, &c., laid in order in a

convenient place,—such as an ante-room, or dining-room pantry,—those

designed for each course, if your entertainment is a dinner, upon

a shelf or stand by themselves, and make your waiters understand

distinctly in advance in what order these are to be brought on.

 

Soup should be sent up accompanied only by bread, and such sauce as may

be fashionable or suitable. Before dinner is served, however, snatch

a moment, if possible, to inspect the table in person, or instruct a

trustworthy factotum to see that everything is in place, the water

in the goblets, a slice of bread laid upon a folded napkin at each

plate, &c. Unless you have trained, professional waiters, this is a

wise precaution. If it is a gentleman’s dinner, you can see to it for

yourself, since you will not be obliged to appear in the parlor until a

few minutes before they are summoned to the dining-room. If there are

ladies in the company, you must not leave them.

 

To return, then, to our soup: It is not customary to offer a second

plateful to a guest. When the table is cleared, the fish should come

in, with potatoes—no other vegetable, unless it be stewed tomatoes.

After a thorough change of plates, &c., come the substantials. If

possible, the carving of game and other meats is done before they are

brought in. One or more vegetables are passed with each meat course.

Salad is a course of itself, unless when it accompanies chicken or

pigeon. If wine be used, it is introduced after the fish. Pastry is

the first relay of dessert, and puddings may be served from the other

end of the table. Next appear creams, jellies, charlotte-russes, cakes,

and the like; then fruit and nuts; lastly, coffee, often accompanied

with crackers and cheese. Wine, of course, goes around during the

dessert—if it flows at all.

 

Evening parties are less troublesome to a housekeeper, because less

ceremonious than dinners. If you can afford it, the easiest way to

give a large one is to put the whole business into the hands of the

profession, by intrusting your order, not only for supper, but waiters

and china, to a competent confectioner. But a social standing supper

of oysters, chicken-salad, sandwiches, coffee, ice-cream, jellies,

and cake, is not a formidable undertaking when you have had a little

practice, especially if your own, or John’s mother, or the nice,

neighborly matron over the way will assist you by her advice and presence. The “Ladies’ Lunch” and afternoon “Kettle-Drum” are social and graceful “modern improvements.”