The Savannah morning news., 1904-08-21

American housewife has to take into
her kitchen. But cooking is a high
ly skilled trade, and one of the most
important in the world. The health
of the nation depends on 1t. A woman
who has the brains to make good
cook will not be a general servant.
She will not work for what the aver
age housewife who keeps the one ser
want is able to pay. She will not
be d servant at all, unless in a
wealthy family or in some big
hotel
You cannot get woman of educa-
ton and refinement to enter domestic
service of any description, because of
the loss of social position which it in
wolves. 1t is not the cooking they
object to, it is the stigma. 1 have seen
women of high attachments teaching
cooking schools. But they would not
enter family to cook at ten times the
salary. But such women could be
managers of central kitchens, if they
had the capital to start and the head
to organize them. They would retain
their social position then, as they do
now. They would not be hired girls
but managers of a business. There
would be no such trouble to get help in
a central kitchen as there is in a house.
The helpers would live at home and
come and leave at regular hours, like
girls in any other employment. There
is no trouble in getting Mattresses in
restaurants. 1t is the loneliness of
domestic service, the separation from
their own people, the absence of in
dividual time that they can call their
own, and the everlasting social stigma,
that keep smart girls out of domestic
service. Domestic service has got to be
reorganized, and conducted on the
same basis as any other. Then there
will be just as many girls waiting to
go into it as there are into the stores
and factories. And eventually, as more
and more scientific study is put into
cooking and food values, women who
now go into offices and schools will
turn their attention to the business of
food supply.
THE difficulties of getting cooking
done have made the increase in board
ing house life. But the boarding house
does not fill the want, no matter how
good it is.
1T is not home, and it is no place to
bring up children. All right minded
married couples want their own home,
no matter how modest. The trouble in
this home is not the washing That
can be admirably done outside. 1t is
not the care of the house. With the
help of a scrub-woman one day in the
keeps one servant could do that for
herself. Or the present raw, untrain-
ed servant will do we'll enough for
that under the mistress direction. 1t
is the cooking, and particularly the
dinner. Breakfast is a simple meal.
So is luncheon downtown. 1t is the
dinner that bothers. Secure of we'll
cooked, promptly delivered dinner ev-
cry day, many housewife who is now
md 70 H.
with incompetent help could get along
without any help at all.
Living at restaurants does not fill
the bill at all. 1t is too expensive in
the first place. 1 am talking of peo-.
pie of moderate means, not of rich peo-
pie, who don't need any help. If you
live at restaurants you have got to
pay your own rent, and you have got
to pay your proportion of the restau-
rant mans rent BESIDES as we'll as the
service and everything else that goes
to keep up the restaurant. Then, while
first class cafes are fine, they cost
abominably and poor restaurants are
terrible. The meats all taste alike.
You wonder if they are all cooked in
the same pan. You wonder what the
kitchen looks like. The surroundings
are unpleasant, the cooking is bad.
And while in large cities one can eat
in comfort in small cities, and espe-
cially in villages, where almost every
one lives in his own home, there is a
little choice in eating places.
1.-THE central kitchen, with actual
home cooking, is the only thing to fill
the want. would like to see the
women of the country systematic
their homework, as men have system
atized their business. Our present
methods of housekeeping are the same
as if every farmer hauled his own
crop to market, instead of shipping 1t
by the railroads. Yet there is a psy-
Geological reason under it. Every fam
lily wants it's own home, and so far
no way has been found to have it. ex-
| cept by doing the cooking in the house
or going out to meals, which isn't
the same thing at all. There is a psy-
| Geological effect gained by the family
gathered around its own family table
which is lost in boarding house or res
taurant eating"