The Etiquette of Serving Breakfast

A Housekeeper’s Manual from the Gilded Age

  

HOW TO PREPARE AND SERVE BREAKFAST

When we first began to talk of editing this book, a gentleman said to me, "If you will tell how to cook a steak properly, that receipt alone will be worth the price of the book." To the old adage, "Time and tide wait for no man," I have added "my breakfast table." I do not think that gentleman will ever eat a nicely cooked steak in his own house, for he is never ready to sit down to the table when breakfast is served.

We will have the bill of fare to consist of broiled beefsteak, Saratoga potatoes, scrambled eggs, yeast powder biscuit, tea and coffee (see my receipts for preparing all of these dishes). After the servant has started her fire she sets the table, takes the plates to the kitchen to be warmed (in the winter), takes the dishes in which the breakfast is to be served to the kitchen; puts the skillet on the stove to get hot to fry the potatoes in; makes biscuits and puts them in three pans and sets them aside; cooks the Saratoga potatoes and sets them on the hot water reservoir to keep warm; breaks the eggs into a bowl and seasons them; puts the coffee on to boil. 

I have a regular hour for breakfast, but sometimes we might not be ready when it was announced, so I have a speaking tube to the kitchen, and I call to the cook to serve breakfast; that means to put the steak on to broil, and and all the household know that they have twenty minutes to get ready for breakfast. 

She puts the tea to steep, and the steak on to cook; the skillet or gridiron must have been placed on the back of the stove, to get hot before this time. You will readily see that the cook can follow one of my directions for broiling a steak, i. e., never to leave it until it is done. During the last three minutes the steak is cooking she can fill the teapot and pour it into the pot in which it is to be served; pour off the coffee; put the first pan of biscuits in to bake, just before filling the teapot. 

She now puts the tea, coffee, potatoes and steak on the table (see my rules for serving, as well as preparing these dishes), and announces break- fast; then puts another pan of biscuits in the stove, cooks the eggs, and brings them to the table.

By putting the pans of biscuits in the oven at different times, they can be served hot and freshly baked Now, my dear young housekeepers, you can see that it is just as easy to have a meal freshly cooked as to have it spoiled by mismanagement on your part, as well as the cook's. By being careful to observe how long it requires to properly cook an article, and what can be set aside to be kept warm, and what must be served as soon as cooked, you can always have your dishes in perfection.

If you have a first course of fruit or oatmeal, some of the dishes can be prepared while that is being served. Melons, oranges, and all kinds of fruits, should be served at breakfast. In their season, sliced tomatoes, with a mayonaise dressing, or plain vinegar, is a refreshing breakfast dish. A number of nice breakfast dishes may be found in receipts for entrées. — From “Housekeeping and Dinner Giving in Kansas City,” Mrs. Willis, 1887

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Personal Preferences on Cooked Turkey

A holiday set aside for giving thanks is not just an American tradition, but a global one. Numerous celebrations of thanks are celebrated around the world.– Image of a collectible “Cigarette Card” from a set on Holidays Around the World, circa 1890’s

How Great Men Eat Turkey 

Views of McKinley, Cleveland, Bryan, Depew, et al. on the Bird 

A personal friend of President-elect McKinley is authority for the statement that the major has long ago given minute instruction in regard to the preparation of his Thanksgiving turkey, and that for many years past, the order has not varied an iota. He has his turkey roasted but not stuffed, and, is quoted as saying that a chef who would stuff the noble bird is a fellow fit for “treason, strategem and spoils.” He prefers a twelve-pound fowl, very fat and well spread with butter. The pièce de résistance, however, is the garnishment, which consists of a double string of sausages, fried and served hot with the turkey. 

In this connection, the Thanksgiving preferences of a few well-known men may prove interesting. President Cleveland likes his turkey well stuffed with biscuit or cracker stufling, black with sage and pepper. He wants the bird well dressed, with skewers and ribbon bands, or strings of smilax and bunches of parsley. Ex-President Harrison likes a roasted turkey stuffed with big Indiana chestnuts. He says that in his estimation there is only one class of people who have mastered the art of properly cooking a Thanksgiving turkey and that distinction belongs to the country girls of his native state. William Jennings Bryan has, to use his own words, “a great mouth for turkey,” and likes it in any guise or disguise. It is therefore safe to say that he will do full justice to that course at Denver’s banquet next Thursday. Chauncey M. Depew can make a better after-dinner speech on Thanksgiving if his turkey is cooked in “ole Virginia.” According to the genial Chauncey, the genuine southern cook, with a knack amounting to necromancy, can spice and sweeten the fowl till ‘tis a drop of nectar fit for the gods—or the critical palate of an epicure.

Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage is cosmopolitan in his tastes, and avows that his turkey must be stuffed with small English oysters and ornamented with a “fence” of French potato strips, fried brown and crisp and served piping hot. The good doctor also dotes on Vienna bread fingers as a proper accompaniment. John R. Tanner is fond of a great big turkey—the bigger the better—well roasted and basted in the good, old-fashioned way our mothers all used to know so well. He likes the oyster stuffing, rich gravies and entrees of mashed potatoes and turnips. Cranberry sauce and pies and apple, pumpkin and mince will complete the menu. – Los Angeles Herald, 1896

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

More Crescent Side Plate Etiquette

 A “steel bladed bird knife and bird fork” paired with a typical 19th Century “game plate” and a crescent shaped “bone plate.” –  From What Have We Here? The Etiquette and Essentials of Lives Once Lived, from the Georgian Era through the Gilded Age and Beyond...

The “game course” was once a staple of fine dining and expensive sets of “game plates” were purchased by fastidious hosts and hostesses, to serve the game on to each of their dinner guests. The game sets featured a usual dozen plates, each with a different motif. 

In Gilded Age dining, after the roast course, the game course was next in order (if it was included, as it generally was in an elaborate dinner). Celery was the appropriate accompaniment of the game course, as it was eaten with the fingers. Salads as accompaniments were not recommended. The steel fork tines and knife blades were known to taint the flavor of salads and their dressings.

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia