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
I recollect quite well one year, when I was at Bournemouth seeing these
carts going about regularly to different houses morning after morning,
and as my window faced the road, I had the curiosity to watch what they
received, more than once. Opposite to me lived a family, the mistress of
which had often enough lamented to me the fearful appetites possessed by
her servants, and one day, about 8.15, just when I was going down to
breakfast, I saw the cart arrive, and saw also half loaves of bread,
‘chunks’ of meat, and pieces of butter and bacon, all brought out in an
unappetising manner together, and shunted into the cart. My friend’s
breakfast-hour was half-past nine, so the cart had merrily gone on its
way long before her blinds were drawn up; but the very next time she
spoke of her servants’ gigantic capacities for putting away food, I ‘up
and spake’ of what I had seen in such a way that the cart never called
there again, and her bills were reduced to one-half in less time than it
takes to tell of them.
The driver of that cart once stopped at my door and descended into the
kitchen. Luckily for me, I was, as usual, writing at the window at my
desk, and, seeing him come in, I waited a few moments, and then
descended into the lower regions too, and found him eloquently
persuading my good little cook to sell bones &c. to him, but she was
refusing staunchly; and then I appeared, and though, I confess honestly,
I was shaking with fright, and was only sustained by the knowledge that
the gardener was cleaning the boots near by, I gave that man a ‘piece of
my mind,’ and, informing him that it was he and his fellows who made
young servants thieves, bade him begone, telling him that if ever I
found him on my premises again I would give him in charge; which so
alarmed him that he fled at once to other houses, doubtless vituperating
me in his mind all the time; but that I did not mind, as long as he
transferred himself and his kindly attentions somewhere else.
In a well-regulated household every morsel of food should be used; the
bones always are useful for soup, and a ‘digester’ should be one of
Angelina’s most indispensable possessions. This should always be at hand
for stock; and excellent soups, than which nothing is nicer on which to
begin one’s dinner, can be procured by aid of the digester, if Angelina
has a thoughtful cook, who uses every morsel to advantage, and never
throws away a bone, even a fish bone, all of which aid the soup, and
save buying other provisions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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