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BY MARY E. DAGUE
NEA Service Staff Writer

Sometimes, in this casual age, it is fun to revere the elegance of the past. So I went to a sumptuous Victorian Tea one day last week, a big party given by a club of women who have been meeting together for the last twenty years.

Where they ever found all the high-standing silver cake baskets and glass plates supported by hands and elaborate epergnes is a mystery. But they were all there and filled repeatedly with the best cookies and cakes you ever tasted—hermits, almond cakes, hickory-nut macaroons, ginger squares and lady fingers, every one home-made. Nearly every woman there seemed as much interested in the recipes for the cookies as she was in the talk on Victorian Art which was made by the head of a well known art school.

Of course, you don't need the setting to serve the same cakes. Use your simplest but most colorful linen, bright pottery, best silver and nobody will miss the epergnes.

Hickorynut Macaroons

Whites 3 eggs, 1/2 cup pulverized sugar, 1/2 cup chopped nut meats, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla.

Beat whites of eggs until stiff, beating in sugar and salt. Fold in nuts and vanilla and drop from tip of spoon onto a buttered paper spread over a baking sheet. Bake twenty minutes in a slow oven (300 degrees F.).

Ginger Squares

One cup molasses, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup shortening, 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup boiling water, 2 teaspoons soda, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 eggs.

Cream shortening and sugar. Add molasses and half the flour. Mix and sift remaining flour with spices and salt. Add 1/2 cup boiling water to first mixture. Add remaining dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Dissolve soda in remaining boiling water and stir rapidly into batter. Add eggs well beaten and turn into a greased and floured dripping pan. Bake thirty-five minutes in a moderate oven (375 degrees F.). Sprinkle with granulated sugar and cut in small squares or bars before removing from the pan.

This is a good recipe to divide if you only want half as much. Half of it will make a square about eight inches.

Almond Cakes

Whites 7 eggs, 1 pound powdered sugar, 1 pound shelled almonds, 1 teaspoon salt, 4 tablespoons cocoa, teaspoon vanilla.

Beat whites of eggs until stiff. Put nuts through fine knife of food chopper. Almonds are not blanched. Mix ground nuts and sugar and cocoa and fold into beaten egg whites. Add salt and vanilla and drop from tip of spoon onto a buttered baking sheet. Bake thirty minutes in a slow oven (300 degrees F.). Before baking a whole blanched almond may be pressed in the center of each cake.