PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES

The practical difficulties in the way of improve- ment in household cookery are not small. As cook, we have the wife and mother, who has too little time for this very important branch of household work; she has had, perhaps, no good training in the art of cookery (for it is an art), and besides, her kitchen and kitchen utensils are not at all what they should be. Indeed, the qualifications for a given task could not well be further from the ideal.

In Europe families of small means have many helps unknown to us. In the first place, bread is never baked at home, the bakers' bread being both excellent and cheap. It would seem that among us, bakers' bread must shortly improve in quality and decrease in price ; either the profits must be too large, or the business not well managed. For instance, in those parts of Germany where white bread is eaten as a staple, it costs a trifle over 3

The Foreign Housekeeper. 17

cents a pound, while flour of average quality costs about the same. In contrast with this, compare the prices of bread and flour in our own country where in no large city is bread quoted at less than 7 cents, while flour costs 3 cents. That is, bread costs in Ger- many about the same as flour and in America more than twice as much; and yet the German baker is no- tably a prosperous person !

The foreign housekeeper has still further help from the baker. If she makes a cake or pie, she sends it out to be baked, and pays from one to two cents (the fuel would have cost more); joints of meat and. mixed dishes are also sent to be baked for the same price; and before any bakeshop in a German city, at noon on Sunday, can be seen a line of servant girls, each in turn receiving a steaming dish as it is taken from the oven. The soup kitchens ( Voiles Kuchen) of various grades are also a great help. The writer has repeatedly had brought from one of them an excel- lent meat broth ( 1 pt. for 2 cents ), and good cooked vegetables are furnished for a price less than they could be cooked for at home, if one took any account of time and fire.

But such helps are not yet to any great extent available to the American woman; she must wrestle with her own problem at home and solve it as best she can.

THE KITCHEK

The kitchen of a woman of average means is not the ideal kitchen. It is perhaps too small or not light enough, or it may have still more serious defects, as a bad drain. We must take it as it is, however, requiring only that it contain what is necessary to the end we have in view, — plain cooking for a fam- ily of six.

In the cheaper city dwellings the

Size of Kitchen. , ., , . in ,.

kitchen is small, too small lor good ventilation, and for the heavier kinds of work as washing; but for cooking, a very small kitchen can be so arranged as to answer every purpose.

Any one who has seen a ship's kitchen can under- stand this. The cook as he stands before his range is within reach of all his stores, for rows of drawers and shelves literally line the walls from floor to ceil- ing, little tables for pastry or cake making are drawn out of the wall and pushed in again when not wanted, and every inch of floor and wall space is used to the best advantage. This cook would tell you that he did not want a larger kitchen ; he would only lose time running about in it.

Begin to utilize the wall space. If

you have not yet as many shelves as

the walls will accommodate, put up more, and espe-

Arrangement of Kitchen. 19

cially about and above the stove, so that as you stand at your cooking you can reach salt, pepper and every other flavor that can be used in a soup or stew; cook- ing spoons and forks and knives, potlids and holders — all these should be at your hand. Let a carpenter fasten into the mortared wall strips of wood that will hold nails and a few shelves, and if the stove is in a niche with wall on two or even three sides of it, all the better. On these nails should hang nearly every implement used in cooking, and on the shelves should be found all spices and flavors; farther back can be placed what is more seldom used. If there are no drawers, never mind, use close tin boxes for as many things as you can; if no closed cupboard for your dishes, hang a curtain before the open shelves.

The nearer your sink is to the stove the better, that is the path your feet must oftenest travel. There must be a table of some sort very near the stove; if it is a movable one, all the better, or it may be a broad shelf with a very strong and safe hinged support under it, letting down when not in use.

I take for granted that the main part of your work is to be done on this stove and table, and that a well stocked pantry, fitted out for the making of pastry and cake and elaborate dishes, is not within your reach any more than the time for making such. TT, .. The utensils you need are few, but

utensils* - fl

these few you must have. Consider the value of the food materials that you use; a few burns on an old sauce pan will quite buy a new one. We will speak only of the most important and abso- lutely necessary utensils.

20 Utensils.

First, do not use tin ; it is cheap, but coal is not, and you will waste a great deal of coal in trying to cook in tin. Brass and copper cooking vessels are to be avoided by one who must economize, as they are expensive and require too much care to keep them free from the poisonous verdigris.

Of chief importance among your utensils is a flat bottomed iron pot with close fitting iron lid. Get the smoothest and best, even if it cost double. In this you will roast meat with little fire, cook vege- tables, all but peas and beans, cook anything indeed that is not acid. Have two of these, if you can, of different sizes. Next, an iron frying pan, also of the smoothest wrought iron and light; this too should have a close fitting cover. Some people con- sider iron utensils heavy and old fashioned, but where economy is an object, no other ware is so good and satisfactory. The blue or grey enamelled ware is very nice but will not stand great heat and easily chips and cracks, but you should have one kettle of this ware as it is valuable for cooking fruit and anything acid. You must have a wire gridiron for toasting bread and broiling meat ; this you should use for many things which you now cook in the frying pan. The tea-kettle is a matter of course, and a griddle. There is one other utensil not as common, but which deserves to be, viz. , a steamer ; a simple pot with perforated bottom which will fit tightly into the top of the iron pot, and have a very tightly fitting cover. Its use will be discussed later.

You can hardly do without a number of earthen jugs, glazed with lead-free enamel, especially for

cooking and holding milk. Get also a number of wooden spoons; they are cheap and clean, and of con- venient shape for stirring. The old fashioned pud- ding stick of the Yankee kitchen is the earliest form among us, and many people know no other.

A good stove is of first importance in a kitchen, but fortunately good stoves have become common. A graver question, however, is the cost of fuel to be burned in them. Of course coal must be the stand-by, and when the stove is heated up as on ironing and baking days, care can be taken to use the fire to its fullest capacity; in winter, dishes can be cooked ahead for several days.

To cook a single dish or for boiling a tea- Coal on. . ,,, I'! • • *L ' 1

kettle a coal oil stove is a saving; it is also invaluable for keeping a pot at a simmering heat, — a thing very difficult to accomplish on a stove.

For the same purpose, and for any steady

Charcoal. ' * „ , .,. J,

cooking, and above all for broiling meat, every housekeeper ought to have appliances for burning charcoal; it only needs a grating with a rim 2 or 3 inches high, to let down into the stove hole (a sort of deep spider with a grated bottom). For such pur- poses, a bushel of hard wood charcoal costing 15 or 20 cents would last a long time. Charcoal is almost the only fuel used in Paris for cooking; indeed, throughout France and in Western Germany it is in very common use.

For "Cooking Safe" as a saver of

•'Cooking Safe."

iiiel, see page 44.

PKOTEID-COOTAINT^G FOODS