CLEANLINESS TO SOOT

Evening Star, Issue 19699, 28 October 1927, Page 2

CLEANLINESS TO SOOT

VMG HOUSEWIFE’S EXPERIENCE ELECTRICAL HELP FROM NEW ANCLE The following notes have been written from a rather unusual viewpoint for the ‘ Electrician.’ The writer is a young housewife who had no previous experience in cooking or housekeeping, and whose first house, when newly married, was “all-electric.” Having set up housekeeping and “ learned her trade ” under ideal conditions, she moved into another district, and found herself deprived of electricity. For six months she has keen using coal fires, and has been heard to express herself so forcibly regarding the absence of electrical facilities that she has been persuaded to put down her views on the matter. Moving from one house to another must always ho a hawissing time, hut when it means moving from electricity at the same time, it becomes almost a nightmare; particularly when one has ‘graduated” in an “all-electric house, and has no experience in the ways of coal fires and ovens, which resemble those of the heathen Chinese! Dirt is the chief characteristic of coal fires. The time taken to clean my coal-fired kitchen range forms a big item in the morning’s work, although the range is of a modern typo, and fitted in a new house. Raking and prodding into innumerable flues (1 kept finding more in mysterious places as time wont on), makes dust and dirt fly, and so makes more work in all the rooms in the house. To “do a kitchen or any other room in which an electric fire or cooker is used is child’s play, when compared with one in which coal fires are used. Dirt and soot float into pans, and there are times when a lid should not be put on—when cooking certain vegetables, and boiling baby’s milk, for instance. With the electric cooker pans can he kept penectly clean, inside and out, with the greatest of ease, and lids can be left off with impunity.

Another very useful point with the electric cooker was that, when switched on, one knew for certain what the temperature of the oven would be in a definite time, and knew for certain that it would remain constant. On tho other hand the temperature of a coal oven is uncertain and varies—appaiently with the number of cinders under the oven, the amount of soot in the flues, the direction of the wind, and, for all I know, with the changes of the moon. Coal has not always tho same heating power. The fire docs not always draw as well, and what is more important, it may slow down or suddenly “go mad’' by burning furiously] in either case ruining the cooking. To overcome the variations of the coal oven I adopted the local custom of putting “squibs” down the various flues and blowing down the soot, but I have often felt tempted to blow up the whole outfit! With so many other things to do in the house, it was such a comfort to know that in the electric oven tho dinner would be cooked properly and in a definite time without trouble and without the necessity for “ coaxing" it in any way. Tho heat from a coal fire, particularly on a hot day, added to the trouble of stoking, poking, and watching, makes one “all hot and bothered,” and changes pleasant work into unpleasant duty. Every day I long for my cool, clean kitchen, and I am sure that my cooking is not nearly so good as it was when I did it the electric way. 1 feel, in fact, that I have earned my laurels under false pretences; the compliments paid to my cooking should nave gone to the cooker, and not to tho cook! I miss the electric iron with its uniform heat, and find that such a lot of time lias to he spent on keeping the ordinary iron clean and running backwards and forwards to reheat it. The heat, too, comes up on to tho hands and makes ironing hot work.

I miss the electric fires too. It was so handy to switcli one on for an hour in baby’s room to take off the chill, and if an unexpected visitor arrived to stay the night the bed could be aired quickly and easily—no fuss—and the lire gave a cheery welcome. The guest could switch it on or _olt at will, and did not wake up to find the dead ashes of a fire greeting him; never a very cheery sight.

And so T have learned to value electricity more—ever so much more—by being deprived of it. Although L understand that current is dearer in this district than it was in my old “electric house,” and although the cooker will have to be bought and not hired, I am longing for electricity again. I hear good news; there is a possibility that I may soon have it back once more- Then 1 can bring from their hiding places my old friends the iron, the kettle, and the fires, etc., and, I hope, see a new cooker standins in the kitchen, and welcome back the days of clean pans, cool cooking, convenience, and easier cleanliness, and say good-bye to fines, “squibs,” pokers, and Root, May the next parting be final 1