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.Itholds stacks of cold plates, extra forks and knives, and the finger bowls and dessertplates.The latter are sometimes put out on the sideboard, if the serving table issmall or too crowded.105At little informal dinners all dishes of food after being passed are left on theserving table in case they are called upon for a second helping.But at formaldinners, dishes are never passed twice, and are therefore taken direct to the pantryafter being passed.106CLEARING TABLE FOR DESSERTAt dinner always, whether at a formal one, or whether a member of the family isalone, the salad plates, or the plates of whatever course precedes dessert, areremoved, leaving the table plateless.The salt cellars and pepper pots are taken offon the serving tray (without being put on any napkin or doily, as used to be thecustom), and the crumbs are brushed off each place at table with a folded napkinonto a tray held under the table edge.A silver crumb scraper is still seenoccasionally when the tablecloth is plain, but its hard edge is not suitable forembroidery and lace, and ruinous to a bare table, so that a napkin folded to aboutthe size and thickness of an iron-holder is the crumb-scraper of to-day.107DESSERTThe captious say dessert means the fruit and candy which come after the ices. Ices is a misleading word too, because suggestive of the individual ices whichflourished at private dinners in the Victorian age, and still survive at public dinners,suppers at balls, and at wedding breakfasts, but which are seen at not more thanone private dinner in a thousand if that.108In the present world of fashion the dessert is ice cream, served in one mold; notices (a lot of little frozen images).And the refusal to call the sweets at the end ofthe dinner, which certainly include ice cream and cake, dessert, is at least not theinterpretation of either good usage or good society.In France, where the word dessert originated, ices were set apart from dessert merely because Frenchchefs delight in designating each item of a meal as a separate course.But chefs andcook-books notwithstanding, dessert means everything sweet that comes at the endof a meal.And the great American dessert is ice cream or pie.Pie, however, isnot a company dessert.Ice cream on the other hand is the inevitable conclusionof a formal dinner.The fact that the spoon which is double the size of a teaspoon isknown as nothing but a dessert spoon, is offered in further proof that dessert is spoon and not finger food!109Dessert ServiceGet any book for free on: www.Abika.com ETIQUETTE IN SOCIETY, IN BUSINESS, IN POLITICS AND AT HOME148There are two, almost equally used, methods of serving dessert.The first or hotelmethod, also seen in many fashionable private houses, is to put on a china platefor ice cream or a first course, and the finger bowl on a plate by itself, afterwards.In the private house service, the entire dessert paraphernalia is put on at once.110In detail: In the two-course, or hotel, service, the dessert plate is of china, or ifof glass, it must have a china one under it.A china dessert plate is just a fairly deepmedium sized plate and it is always put on the table with a dessert spoon andfork on it.After the inevitable ice cream has been eaten, a fruit plate with a fingerbowl on it, is put on in exchange.A doily goes under the finger bowl, and a fruitknife and fork on either side.111In the single course, or private house, service, the ice cream plate is of glass andbelongs under the finger bowl which it matches.The glass plate and finger bowl inturn are put on the fruit plate with a doily between, and the dessert spoon and forkgo on either side of the finger bowl (instead of the fruit knife and fork)
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