OLD STOVES USED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 107, 7 May 1943, Page 2

OLD STOVES USED

COOKING PROBLEMS DINNERS ON OPEN FIRES Absence of gas in of Auckland homes just at the time when it is needed most —for the evening meal—is causing a keen search for alternative means of heating, but apparently with little success. Probably the most common alternative is the primus stove, and many ancient types are being resurrected from dark and cobwebby corners to be again placed in commission. Kerosene is still available in adequate quantities as fuel. People without primus stoves will have little hope of purchasing them owing to the depletion of stocks. Primus stoves which retailed at 14/6 before the war are now stated to be priced at £2 15/, but there are few in the shops. One man considered there were not more than four or five dozen in the whole of Auckland. Then there is the benzine stove, which burns a special spirit different from car petrol and for which licenses must be obtained from the oil fuel controller. No undue demand for benzine for stove purposes has yet been encountered at the controller's office. These stoves are also fairly expensive and scarce, and few persons other than inveterate campers and anglers have them in their possession. Another form of stove is fuelled with bottled gas, but consumers in this field are almost entirely confined to remote country districts, where normal gas and electricity supplies are not available, and on patrol boats and yachts. Permission must be obtained from the Ministry of Supply to use bottled gas. In a number of homes cooking of the evening meal is said to have reverted to the principles of the early pioneering days, saucepans being placed on the open fire. At least one housewife cooked a roast joint by this method last evening. Other home cooks are developing a technique of their own to overcome the gas shortage and half-cook the food earlier in the day, when gas is more plentiful. It is then later heated up on an open fire, or gas is used when it again comes through the pipes.