Cassell's dictionary of cookery

It is so easy for those waiting to touch the dining-room bell in order to warn the cook. Too often the cook, from over-anxiety, will become fidgety, and get everything ready too soon, the result being a series of over-cooked dishes, either half cold or having that warmed-up taste which so often spoils them. It is far better at dinner to have occasional pauses, than to have a series of spoilt dishes. Indeed, a little management on the part of the host or hostess will very often smooth over these awful pauses in the middle of dinner. A little intentional delay over eating what was last handed and a brisk conversation are great helps. The wine can also always be taken round while waiting for the cook to send up the next dish. In fact, after persons have had some soup or fish and an entree, a pause is rather agreeable than otherwise, unless it is accompanied by a dead silence, which makes everybody uncomfortable. Probably the most constant failure at dinner-parties — I use the expression in distinction to every-day dinners — is the ^j?ece de resistance. Cooks will hurry with the joint. How often will it be seen that the joint is placed on the table immediately the fish is removed, and there kept till all the entrees are handed round and eaten and the plates removed. In addition to this, probably the cook took the joint off the spit or out of the oven long before it was even sent to table. Indeed, I have known cooks take down the joint because they say they want to get at the fire. The consequence is that when the cover is removed no steam rises, the meat is warm, but not hot, and alas ! alas ! the gravy in the well of the dish is caked over with an icy sheet of fat. In fact, the joint is not worth eating. What should happen is, that after the last entree has been eaten, and a hot plate put round to each person, the joint should arrive. Never mind waiting even two or three minutes, but when the cover is lifted, the rush of steam— for we presume a hot and a really hot cover — will more than make amends for the slight delay. A nice hot haunch or leg of mutton with the gravy in it red and that outside steaming is one of the nicest dishes sent to table. On the other hand, lukewarm, flabby mutton and cold gravy are absolutely disagreeable. Nothing spoils a dinner more than feeling the roof of the mouth has got, so to speak, encrusted in mutton fat. Now, sending a joint up to table as we have said, hot arid at the right moment, requires management and forethought, and very often the cook does not possess either of these requirements, and the mistress of the house, when she finds the cook wanting in these respects, should take the responsibility on herself. Indeed, sometimes it is necessary to give positive orders with regard to the joint being taken down. The cook may be fussing down-stairs in the firm belief that she will be all behindhand, and that the people above will be kept waiting. But let her fuss, but obey her orders, and not take the joint off the spit till she hears the bell ring. After one or two successful results, the cook will herself see how feasible it is to wait, and she may be rewarded afterwards, pei-haps, by hearing from the neighbours' servants that their master or mistress has said they like dining at Mr. 's — the dinner always comes up so nice and hot.