Part 2
When ornaments are to be considered one generally makes the best of what one has. The newly settled couple may be thankful if they have not been burdened with pictures and bric-à-brac which not only do not please their personal taste, but refuse to harmonize with one another or with anything else. In some cases one can only make the best of conditions, and after endeavoring to arrange the unwelcome gifts to the best advantage and scattering them over the house so as to dispel the curse to as many different quarters as possible, resign oneself to endurance until such time as the presents can be removed, one at a time.
Those fortunate persons who can buy their own luxuries will recall the Oriental proverb: “If thou hast but two loaves of bread, sell one and buy jacinths for the soul!” What form the jacinths may take will be determined by individual preference. One will find more joy and uplift in really fine pictures than in anything else; another will concentrate upon books and magazines; another will turn from both of these and toward music. It makes little difference which way the window is opened into the Infinite. The vital point is that such an outlet must be provided if soul and spirit are to be nourished and grow as well as body and physical strength.
However much the importance of such plenishing as this may impress either the man or the woman, the latter would be profoundly lacking if she did not display a keen interest in other essentials of her new home. The pictures, the books, the other arts, may rejoice and help her, but she would be wanting in femininity if she failed to select her table and bed linen with almost as much thought as she would expend upon her “jacinths.”
Even with unlimited means, it is not wise to buy more linen than can be used in a small household. Plenty there should be, but not a large stock which will lie aside and yellow from lack of service. Three or four dinner-cloths, each with its accompaniment of a dozen napkins, will be ample for her average needs, especially if she uses a centerpiece and doilies on the bare table for breakfast and lunch. In her purchasing she should avoid the fringed articles; these wear badly and are difficult to do up well. Fruit-plate doilies to place under finger-bowls, fish-cloths, centerpieces, tray-cloths, sideboard and dresser covers, tea and carving cloths, and other ornamental as well as useful linens will probably be given to her by relatives or friends, or she may pick them up from time to time as she has need for them or the chance to purchase them advantageously. As her table-cloths and larger pieces begin to wear out she can usually cut from them squares which will serve to lay under hot baked potatoes in the dish, to wrap about rolls or other hot bread, to use for fish-cloths.
A dozen each of dish and china towels she should have, and the same number of heavier towels for kitchen use, as well as three roller-towels. But the napery in this line she should keep under her own hand, if she has hired service in her kitchen and pantry, and give the towels out a few at a time in order to save her linen as well as to inculcate habits of care.
When bed-linen is to be considered, the housekeeper should follow the same line as that she has laid down in her purchase of table-linen. The ornamental may be selected as suits her fancy, but there are certain must-haves in the plainer articles. Six pairs of cotton sheets are none too many, and pillow-slips to go with them. If she and her family cherish a weakness for linen pillow-slips, some of these may be provided in place of so many pairs of the cotton cases. For three beds three or four spreads should be procured, so as to allow of change, and these spreads should be of the kind which wash easily and look well afterward. Mattress-covers are also essential, as are blankets and extra coverings. Silk or lace counterpanes cannot be reckoned among must-haves, any more than can like dressings for the bureau, but may be supplied at will.
At least two or three dozen fine towels must be included in the list of essentials, half a dozen good firm bath-towels, and wash-cloths at discretion, as well as a dozen heavier towels for the use of domestics. Guest-towels, bath-sheets, bath-mats, and the like are luxuries which may be accumulated after the necessities are attained.
When the housekeeper is filling out her list of household linens and cottons she must not overlook dusters, floor-cloths, mop-cloths, dish-cloths, or mops--I hope she uses the latter!--and other similar requirements. In this advanced day there are new articles in this line which present themselves constantly and which the housekeeper must decide for herself to be luxuries or necessities.
For supplying the china-closet a fixed rule is almost impossible. The best plan is for the housekeeper to make out for herself what her family will need and then to consult an intelligent clerk in a good china-shop. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy a whole set of china than to select from “open stock” the pieces that are absolutely required. Soup, dinner, dessert plates; plates for lunch and for breakfast, for afternoon tea, for salad, for entrées; service plates; meat and vegetable dishes in china or silver, can all be purchased in a charming variety and at a reasonable price. The same is true of glassware. Many gifts will fit in well here, and the stock of silver is pretty sure to be received from the family or friends.
In the kitchen matters are different. Few persons present culinary plenishing, and it almost always devolves upon the housekeeper to select it for herself. While she may have developed needs in certain explicit directions, there are a few rules which can be laid down for her general guidance, certain articles which it is safe to declare essentials. Such are the following:
Two 1-quart saucepans One 2-quart saucepan One 5-quart saucepan One 3-quart double boiler One 2-quart double boiler Two baking-pans for meat _or_ one plain baking-pan and one covered roaster One large frying-pan One small frying-pan One colander One graduated quart measure One graduated half-pint cup One meat-broiler One fish or oyster broiler Three jelly-cake tins One large cake-tin One biscuit-pan One set muffin-tins Three bread-tins Three pie-plates One 2-quart pitcher Two jelly-molds One pudding-mold One steamer One teakettle One teapot One coffee-pot Fireless cooker Chopping bowl and knife Meat chopper or grinder Soapstone griddle Cake-turner Bread bowl and board Rolling-pin Board for cutting meat Board for cutting bread Meat-saw Bread-knife Bread-box Cake-box Butter-paddles Potato-beetle Egg-beater Scales Lemon-squeezer Meat-fork One large crockery mixing-bowl Two small crockery mixing-bowls One platter Two pudding-dishes Set of skewers Cheese or vegetable grater Nutmeg-grater Vegetable-press Soup-strainer Coffee or tea strainer Coffee-mill Corkscrew Pair of scissors Can-opener Small vegetable-knives Mixing-spoons Flour-dredger Salt-shaker Cake-cutters Split spoon Skimmer Ice-pick
Other no less important articles are as follows:
Two dish-pans A garbage-pail with cover Sink-brush Soap-shaker Wire dish-cloth Oil-can Brooms, dust-pans, whisk brooms, carpet-sweeper, etc.
III
THE TABLE
The judicious purchase and use of food is the chief economical possibility of housekeeping.
The rent is an incompressible item. Every month that immutable charge presents itself. It cannot be cut down. The only way to reduce it is by changing the dwelling.
Fuel may be used with a discretion which lessens outlay, but in cold weather the house must be kept comfortable, even though the coal bills mount high. When certain repairs are due they have to be made or the rooms become unbearably shabby. Only in the domain of food is it feasible to apply a wise judgment in buying, a cultivated skill in cooking which induces cheap selections to be as savory in taste, as nutritious in qualities, as those which cost far more.
Such ability in marketing and preparation does not come by nature. It must be studied and worked for, but it is worth the effort.
At the first glimpse nothing seems simpler than for the young housekeeper to sally forth to a good market, make her selections, order them cut off and sent home, and pay for them--or have them charged! (Usually it is fatally easy to open a charge account!) The same notion prevails as to buying groceries. If a good shop is chosen, there is apparently no trouble about the transaction.
Possibly there need be no difficulties if the family purse is so well filled that a little more or less expenditure is of no real importance. But few are the homes in which this state of affairs exists and most of us find it desirable, if not actually essential, to study the comparative prices of staples in different shops and localities, to learn if there is an advantage in making some purchases at one shop and some at another, instead of giving all the family custom to one merchant.
Earlier reference has been made to the proportion of the income which is to go for rent. Positive assertions as to how much shall be spent on the food of the family are far less easy to make, and the degree of definiteness with which they are uttered is hampered by the constant changes in the price of food.
Not more than ten years ago a liberal allowance for the food of an adult was from three dollars to three dollars and a half a week. This covered only the price of the commodities and did not allow for the fuel used in preparation, service, etc. To-day this expenditure would be totally inadequate for the same order of nourishment it would have included a decade back. At that time a breakfast consisting of fruit, cereal, bacon, fish or eggs, bread, coffee or tea; a luncheon comprising a solid dish of meat, fish, eggs, or cheese, one or two vegetables, or a hot bread, a simple sweet, and tea or cocoa; a dinner of soup, a meat, two vegetables, a salad, crackers and cheese, or a good sweet, and coffee--could all have been secured in the family at a little over three dollars a head, when there were three or more to be fed. From four and a half to five dollars per capita would be required at the present time for a similar provision.
The rise in prices may have altered the sums of our estimates; it has not lessened the necessity for a study of the proportion of the family means which must go for nutriment. This must be determined by the heads of the house in conclave. The harder part of the work devolves upon the woman, who must devise economies and carry them into effect, both in marketing and in cooking.
The inexperienced housekeeper should try to gain a few lessons in the best methods of purchasing. Sometimes a brief attendance at a cooking-school is of aid; or she may be able to join a class for learning how to market--such classes exist and are most helpful--or she may gain counsel from some older and more experienced housewife, or by conning books on these topics. In this day there is no excuse for even a beginner making the mistakes which have supplied material for many of the hackneyed jokes at the expense of young matrons.
Important as is the practical and personal lesson in knowing how to market wisely, much can be gained from manuals on the subject. Some of these furnish cuts and charts of the various animals, with descriptions of the portions and of the uses to which each may be put. Instructions as to the periods of the year when certain articles are at their best are also supplied. Prices can be learned from the market reports published in the daily papers and much is to be acquired by going from one shop to another. After a little the housekeeper will become acquainted with the appearance of meat and be able to judge for herself if it looks fresh and good. She can likewise observe how the shops are kept and in which certain obvious sanitary arrangements are complied with. She will not need much tuition to inform her that she should turn aside from shops where the food is not guarded from flies and dust, where strict cleanliness does not prevail in the salesmen and the appurtenances, and the objects on sale are not handled with proper care.
A few points it may be well to emphasize for the benefit of the beginner. The fat of meat should be white and clean, the lean a clear red, the joints of poultry must break easily and the skin look smooth and healthful. When a fowl is yellow, bony, and hairy it is bound to be old and tough. The gills of fish should be fresh and the eyes bright.
I cannot speak too strongly against the growing habit of marketing by telephone. Not only is the housekeeper who follows this custom at the mercy of her marketman, who can put off on her any cut which has been rejected by the wiser housewives who have come in person to do their trading; he is subjected to the pleasing temptation to cut off more than she has ordered or charge her for a heavier piece than he sends home.
The woman who goes to market gains other advantages beyond those of seeing for herself the appearance and the size of the piece she orders and has cut off while she stands by and superintends the process. She also has offered to her chances for bargains she would never get if she marketed by telephone. Often there will be a change in the market or in the weather that will bring down the cost of articles which are usually high-priced, and the woman who does her own marketing is the one to benefit by this as well as by suggestions which introduce variety into her bill of fare.
This same variety is to be studied by the sensible housekeeper, not only on account of the gratification it gives her to set a pleasing provision before her family, but also because of the genuine good that is gained by avoiding a monotony which fails to encourage the appetite. Moreover, saving is aided by this diversity, since cheap dishes can be slipped into the commissary without awakening the suspicions of the eaters that economy is being practised at their expense.
Among the rational details to be observed in buying meat is that of insisting that all “trimmings” shall be sent home. When a roast of beef or a breast of lamb or a shoulder of mutton or veal is boned and rolled, the bones should never be left at the market for the butcher to sell over again, but sent with the meat that they may be used as a foundation for soup or gravy stock. The giblets and feet of poultry should also be demanded. When chops are “Frenched” or a steak cut into seemliness, none of the scraps should be considered unworthy of saving. All have their place in the stock-pot or as stew-meat.
Too large a piece of meat should not be bought by the woman with a small family. Meat merchants have a way of discouraging the purchase of the smaller roasts on the plea that they dry out in cooking. If they do it is because the work is not properly done. It is quite possible to make a small roast toothsome and tender instead of dry and hard if the housekeeper will cook it in the right way and with due care.
Steak and chops, the frequent resource of the woman with a small family, are expensive luxuries. She is wise if she learns how to cook the cheaper cuts in a sufficiently attractive fashion to make her family contented with these instead of leaving them longing for the higher-priced portions.
A “run” upon any one kind of food should be avoided as much as having fixed days for specific viands. Fish on Friday one may take as a matter of course, but there is no real reason why one should have roast beef every Sunday or a boiled dinner on Saturday night. I know it is the plaint of the majority of housewives that it is most difficult to secure variety in the meat dishes, but this trouble should not exist in a family where practically all sorts of meat can be eaten. In one household such as I know, where veal and pork are both taboo, and fish can be eaten by only one person, the choice is narrowed down a good deal. Even then, however, with a knowledge of how to prepare savory stews, minces, hashes, scallops, croquettes, fritters, meat-pies, stuffed peppers, tomatoes and peppers with a meat filling, as well as roast, boiled, broiled, braised, and fried meat dishes, there should be no wail over the trials of the housekeeper in changing her menus frequently.
No time can be considered wasted which is bestowed on the study of how to cook cheap meat well. Always it should be recollected that many of the so-called cheap cuts really contain a greater amount of nutriment than the choicer selections. As I have said on various occasions, the housekeeper must be prepared to pay a price for excellence of food, and if she cannot pay this in hard cash she must supply the equivalent in careful cookery and wise seasoning. A knowledge of the uses of curry powder, anchovy, and other condiments in changing and modifying the tastes of familiar foods, a willingness to give the time to slow and long cooking which will bring out the best flavor of the meat, an acquaintance with the manifold ways in which left-overs of food can be utilized in pleasing combinations, are among the branches which a housekeeper of small means finds well worth her study.
Reference has been made to the help a fireless cooker is to the woman who keeps house well. It is a saving of time, fuel, labor, and food values. By its assistance the housekeeper can prepare her meal hours ahead of time and go about other pursuits in the calm certainty that when she is ready for her dinner it will be ready for her, and as good as if she had simmered over the kitchen fire all the afternoon, using up her fuel and herself. There are several varieties of these cookers, all of them on practically the same plan, and it will pay a woman to look about her to find which kind suits her best. For soups, stews, cereals, they are unequaled, as for making jams, preserves, or anything else which demands a long period of deliberate cooking.
Special attention has been given to the purchase of meat, but there is almost equal judgment to be shown in buying groceries. Here there is a chance for the inexperienced marketer to be imposed upon. Certain fixed principles she should follow.
The first of these is that it is, as a rule, unwise to buy in bulk. That is, there is little gained in a small family by laying in large supplies at a time. A barrel of flour is likely to be musty and weevily before it can be used; corn meal in large quantities develops vermin; so do cereals purchased by a number of packages or pounds at a time. Care should be taken to select an honest grocer or to know enough of prices not to be overcharged, and then to order supplies as they are needed.
Buying in bulk means more than this: it also refers to getting the “loose” crackers, cereals, and the like, instead of those inclosed in cartons. The latter is always the better plan, and care should be taken to select a good variety that is put up by manufacturers whose names are a guarantee of the excellence of the products. Until one has investigated the matter one has no idea of how many cheap and poor materials are foisted off upon a guileless public, bearing the stamp of unknown makers, with the assurance that they are “just as good” as like articles put up by well-known houses.
This fiction is especially prevalent about canned goods. When these are first-class they are admirable, and fortunately there are daily increasing numbers of fine and trustworthy establishments who can fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, etc., in conditions which assure the complete protection of the consumer. Yet there are still in existence small and unscrupulous concerns whose output is cheap and poor if not actually dangerous to health, and these should be boycotted by all housekeepers.
Care should be exercised in buying fresh vegetables and fruits. In most of our large cities the laws as to protecting these against dust and dirt are being enforced more vigorously with every year, and here, too, the housewife can help to bring about a better state of affairs by insisting upon purchasing only such articles as have been properly cared for. Vegetables which are to be cooked before eating may not suffer so much by being exposed to dust, but salads and berries and other fruits or vegetables which are eaten raw are a menace when they have been suffered to lie and wilt in a current of air laden with dust and disease germs.
IV
CONCERNING HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS
One of the first items of business to be considered by a newly married couple, or a pair who are about to begin housekeeping, is the division of the income between the husband and wife.
This does not imply that their interests are to be opposed or that they are to have absolutely separate purses. It does mean that there must be a clear understanding on both sides of what the expenditure is to be for certain purposes and that the funds for food, domestic service, and other strictly housekeeping outlay should be in the hands of the wife.
This point has been much debated and the pros and cons on both sides exploited. Some men argue that the possession of ready money will lead the wife to extravagance, that it is far better to have all articles charged and the bills paid by the husband, that women do not understand household accounts or bookkeeping. Enough foolish and shallow women exist to lend a trifling force to this position. But the general and growing view is that the housekeeper upon whom is laid the responsibility of purveying for an establishment rises to the emergency, that she does better work and makes wiser purchases when she is trusted with an allowance for such expenses, that an exhaustive knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping is not demanded for simple domestic accounts, that even the immature and untrained wife gains knowledge by experience and competence by errors made and corrected.
Certain disbursements seem naturally to devolve upon the man of the house. That he should pay the rent, defray outside or general repairs, perhaps meet the coal bill, appears a matter of course. But it is unquestionably the province of the wife to buy provisions and pay for them, either in cash or by weekly or monthly accounts. Charges for work done in the house, the replacement of cooking utensils, household linen and the like, the bills for gas and electric light, all should be within her control, to be settled by her as they fall due, after she has examined them and convinced herself that they are correct.
If other arrangement is made than this, it should be after careful consideration and unbiased discussion of the advantages and demerits of the system. As a general thing such a division as that just suggested proves the best.