From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for young householdersPanton, J. E. (Jane Ellen)
General
From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for young householders
Panton, J. E. (Jane Ellen)
Home economics
If our young folks are too proud to ask advice, let them go to Steel and
Garland’s, on the Holborn Viaduct, where I have seen some most
picturesque kitcheners, which I must confess to hanker after in a manner
that perhaps is not right; but I cannot help it, they look so charming,
and are, I believe, so satisfactory in their working. They have
blue-tiled backs, and have also delightful ovens and a broad expanse
over the fire that would heat any amount of saucepans at the same time;
and if Angelina goes to live in her own house, I should certainly
recommend her to see these before buying any other kitchen grate. They
are most economical as regards coal; and if Angelina be wise enough so
to manage her cook as to impress upon her what an excellent fire can be
made and kept up in a kitchener using the small coal almost like dust,
that is so very inexpensive, and that the best Wallsend need not be
taken for the purpose, she will soon save the cost of her stove over and
over again in the difference in the price of the material she uses to
keep it going.
Of course this small coal can be burned in a kitchener that has not
blue tiles, and is a simple, ugly thing; but these are not as reliable
as a good stove is, and the ovens burn and spoil so much, owing to the
inferior iron of which they are made, that an effort is worth making to
secure a good and _reliable_ grate, else Edwin’s dinner may occasionally
not be quite as nice as could be wished for him to come home to. But,
cheap grate or dear grate, never allow for one moment that an odour
therefrom should pervade the house. This may require a battle; but it is
one to be won by the mistress if she exhibit firmness, and, above all, a
due knowledge of her business as manager of the household. The terrible
and sickening smell that so often has been known to fill a house simply
comes from grease having been allowed to fall on the oven plates inside.
This waxes hot, and then is followed by the odour, which there is
nothing like anywhere besides. To obviate this, a cook should always
carefully look after any spot or drop of grease, and if by any chance
the oven has become foul, it must be cleansed by burning some hay or
straw in it; but this need not occur at all if the cook be commonly
careful, any more than that green-water need smell, if a small crust of
bread be placed in the water while it is boiling, and then the water
should at once be emptied away into a corner of the garden, or down the
sink if there be no garden, when a little carbolic acid should be added,
which would take away the odour at once. These may appear very trivial
matters to write about, but a great deal of our comfort and, in
consequence, of our happiness depends upon these trifles. I know nothing
more disagreeable and trying than a bad smell, and if Edwin comes home
to a house reeking of dinner and the oven, what wonder that he flies to
his pipe and wishes himself back in his club; while his wife cannot
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