The Menu
1) Fruit, or soup
2) Eggs or shellfish
3) Fowl or meat (not a roast)
4) Salad
5) Dessert
At a luncheon there shouldn't be more than five courses. Usually, four is sufficient for the longest and is the most elaborate luncheon possible. Your first course consists of either fruit or soup. A popular course is melon, grapefruit, or any sort of fruit cut into very small pieces, with sugar and maraschino, rum or a liqueur. It can be served in a special bowl-shaped glasses that fit into long-stemmed and much larger ones, with a space for crushed ice between; or it can be put in champagne glasses, after being kept cold as long as possible in the refrigerator before being sent to the table.
Soup at a luncheon is actually never served in soup plates. Instead, soup is served in two handle cups. It is eaten with a teaspoon or a bouillon spoon, or after it has cooled sufficiently it is drunk from the cup, which is lifted to the mouth with both hands. Lifting your pinkies while attempting to drink from the cup will either make you look silly, as it is only done while drinking teas. In the winter a bouillon, turtle soup, or consommé, and in the summer a chilled soup: jellied consommé, madrilene, or vichyssosie.
Vichyssosie Soup
Lunch-party egg dishes must number hundreds of different varieties. Eggs that are substantial and rich like eggs Benedict or eggs stuffed with Pâté de foie gras and a mushroom sauce, should be balanced by a simple meat, such as broiled chicken served with a salad, combining meat and salad courses in one.
Pâté de foie gras, French for "Fat liver", is considered the ultimate culinary delight.
The menu of an informal luncheon, if it does not leave out a course, at least chooses simpler dishes: a bouillon or broth, shirred eggs or an omelette, then chicken or a chop with vegetables, a salad of plain greens with crackers and cheese, and a pudding, ice cream, or mousse or any of the light desserts.
All of the menus suggested above are for lunch parties. If you invite women you know are trying to diet, the menu will obviously be shorter and simpler. In other words, when lunching with intimate friends, you have the kind of food they like.