w formal,
consist of more than:

1. Hors d'oeuvre
2. Soup
3. Fish
4. Entree
5. Roast
6. Salad
7. Dessert
8. Coffee

The menu for an informal dinner would leave out the entree, and possibly
either the hors d'oeuvre or the soup.

As a matter of fact, the marked shortening of the menu is in informal
dinners and at the home table of the well-to-do. Formal dinners have been
as short as the above schedule for twenty-five years. A dinner interlarded
with a row of extra entrees, Roman punch, and hot dessert is unknown
except at a public dinner, or in the dining-room of a parvenu. About
thirty-five years ago such dinners are said to have been in fashion!

=THE BALANCED MENU=

One should always try to choose well-balanced dishes; an especially rich
dish balanced by a simple one. Timbale with a very rich sauce of cream and
pate de foie gras might perhaps be followed by French chops, broiled
chicken or some other light, plain meat. An entree of about four broiled
mushrooms on a small round of toast should be followed by boned capon or
saddle of mutton or spring lamb. It is equally bad to give your guests
very peculiar food unless as an extra dish. Some people love highly
flavored Spanish or Indian dishes, but they are not appropriate for a
formal dinner. At an informal dinner an Indian curry or Spanish enchillada
for one dish is delicious for those who like it, and if you have another
substantial dish such as a plain roast which practically everyone is able
to eat, those who don't like Indian food can make their dinner of the
other course.

It is the same way with the Italian dishes. One hating garlic and onions
would be very wretched if onions were put in each and every course, and
liberally. With Indian curry, a fatally bad selection would be a very
peppery soup, such as croute au pot filled with pepper, and fish with
green peppers, and then the curry, and then something casserole filled
again with peppers and onions and other throat-searing ingredients,
finishing with an endive salad. Yet more than one hostess has done exactly
this. Or equally bad is a dinner of flavorless white sauces from beginning
to end; a creamed soup, boiled fish with white sauce, then vol au vent of
creamed sweetbreads, followed by breast of chicken and mashed potatoes and
cauliflower, palm root salad, vanilla ice cream and lady-cake. Each thing
is good in itself but dreadful in the monotony of its combination.

Another thing: although a d