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THE KITCHEN

Parisian markets – No refuse food brought into a house – Catering in London – Cooking-stoves – Pretty kitchen – Underground kitchens objectionable – Kitchen level with the street door – Larder and store-room – The dresser – Kitchen in the Swiss style – Herbs in the window – Hygienic value of aromatic plants – Polished sink – Earthenware scrap-dish – Nothing but ashes in dust-bin – Soap-dish – Plate-rack – Kitchen cloths – Few cleaning materials necessary – Hand work better than machine work – Washing at home – Knife-cleaning – Fuel-box – No work in the kitchen unfit for a lady to do.

Time works many changes; but will it ever bring into our English markets the various and neatly arranged vegetables, the bouquets of salad, pleasant to the eye as to the taste, the neat little joints and divisions of meat, the temptingly prepared poultry and game, and the many kinds of appetizing comestibles, which are to be found in the markets of Paris? There a housekeeper may amuse herself by varying her dinners for every day, having an embarrassment of choice between countless delicacies. There the fillet of beef (the undercut of the sirloin) is already larded for the roast; the pigeons are boned and prepared for the compôte; the veal is cut in shape and beaten for the cutlets; the pigs'-feet are boned, stuffed, and truffled; slices of galantine are ready to be laid on a dish for luncheon; crayfish woo the mayonnaise; parsley and butter are waiting to be poured over potatoes à la maître-d'hôtel. There the spinach may be bought ready boiled and finely chopped, only needing to be warmed with its poached eggs; the sorrel is already picked over and cooked; the carrots are cleanly grown, and evenly selected, and sold with just the quantity of feathered green tops useful for a garnish. In fact, all is so contrived that the least possible refuse matter shall be brought into any house, so saving the labour that this entails.

Nor does this trimming and spoke-shaving add to the price of the articles, as the surplus vegetable remains go into the ground at once, but little of what is uneatable being taken to the market at all; thus saving the cost of carriage, and paying for the little time expended in its removal; while in the case of meat, the purchaser finds it more profitable to cook only such parts as are entirely eatable, without letting time and fire be consumed in preparing what is always wasted.

This is not a cookery-book, though when I think of how much we have to learn before we can make good use of our fine provisions, I feel tempted to branch off on this line; but the lady amateur will learn more by giving careful attention at the cooking-school than by reading many books.

In London we can buy peas ready shelled, fowls ready trussed, fish prepared for the pot or pan, and sometimes our beans ready slit; but carrots must be scraped, greens washed, and turnips peeled, and apples also, though potatoes need not; tongues and hams may be bought boiled, and cakes ready baked. Still, with us much more food has to be prepared at home than in France, though we have this convenience – that the provisions are brought by the tradesmen to our doors, which is seldom the practice there.

For general cooking, the gas tripod like that used at breakfast will not serve our turn, except on cold-collation days in the heat of summer, when cold lamb or salmon, salads and fruit, are more grateful than anything else.

Many people dislike to have their cooking done by gas, and it is objectionable for roasting or broiling; still, there are such numerous inventions in cooking-stoves, each simpler, cleaner, and more perfect than the rest, that only the embarrassment of selection can cause hesitation in making a choice.

Near a nice bright stove, placed in a recess glittering with Dutch tiles or Minton's artistic plaques, surrounded by burnished pans and pots of well-lined copper or brass and neat enamelled saucepans, the genius of the hearth presides over the mysteries of Hestia.

The window, made with diamond panes mingled with a few lozenges of bright colour, is mostly open in summer, and wreathed with climbing plants – as vines, and ornamental gourds, with their curious black or scarlet fruit, the rich foliage intercepting the sunshine – or closed if it be winter, and draped in pleasant muslin. I would take great pains to make my kitchen the most picturesque and cheerful room in the house, as it is one of the most important.

On no account would I use the great black beetle-trap cellar downstairs and underground, which strikes with dismay the greater number of young girls who have rushed from school into marriage, and who instantly become the prey of the tyrant imprisoned in that dungeon, which is too often also a den of iniquity.

No; if obliged to have a house with one of these dismal caverns, I would invent some useful purpose for it; but I would not willingly select such a dwelling. These underground kitchens must eventually die out, and our children will wonder why we used such airless, lightless places.

In a house arranged on my plan we aim upwards, not downwards. We might, perhaps, on wet days, let the children go to these basement rooms to skip or romp, as there they could not shake down the ceiling beneath them, as sometimes happens in upstairs play-rooms; only the rooms must be kept carefully whitewashed, and, as far as possible, well aired.

Or the old kitchen might be fitted up with racks for guns and fishing-rods, and used as a smoking-room, when cosily papered, and carpeted with matting; and the back kitchen converted into a carpenter's shop with lathe and tool-chest.

But our kitchen, the pride of our house, will be level with the dining-room and front door. It is a foolish practice to have all vegetables, meat, coal, etc., taken downstairs for the purpose of bringing them all up again.

When it is impossible to spare two rooms on the ground floor for household use, let both kitchen and dining-room be upstairs, while the drawing-room might be on the ground floor. This would give no more work than does our present custom. But where it is possible, it is better, for obvious reasons, that the kitchen should be on a level with the street door.

When the room used as kitchen is large and has two windows, one side of it may be partitioned off for a larder, or store closet; or if there is a small third room near, it may be used for these purposes. But much depends upon the aspect of the room and its means of ventilation. A town larder need not be large, as the butcher, fishmonger, etc., can keep the provisions far better than we can do in the best of larders. A pantry and scullery will be quite unnecessary in a house arranged in this way. Wine will be kept in the usual wine-cellar, but beer, in bottles or in a small cask, may be kept in the cupboard under the stairs which is so universal in town houses.

The kitchen floor should not be carpeted; but one or two undyed sheepskins make comfortable mats, and are easily cleaned.

The kitchen dresser may be made of the usual shape, though the cornice seems superfluous, as it is too high for anything but dust to rest upon it.

Where it is thought better to do so, the old kitchen dresser may be brought bodily upstairs. If it is varnished and its back painted red, and the edges of its shelves very dark brown, with bright brass hooks in them, it may have bright brass handles put on its drawers, and it will do very well; and white or blue-and-white ware will look extremely well upon it.

A kitchen may be very prettily fitted up in the Swiss style, with unpainted deal employed decoratively whenever there is a fit occasion for it. The back of the dresser may be made of narrow boards, each lath cut out uniformly in a pattern at the top, forming a band of ornament. The shelves will look very nice with a border of fretwork, in sycamore, placed either above or below their edges. They are more easily cleaned if the ornamental border is fastened on like barge-boarding, but this plan is not so well adapted for hooks.

Mottoes in old English character, which is similar to the German Gothic type used in Switzerland, form an appropriate decoration to the cornice of the room.

The tables and chairs must be of unpainted wood, plain, but of good form. All hooks and bars, or whatever cannot conveniently be made of wood, should be of wrought iron. This gives a good opportunity for having window-bars and fastenings, or even a balcony, made in ornamental iron work. The window-curtains will be of Swiss muslin.

Oval wooden pails, with a board on one side left tall and cut out for a handle, made in various sizes for water, milk, etc., are as useful as they are suitable to the style adopted; and baskets may be made like those carried by the Swiss mountaineers at their backs. A cuckoo clock and a few hooks of chamois horn carry out the effect. Characteristic ornaments, such as paintings of Swiss scenery, and flowers in wooden frames, wood carvings on brackets, wooden bears as matchboxes, wooden screw nutcrackers, should be collected during visits to Switzerland; and a Swiss costume will be found as practically useful as any dress the young cook can wear, and will add a great charm and liveliness to the scene.

But be the style adopted what it may, and it is well to exercise individual tastes, it need not be made expensive, or not more so than an ugly kitchen. Thought and care should combine to make it cheerful and attractive, in order that the real work to be done in it may not have a depressing influence: that the lady, or her assistant, may not pine for the greater excitement of the Row or the rink. The kitchen window should be well furnished with scented plants; and in case of having no garden, pots of parsley, mint, and thyme may be grown successfully on a balcony. Every house might possess its sweet basil plant, and every Isabella might rear it in as elegant a pot as that in Holman Hunt's picture. Plentiful use should be made of it in cookery; it is one of the best of herbs. Indeed, we too much neglect all these aromatic plants, the hygienic value of their fragrance alone being very great. Some girls might save the small fortune they now spend in opopanax and patchouly, by cultivating lavender and thyme for their wardrobes; while balm and bergamot are sweet enough to make the kitchen smell like Araby the Blest.

China ginger-jars will be found good for preserving dried herbs for winter use.

The sink is a very important part of the kitchen furniture. This, in our model kitchen, should be a shallow bath of Marezzo marble, which is a strong, durable composition, finely coloured. We should select it of a colour harmonizing with the general style of the kitchen. The sink must rest upon two columns, or short shafts, of the Marezzo marble, hollowed down the centre, to allow of the water running freely away at both ends of the sink, each tube being stopped by a bell-trap. It must stand on one side of the kitchen fire-place, so that a pipe and tap may readily communicate with the self-supplying boiler. There must also be the usual pipe to conduct cold water from the cistern.

The best possible sink would be of real marble, highly polished; but the cost of this would preclude its use in our economical household. Enamelled slate would be cheaper and very good, and it would retain its polish better than the Marezzo marble, or japanned metal might answer the purpose pretty well. But doubtless a demand for such articles would cause Messrs. Minton's factory to produce a sink in strong glazed earthenware which should be finely coloured as well as elegant in form, making, indeed, an object as beautiful as a Roman porphyry bath. Many of the public washing fountains in Italy, or the south of France, would serve as models for this purpose. One of the most important points to be attended to is that it should be highly polished, as grease would be more easily removed from it, and it would be cleaner.

Beneath the sink is the pot for scraps and refuse, of which a small quantity is inevitable, unless there is a garden, or poultry are kept; in which cases all rubbish may be turned to account, the only exception being fish-bones and scraps, which, under all circumstances, must be burned.

The refuse dish should be of earthenware to match the sink, or of terra-cotta, glazed inside. It must be made in two compartments, one for usable scraps and one for waste. Each division should have a cover with a small air-hole in it, both covers made sufficiently heavy not to be upset or opened by the cat; and there must be a handle to lift it out once a week, or oftener, when its contents are disposed of, either as gift, or to some person calling for it regularly. In all economical families the dripping is consumed either for frying, or else clarified for cakes, etc. Cinders, of course, are to be sifted in the covered cinder-sieve, and the ashes only allowed in the dust-bin. By care on this point, seven-tenths of all fevers might be prevented.

By the side of the sink should stand a neat towel-horse for drying the damp cloths; and a pretty dish made in two divisions, with a strainer for soap and soda, should be hung in a convenient place. This dish would be best made in earthenware, but it might be of carved wood in a kitchen fitted up in the Swiss style.

A plate-rack must be above the sink, and here is great scope for tasteful decoration without interfering with its lightness or strength. A rack like those in general use would, however, be perfectly inoffensive, and so would our ordinary buckets and dish-tubs; but souvenirs of travel, such as the quaint wooden pails seen at Antwerp, or the brass fryingpan-shaped candlesticks at Ghent, should be eagerly sought, as they add much to the picturesqueness and piquant liveliness which are so desirable.

A round towel, on a roller with nicely carved brackets, is indispensable. This should be of finer holland than it is generally made of, being for ladies' use; or it might preferably be of soft Turkish towelling, with coloured stripes and a fringed end, and so be pleasanter to the eye and touch than the ordinary jack-towel.

The dresser-drawers must have their piles of kitchen cloths neatly folded, and separated for their different services. These should be the pride of the young housewife's heart, all of them having their ends tastefully ornamented, either ravelled out or knotted into fringe for the commonest, or open worked, or edged with Greek lace and guipure-d'art, according to their quality; the dusters only being plain, and these of two sorts, one stout for furniture, and the other kind of soft muslin for ornaments. Housemaid's gloves, wash-leather, and any favourite cleaning materials, should be kept in a drawer by themselves; but in my experience I have found very few of these things necessary. As is the case with all the arts, the more complete the paraphernalia, the less is the work done. It takes so long to set in order one's apparatus, and to play with it a little, that as soon as something is begun to be done, it is time to put all away again. How often we see this with amateur painters; they set out too heavily equipped.

The black-lead and brush, and broken saucer full of something pulpy, the powder that is always falling out of its packet or bit of newspaper, and the other odds and ends which crowd our house-maids' dirty buckets, and the scrubbing brushes and hearthstone which encumber our sinks, are only barbarisms trying to conceal the slovenliness they pretend to correct. A house regularly and neatly attended to needs few or none of these things, while sandpaper, rotten-stone, and whiting may be almost entirely dispensed with. The homely old proverb should be remembered, when tempted by advertisements of these things, "Elbow-grease is the best furniture polish."

Mincing-machines, apple-paring-machines, and toys of this kind, are all very well when ladies use them themselves; but they represent so much idleness, waste, and destruction in the hands of careless cooks, who like to sit over their letter writing, or their weekly paper, while the kitchen-maid does the work. And when a fragile machine breaks or gets out of order under her heavy hand, she only "drats the nasty thing" and throws away the broken part, pushing the rest aside to become a portion of the dreadful accumulation of lumber to be seen in every house.

My own practice as a wood-carver teaches me to prefer using that perfect tool, the hand, in its ever adaptable way, to using it servilely to grind out sausages. By the time one has prepared the meat to feed the machine, set it in working order, and taken it to pieces again to clean it, one might as soon have used a sharp knife, and the meat would have tasted better than it does when its juice is squeezed out and its fibre torn to rags, so that the insipid rissoles made from it need half a bottle of Harvey's sauce to make them eatable. It may be a matter of taste, but the difference seems to me as great as between music played on a piano and noise ground out of a barrel-organ.

Washing-machines, I have found to my cost, are a failure also, at least in hired hands. I bought one of the best, but as I had also a washing-tray, the machine, warranted to do everything, was neglected, and its lid employed as a table; as we too often see with our pianos, telling thereby a tale of forgetfulness. The mangling part of the machine, which was sometimes used by semi-compulsion, always had its screw left turned on at full pressure, so that the spring would have been powerless in a week, had I not loosened it myself. Washing at home had better not be attempted in the case of ladies doing their own work. We want to lighten the labour of the house; since, if we endeavour to do too much, we shall either become household drudges, or else decline the work altogether.

But supposing a family has time and opportunity to do the laundry work at home, a tablespoonful of liquid ammonia and a dessertspoonful of turpentine used in the washing water, where a quarter of a pound of soap has been finely sliced, will be found to remove dirt from the clothes without rubbing, saving labour, much soap, and the wear and tear of the things.

In the case of large families, besides the greater economy of washing at home, which is, however, doubtful when extra labour is hired, the immunity from infectious diseases being brought home in the linen is a powerful motive for undertaking the work, and doubly so where there is a garden, as it is so much better for our health to wear linen dried in the fresh air, rather than in the small courts of the neighbourhood where our laundresses usually dwell, or in the close passages of their houses.

Kent's patent knife-cleaner is as much used, and as useful, as any of these domestic machines, though I prefer the leather-covered board. Pyro-silver knives seem to save labour, as they are cleaned like any spoon; wiped first, as all greasy knives should be, with paper, then washed in warm water and wiped with a cloth. My own pyro-silver knives keep very well and remain bright, but as they have valuable handles of elaborate Burmese ivory-carving they are carefully used. I have heard people say that the pyro-silver does not wear well, being easily scratched and otherwise injured.

Balancing the sink on one side of the stove is the fuel-box, containing a quarter of ton of coal. This, in most of the new stoves, will last several weeks, and it may be bought in this small quantity at a time, or replenished from the usual coal-cellar. This consideration would be determined by the season, by whether the other stoves in the house burn gas or coal, and by the number of rooms requiring daily fires.

The fuel-box should have a lid, forming a table for any temporary uses, or any of the less cleanly sorts of work – I will not say dirtier work, because in this system there should be no dirty work, nothing but what a lady may do without loss of dignity, and without injury to hands which in the afternoon will handle delicate needlework, and in the evening recreate themselves over the piano.

And this leads us to speak of the systematic employment of lady-helps, in such cases as they may be a real comfort and assistance in a family, and not where they are expected to be perfect servants, who for small wages will relieve idle ladies from the difficulty of first obtaining and then enduring a few ignorant domestics.