CHAPTER XI
KEEPING IT COOL
She rang for the butler:
“Wilson, please ask the chef what kind of a refrigerator the architect put in for us.”
“Very well, madam,” and he departed to the kitchen.
This same chatelaine did not send for the butler to inquire what kind of an automobile her garage held. Not for a moment! She knew, too, the difference between the Rolls-Royce, her car, and the Ford, or any other car! Yet, she didn’t know her refrigerator! And to-day, although all the world’s a-wheel, the very crux of the situation is the refrigerator! Peace--war--the economic structure of nations hinges on the preservation of food, not only in refrigerating cars, but in our kitchens; for, as our kitchens save food, just so much more easily will the world be fed and unrest cease.
Beyond much doubt the chic porcelain-lined refrigerator of to-day is the corner-stone of the halls of domesticity; for what in the unconscious song of every husband is a wife without well-kept food! And is there any romance that will survive flabby lettuce and pulpy celery?
HOW IT IS MADE
The booklets about the refrigerator are entrancing! The pictures bring to mind marble halls, à la Alma Tadema, and you might wonder why he never used a modern refrigerator in one of his Roman paintings!
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of the Kelvinator Co._
WHEN THERE IS A CELLAR USED FOR THE LAUNDRY, THE ICE-MAKER COILS CAN BE SET DOWN THERE WITH EASE AND SIMPLICITY. HERE TOO IS AN ELECTRIC IRONER AND WASHER INSTALLED, WITH A VERY NEAT TOOL RACK!]
But you will remember that the linings of the refrigerator are not of marble no matter how much they resemble it, but instead must be made in one piece of smooth, hard, non-porous, non-warpable, non rustable material, the best type of which is the burnt-in vitreous porcelain in several layers on a metal backing. These linings must be made in one piece with no seams. No seams and seamless are quite different in their implication. “No seams” is what it seems to indicate, but seamless means a camouflage of joints. Joints and seams are food and odor entrappers and presage disease and death. Many of the advertised enameled interiors are made of nothing but paint heated, not burnt-in, which therefore flakes off or crazes (cracks form) and falls into the food, which of course is not a particularly epicurean sort of truffle!
The doors, too, must be seamless, jointless, screwless and smooth.
The shelves and other partitions must be of smooth, heavily tinned wire mesh. Smooth to prevent accumulation of food; and the wire mesh to insure rapid and unimpeded circulation of air.
THE NINE POINTS
Whereas some refrigerator owners may keep butlers, the following points are more essential to the maidless home, because effort and energy and strength are saved to say naught of money and ice if conditions are such that the ice will not fade away rapidly and cleaning have to be done under difficulties of construction.
Therefore, to preserve the sanitation of the home and the consequent sanity of the world before buying a refrigerator the following Nine Points should be laid before the Kitchen Diplomatic Table:
1. Does it: Maintain a low and uniform temperature?
2. Maintain a pure atmosphere?
3. Appear to keep absolutely sanitary?
4. Seem to be built to keep perfect circulation and an absence from odors?
5. Keep free from moisture?
6. Seem built to be economical in ice consumption?
7. Have a system to insure perfect drainage?
8. Contain a porcelain lining in provision chamber?
9. And does it seem to be built for durability as well as for beauty?
And now about enforcing the Nine Points.
THE INSULATION
How for instance is a minimum temperature to be kept? Chiefly, by insulation--this is a strictly mechanical term understood by motorists and engineers and must be understood by the housewife, who is a domestic or kitchen engineer if she is anything. The low temperature is kept by keeping out the outside heat and keeping in the inside cold! After much experiment, it has been found that the walls, floors and doors of every refrigerator must have at least one air space, from six to nine layers of insulating material consisting of pebbled cork, or certain patented materials, mineral wool, asbestos and various layers of porous substances which keep out the outer warm air and prevent the cold air from escaping. (See illustration.) Well insulated refrigerators backed up against boilers, stoves or vats maintain a temperature far below 58 or 60 degrees; some, the best, maintaining 50 degrees.
AS TO ICE CHAMBERS
The ice compartment should be above, and to one side, so that the cold air from the melting ice can descend, as is the custom of cold air, and can rise again as it gets heated in its contact with the provisions and pass up over the ice, be cooled and pass down again with its collected odors through the drain. This is what is called air circulation, and when the ice box is properly constructed, and when the ice compartment is kept full, the air is in constant motion, traveling over and over again up and down and around the food and ice. This constant activity of the air is what insures an odorless condition, unmouldy and cold food.
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Bohm Syphon Co._
NOR COLD NOR HEAT CAN GET BEYOND THESE FORTIFICATIONS
PORCELAIN ENAMEL LINING ONE PIECE DEAD AIR SPACE INSIDE WOOD LINING BLACK WATERPROOF PAPER WOOL FELT PAPER FLAXLINUM INSULATION OUTSIDE WOOD CASE]
In the best refrigerators the ice chamber extends a few inches below the door and is lined with the highest grade of smooth galvanized metal, lock jointed, and is without seams and sharp edges.
In some refrigerators the wall between the ice compartment and the provision chamber is slatted, in some there is a space at the top, in others, holes are bored, top and bottom, to permit the free egress of the circulating air. These methods are good in varying degrees. The main things to be kept in mind are:
1. Does the air circulate enough to prevent any moisture accumulating in the refrigerator? Can salt be kept dry and granular in it for one hundred hours?
2. Does the refrigerator keep below 60 degrees, or better between 45 and 50 degrees? Will a damp cloth dry quicker inside than outside of it, because of the rapid circulation and dryness of the air?
3. Do matches keep dry and can they be lighted by being struck on its walls? (This shows whether the ice box is dry!)
4. Does the milk taste of cheese or the butter of the soup?
If they have any “acquired traits,” you may be sure the circulation of air in your refrigerator is bad or else there are seams or crazes in the tile, holding odors in their grip. Tiles and other beautiful interiors have in many instances been discarded by many makers because of their brittleness or pertinacious grip on odors--which, in the form of gases, poison foods and hence the family! Opal glass has been dropped because of its fragility in lighter weights. There are, however, some manufacturers who use tile with excellent result.
Another important feature is the drain pipe, more important almost than the exhaust on the motor. If this pipe is not constructed solely to carry off odors and waste materials from the cleanest ice and not to import insects, gases and warm air from the sewage of the town, it will collect a very tidy packet of typhoid, diphtheria or any home-seeking germs. This drain ought therefore to have a water-sealed trap in it, it should be smooth, of hard, well-finished metal and be so simply cleaned that the kitchen maid, or whoever is delegated to perform the laving of this important part of the household, should not look forward to the performance with horror, but with a sense of ease.
There isn’t a doubt that a faulty drain in the refrigerator has caused more typhoid than anything else.
Think what it means then to be a good kitchen engineer--what service you can render your family! Few home-keepers realize the necessity of understanding the underlying principles of air circulation, sanitation and germination but what a lot of misery could be avoided if the chatelaine or even the wife-cook had a little technical knowledge. How this would dignify the science of the home. And yet how lightly is the function of home-keeper assumed and how many brainy women look down upon it!
HOW TO USE A REFRIGERATOR
But if you have everything to assure perfection in refrigeration and know not how to use it, it is as if you had none at all.
Note this amendment to the nine points:
1. Keep your ice chamber _full_, even after Dry Laws. It saves ice and preserves your food. The circulating air will only go “over the top” as far as the bulk of ice drives it.
2. _Never put any food in the ice compartment._ It must play an infinite solitaire.
3. Keep the doors shut, and open them as little as possible.
4. If the ice gives out, take out all the material and rinse out the refrigerator. Refill it with ice and keep the door shut at least six hours. And remember sufficiency of ice insures efficiency of refrigeration and efficiency of refrigeration means a sufficiency in expenditure--for a refrigerator.
Water coils can be put in some ice chambers which connect directly with the water supply. In this way the water can be kept continuously cool for drinking under all conditions of outside temperature.
The outside of the ice box should be of hard wood or porcelain, the hardware of the best, including lever door handles.
Back doors for filling the ice box can be set so that the ice can be put in from the outside of the ice house, room, pantry or kitchen. This avoids useless handling and melting of the ice and obviates the iceman’s journey through the house.
And, above all, choose a refrigerator that has no unnecessary “improvements” in the ice chamber which have to be taken out and scalded. The easier it can be rinsed from within the more often the attendants will clean it!
And remember this, too, that an ice box is a cooler where the ice and provisions go in the same chamber, while the _refrigerator_--well, you know it all now.
And, by the way, if you want a useful little device to keep your grape juice or yourself--cool--while motoring this summer, look up a little basket refrigerator which comes in many sizes and many prices.
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