THE ELECTRICAL KITCHEN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 58, 9 March 1906, Page 1

THE ELECTRICAL KITCHEN.

THE NEWEST TRIUMPH OF MODERN INVENTION.

The electric kitchen, dustless, ,heatless, and odorless —except for the aroma of perfectly cooking food—is a thing of the matter-of-fact present. Before long it will be universal and commonplace. Now it is considered a necessity only by the rich. There is hardly a Fifth Avenue mansion in New York that is not equipped with electric cooking apparatus. One of the most perfectly appointed electric kitchens in the world is in the magnificent Andrew Carnegie palace. William G. Rockefeller's New York home is similarly equipped, and so is James Stillman's. In the Carnegie kitchen is every appliance known in electrical cookery, and its capacity is sufficient for the preparation of the largest and most elaborate banquets. It has been a notable success. Electric kitchens in connection with large, business concerns are many in New York. John Arbuckle, the coffee magnate, at noon each day joins his office staff in the enjoyment of a capital luncheon cooked by electricity on the premises. There are-alsp similar kitchens in the Edison Company's building and the new Times building. There is unseemingly ho feat or cul-inai\y-al^ts*Eryv:that cannot be:performed as well w'it-h "electricity as witli gas or coal. Every form of utensil is duplicated, with the addition gf the heat-producing apparatus. There are boilers, fryers, ovens, double boilers, "griddle-cake cookers, tea, kettles, toasters, waffle irons, chafing dishes and dozens of other conveniences yunr ning all the way to foot-warmers and flatirons

The modern electric kitchen at its best is a combination of laboratory and living room. With no ashes, coal, smoke, odour or product of combustion or bulky ranges the kitchen at once presents possibilities for beauty and comfort as. well as usefulness, and the bare room of tradition becomes a cosy chamber of far different aspect. Good pictures on the walls, good rugs on the floors and artistic furniture of good quality seem no longer out> pf place. But while tlie fully equipped kitchen is still a luxury, the electric chafing dish is ii much-used necessity in the furnishing of thousands of American dining rooms. Ingenious housewives have found dozens of dishes whose charm is enhanced by final treatment at the table just before it is served piping hot from the electri-city-warmed vessel.

"But isn't it expensive?" is the objection. True, it costs more- than gas, just as gas or electric light costs more than oil or oil than candles. The owners of electrical cooking apparatus claim that the conveniences are well worth the difference, and this is especially true of the occasional diningroom use. The original outlay is of course greater than that for ordinary cooking utensils, but time must see the cost of both materials and power cut down as the demands go lip, so that even those of the most moderate means can be in the fashion as regards this most utilitarian and sensible of modes.

The equipping of a kitchen with electrical cooking apparatus is exceedingly simple. A neat switchboard on the wall gives control of the current, which is thence carried to the handsome little individual " stoves, 1' and shining in their nickel-plate and set, perhaps, on a table of dull oak. The cookers are all movable and separate, there is no range in the old-fashioned sense, and even the ovens are portable. The wires to this table may £asjiy be kept out of sight. If there are a limited number of connections tlie cookers are easily interchangeable.

Among the other odd things to which electrical heating is applied are curling-iron holders, hot-water heatera for the bath, foot-warmers, glue pots, soldering irons and of course the heating of rooms.