Table Setting — Table Decorations

No table decorations should obstruct the view of the guests (although at large, formal dinners, when the conversation cannot be general anyway, they may be tall). All tall decorations should be narrow (e. g. candles). Avoid over-decoration and inappropriate decorations.

Have in mind a definite plan. Consider carefully the artistic height for your table decorations: table decorations that are too high are awkward, and those that are too low become monotonous to the eye.

No table decorations should obstruct the view of the guests (although at large, formal dinners, when the conversation cannot be general anyway, they may be tall). All tall decorations should be narrow (e. g. candles). Avoid over-decoration and inappropriate decorations. Don't crowd your table or make it look heavy. Discriminate between a formal party and an informal party, and adapt your decorations accordingly.

Keep in mind the color-scheme of your room, and the colors of the food in your menu, and harmonize the color of your table decorations with these.

Adapt your flowers to the type and proportions of your flower-container.

Centerpieces

Centerpieces are of infinite variety, their beauty and distinction being limited only by one's imagination and one's budget. Flowers are still— and probably always will be— the most lovely decoration for the center of the table. The fashion of supporting a few flowers in flower-holders in low silver or glass bowls makes possible simple and very effective arrangements.

Unusual effects may be obtained with central mirrors and with mirrored tables, with fruits, with formal combinations of flowers and fruits, with crystal trees and flowers, with deli- cate figurines, and even with amusing accessories of simple or elaborate kinds. But one must be careful that the designs built with unusual accessories are beautiful and appropriate and not simply bizarre.

Compote Dishes and Candles

To balance the centerpiece, decorative silver or glass-or gold!-compote dishes, two or four in number, are usually placed toward the ends of the table. These dishes, containing bonbons or mints or nuts, may be low, medium, or high, accord- ing to the proportion required by the other table decorations.

Four candles, or more if the table is very large, are used in candlesticks of glass or silver or fine china, and sometimes of pottery for an informal dinner on an Italian or Spanish table. Instead of candlesticks handsome silver candelabra may be placed on each side of the centerpiece.

The candles should be lighted before the guests enter the dining-room, and allowed to burn until they leave the dining- room, even if they stay so long in the dining-room that the candles burn down to their sockets!

The height of the candles should, of course, be adapted to the height of the candlesticks-very tall candles in low stand- ards, and shorter ones in the standard of average height. Low candlesticks with tall slender tapers are interesting and - tive, but their use is more appropriate to informal occasions. Formal functions seem to need the dignity of tall candlesticks.

Candles for formal dinner tables usually are the color of natural wax or, if that is not obtainable, of white. As a matter of fact, many hostesses use candles of this color on their tables for all their parties. Of course colored candles may be used to carry out a decorative scheme, and are festive and appro- priate for special occasions. Candles are now never shaded.— From “The American Woman’s Cookbook,” 1951

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